The Canadian Municipal Barometer (CMB) is a national research partnership funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council that seeks to understand and improve local democracy in Canada.
Bringing together more than 40 researchers across 14 partner organizations, the CMB conducts annual surveys of mayors and councillors in over 1,000 Canadian municipalities, complemented by national public-opinion polling and in-depth qualitative studies on local representation and diversity, elections and voting, policymaking, and multilevel governance.
The project is co-led by Professor Jack Lucas (University of Calgary) and Professor Sandra Breux (Institut national de la recherche scientifique). Its goal is to build public trust by generating high-quality information about Canadian municipalities to improve the connection between local politicians and the communities they represent.
The School of Cities is a partner of the CMB and serves as its knowledge mobilization hub. Led by Professor Gabriel Eidelman, director of the School’s Urban Policy Lab, the knowledge mobilization team works to make the Barometer’s ground-breaking research accessible to broad audiences by producing reports, explainers, data visualizations, policy briefs that highlight the Barometer’s research findings.
To learn more, follow the project on LinkedIn and subscribe to the CMB’s Substack feed for the latest updates.