Celebrating your city this Civic Holiday? How do your city’s finances shape up?

For Canadians living outside of Quebec, the first Monday of August generally means an extra day of summer fun, or in some parts of the country, getting paid time and a half for working on a public holiday. What holiday you celebrate depends very much on where you live, but technically, the first Monday in August is known as the Civic Holiday. To see how your city shapes up financially this Civic Holiday, let’s explore our Municipal Financial Data Dashboard.

While our dashboard provides detailed financial data for 45 cities across Canada, this story focuses on the handful of cities that officially celebrate the “Civic Holiday.”

Colonel By Day in Ottawa, got no day in Gatineau

The first Monday of August is a statutory holiday in Ottawa, Colonel By Day to be exact, in honour of the man who oversaw the construction of the Rideau Canal beginning in the 1820s, which led to the birth of Ottawa. However, for those who live and work in Gatineau, Quebec, it’s “business as usual.”

There are other differences between the two municipalities that make up the National Capital Region, which straddles the provinces of Ontario and Quebec. The most obvious difference is their size, given that the population of Ottawa (1 million people) was more than triple that of Gatineau (291,000 people) at the time of the 2021 Census of Population.

The gulf in revenue streams between the two cities is even more pronounced, with Ottawa’s bringing in just over $4.9 billion in revenue in 2020, the most recent year for which data are available, while Gatineau brought in approximately $837 million.

How revenue is raised also differs. In Ottawa, just over half (51.5%) of the city’s revenue stream in 2020 came from taxes, just under one-third (29.1%) came from grants, while 15.1% was from sales of goods and services.

In Gatineau, over two-thirds (69.7%) of the city’s revenue in 2020 came from taxes, just under one-fifth (19.1%) came from grants while 7.9% was derived from sales of goods and services.

Toronto celebrates Simcoe Day against a backdrop of Caribbean music

The Civic holiday in Toronto is called Simcoe Day, in tribute to Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe, founder of the town of York in the late 18th century. Simcoe is perhaps most famous for passing the first anti-slavery bill in the British Empire in 1793. It is perhaps fitting then that Simcoe Day coincides with the Toronto Caribbean Carnival, one of the biggest festivals in the world that attracts well over one million visitors every year.

Everything in Toronto is big, including its municipal government, with revenue topping $14.0 billion in 2020. By way of comparison, Montréal generated $8.5 billion in revenue.

Taxes accounted for less than half (42.4%) of Toronto’s municipal revenue in 2020, while over half of the revenue came from grants (26.7%) or the sale of goods and services (25.1%).

Civic Holiday also celebrated in two territories

Technically, two of Canada’s three territories observe the August Civic Holiday, although Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories (Dene First Nation’s Spring Carnival) and Iqaluit in Nunavut (Toonik Tyme) hold their official civic holiday in April to celebrate the coming of spring.

The municipalities of Yellowknife (20,340 people) and Iqaluit (7,429 people) are considerably smaller than the cities celebrating the holiday down south.

In 2020, Yellowknife generated $76.6 million in revenue, with 43.8% coming from taxes, 24.3% from grants and 21.5% coming from sales of goods and services.

In the same year, municipal revenue in Iqaluit topped $58.1 million, with 40.0% coming from taxes, 21.4% from grants and 21.3% from sales of goods and services.