As founder members of the initiative in 1997, we were instrumental in developing the national benchmarking initiative which now includes more than 50 municipalities across Canada.

The initiative helps participants establish levels of service, compare and set performance targets, and carry out continuous improvement activities to establish industry best practices. The project spans multiple service areas including transportation, stormwater, water, and wastewater and has a participant base that covers over 70 percent of Canada’s population.

Internationally, the project is considered as one of the leading public sector benchmarking projects of its kind in the world, and organizations from Malaysia, South Africa, United Arab Emirates and Europe are looking at the project as an example of a highly successful benchmarking initiative.

Our benchmarking initiative continues to be the only such program that includes all aspects of metric and process benchmarking complete with the development of a broad range of communication tools designed to transfer performance improvement learning results directly to municipal management and staff.

The broad range of key performance indicators developed through the project have been well defined to ensure like-for-like comparisons are being made. Because of their proven success in measuring overall municipal performance over time, they have been recognized as standards by accredited agencies including the National Research Council of Canada and the Canadian Standards Association.

Canadian municipalities are becoming increasingly sophisticated in their use of data, systems and standards to plan and guide municipal operations. The fundamental tools and processes within the project remain effective and useful because the project has evolved to meet the changing needs of participants.