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Participatory Budgeting Outcomes — Playbook

Letting residents directly vote on how public money gets spent — what the real record shows about whether it works.

DRAFTThe playbookThe evidence file

v2.0 · 2026-08-11

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The honest bottom line

Montreal's ending sharpens the central design question rather than answering it: what specific mechanism would have actually protected a $101.5 million, well-attended program from a single fiscal-pressure budget decision — legal entrenchment, a supermajority requirement, something else — is not tested anywhere in this page’s evidence, because no comparator city with that kind of protection was identified. Toronto Community Housing's own program's current status is unknown, not just unconfirmed in an old document — a real gap, not a rhetorical one. And the deepest open question from this page’s original spine remains: what pot size and design would actually make PB worth Toronto residents' time, given that even Montreal's much larger, well-run program still didn't survive. This document names that as still open, not answered by anything found this review.

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a recommendation card — A Legally Entrenched, Meaningfully-Sized Toronto PB Program

Card id: a recommendation card · Issue: participatory-budgeting-outcomes · Backgrounder: our research file for that page · Trust: carried-forward

Problem

Toronto's own 2015-17 PB pilot failed at token scale ($150,000-$250,000 per ward, declining turnout, "projects too small") and was not continued [backgrounder, "Toronto's own 2015-17 pilot"]. Montreal's much larger, well-documented program ($101.5 million across three editions, still-strong 28,000+ voter turnout in its final round) was nonetheless discontinued in 2025-26 for an explicitly stated fiscal-austerity reason, with no legal or budgetary entrenchment protecting it from a single administration's cost-cutting decision [backgrounder, "Montreal: confirmed program discontinuation"]. This card addresses only the durability-design gap — a program sized correctly but still politically reversible is not a solved problem, and Montreal is now the clearest large-scale evidence of that specific failure mode available to this page.

Action

Establish a Toronto PB program sized at a defined percentage of the City's capital budget (not a symbolic per-ward allowance), governed by a council-adopted, multi-year funding commitment structurally harder to reverse in a single budget cycle than an ordinary discretionary line item — for example, a dedicated capital-budget sub-allocation requiring a supermajority council vote to reduce or eliminate, rather than a simple-majority annual budget-line decision.

Jurisdiction split

Cost

Order-of-magnitude: using the master briefing's own Toronto capital-budget arithmetic (a roughly $6 billion/year 10-year capital plan), 1% of the capital budget is approximately $60 million/year, or roughly $2.4 million per ward across 25 wards — already an order of magnitude above the pilot's $150,000-$250,000 and comparable to NYC's per-district figures [the inherited master briefing's §Costs & financing, inherited]. Montreal's own final-edition budget ($45 million citywide, scaling toward a planned $60 million fourth edition before the program ended) is a directly comparable large-Canadian-city anchor for what a meaningfully-sized citywide envelope looks like in dollar terms, even though that program itself was discontinued [backgrounder, "Montreal: confirmed program discontinuation"].

Funding path

A defined percentage allocation from Toronto's existing capital budget (the master briefing's own recommended mechanism), structurally distinguished from Montreal's arrangement (which drew on Montreal's 10-year capital program financed via a borrowing bylaw) by this card's own entrenchment requirement — the funding source itself need not differ from what a well-designed, non-entrenched program would use, but the decision procedure to reduce it should.

Who benefits, and how

Toronto residents broadly, and specifically the residents of higher-need neighbourhoods if the allocation is equity-weighted, per the master briefing's own equity-and-distribution analysis [the inherited master briefing's §Equity & distribution]; the durability mechanism specifically benefits participants' trust in the program's own permanence, addressing the "why bother, it'll just get cancelled" discouragement effect implied by both Toronto's and Montreal's discontinuation histories.

Who bears the cost, and how

City taxpayers city-wide, via the capital-budget allocation; the opportunity cost of that capital not being available for a future council's alternative priorities, which is precisely the entrenchment mechanism's intended trade-off — making the choice to redirect PB funds politically costlier than a simple majority vote, a deliberate design choice this card states plainly rather than hiding.

Who benefits from the status quo

No specific beneficiary entity identified in the backing backgrounder's Cui Bono section — no beneficiary identified in the backing backgrounder (the backgrounder's own Cui Bono table came up empty and states why: PB's reversal dynamics in this page’s evidence are institutional/political — ward councillors retaining discretionary control, cautious bureaucracies — not a named entity with a financial extraction relationship) [backgrounder, "Cui Bono"].

ROI (four dimensions) — schema v2

(a) Financial ROI

Not separately quantified for a Toronto-specific entrenched program; the closest anchor is the sizing calculation above (~$60M/year at 1% of capital budget, ~$2.4M/ward), not a return figure. Montreal's own $101.5M/three-edition total and per-edition scaling ($25M → $31.5M → $45M) is the most directly comparable large-Canadian-city fiscal anchor, though it describes a now-discontinued program, not a fiscal-return case [backgrounder, "Montreal"]. Confidence: low.

(b) Economic ROI

Not yet estimable — a live-discovery search this review found no study quantifying local growth, induced spending, or employment effects from PB allocation specifically, as distinct from equivalent capital spending through ordinary channels. PB reallocates existing capital spending rather than adding new spending, so isolating its own effect from the underlying spending's effect is a genuine, unaddressed gap in this page’s evidence. Confidence: low.

(c) Social ROI

Directionally supported by Gonçalves (2014)'s Brazilian finding that PB adoption is associated with reduced infant mortality via pro-poor spending reallocation, though that evidence's own conditions (low-baseline-services context, specific political dominance) don't transfer cleanly to Toronto [backgrounder, "The causal evidence: Brazil"]. Toronto's own pilot evidence points the other direction at token scale (declining engagement, perceived insignificance), while Montreal's final-edition data shows sustained, large-scale participation (28,000+ voters) right up to the program's discontinuation — suggesting the social/engagement case is real at sufficient scale, independent of whether the program then survives politically. Confidence: low-medium — directional convergence across different evidence types, not a single quantified effect size applicable to Toronto.

(d) Environmental ROI

Not independently modeled — PB reallocates capital spending toward resident-chosen projects, so its footprint depends entirely on what residents fund, not on the mechanism itself. Montreal's own third-edition winning projects skewed toward park/greening/accessibility infrastructure (toilets in parks, "greening unusual urban spaces," intersection-to-oasis conversions) — a real, descriptive pattern, not a modeled ROI figure. Confidence: low.

Evidence

Confidence & uncertainties

Medium confidence that meaningful sizing (per the master briefing's own established design lesson) is a necessary condition for a Toronto PB program to avoid its 2015-17 pilot's failure mode. Lower, and newly sharpened by this review's discovery, confidence that sizing alone is sufficient: Montreal's program was well-sized and still ended for reasons unrelated to participation — meaning this card's own entrenchment mechanism is doing real, load-bearing work in the recommendation, not a minor addition, and is itself untested against a real-world case in this page’s evidence (no comparator city with a legally-entrenched, supermajority-protected PB line was identified this review).

Status

DRAFT — blocked on: a real comparator city with an entrenchment mechanism of this specific kind (none identified in this page’s sources), confirmation of what supermajority threshold is legally available to Toronto Council under the City of Toronto Act for this kind of self-binding budget rule, fairness and legal review.

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a recommendation card — Revive and Formalize Toronto Community Housing's Tenant PB as a Proof-of-Concept

Card id: a recommendation card · Issue: participatory-budgeting-outcomes · Backgrounder: our research file for that page · Trust: carried-forward

Problem

Toronto has a directly relevant, large, multi-year, equity-weighted PB model already in its own history — Toronto Community Housing's tenant PB, running since 2001, allocating roughly $9 million/year in capital via a needs-and-equity formula — but it was paused in 2017 for redesign, and its current status is unconfirmed in this page’s evidence [the inherited master briefing's §Toronto-specific factors, "Two local precedents"; backgrounder, "Open questions / data gaps"]. This card addresses only the "confirm and, if lapsed, revive" gap — not whether TCH's specific formula is the right model for a hypothetical citywide program, which a recommendation card addresses separately.

Action

The City directs Toronto Community Housing (or its successor entity, if restructured) to report publicly on the tenant-PB program's current status, and, if it remains paused, to formalize its redesign and resumption on a defined timeline — treating it as Toronto's own longest-running, most directly transferable PB proof-of-concept rather than an inactive historical footnote.

Jurisdiction split

Cost

Order-of-magnitude: comparable to the program's own historical scale, approximately $9 million/year, per the master briefing's own figure — not confirmed current, since the program's post-2017 status is unconfirmed [the inherited master briefing's §Toronto-specific factors].

Funding path

Within TCH's existing capital allocation, on the same basis the pre-2017 program operated — no new funding source identified as required, since this card proposes reviving rather than newly creating the mechanism.

Who benefits, and how

TCH tenants specifically, via a needs-and-equity-weighted capital allocation formula the master briefing describes as splitting funds partly equally across communities and partly weighted by building size/condition [the inherited master briefing's §Toronto-specific factors] — a working local equity-design precedent a recommendation card's citywide program could draw design lessons from directly, rather than importing an equity formula from Paris or elsewhere with no local track record.

Who bears the cost, and how

TCH's own capital budget (ultimately City- and senior-government-funded, per TCH's broader funding structure, which this page does not independently re-derive); no new City-wide taxpayer cost beyond what TCH's existing capital allocation already represents.

Who benefits from the status quo

No specific beneficiary entity identified in the backing backgrounder's Cui Bono section — no beneficiary identified in the backing backgrounder [backgrounder, "Cui Bono"].

ROI (four dimensions) — schema v2

(a) Financial ROI

Not separately quantified; the program's own historical scale (~$9M/year), per its pre-2017 operating history [the inherited master briefing's §Toronto-specific factors], is a sizing anchor, not a return figure. Confidence: low.

(b) Economic ROI

Not yet estimable — same gap as a recommendation card: no source identified. Confidence: low.

(c) Social ROI

The clearest social-ROI case in this page’s Toronto-specific evidence: a 16-plus-year (2001-2017, pre-pause) operating history with an explicit equity formula, described by the master briefing as "a working, large, multi-year, equity-weighted local model hiding in plain sight" [the inherited master briefing's §Toronto-specific factors]. Its current, unconfirmed status is itself informative — a program that ran successfully for 16 years and then quietly paused, with status still unclear nine years later, is a structurally similar durability lapse to Montreal's more recent, better-documented discontinuation. Confidence: medium — the pre-2017 track record is well-described; the 2017-2026 gap is a genuine evidentiary hole, not a finding about the program's merits.

(d) Environmental ROI

Not independently modeled — dependent on what capital projects TCH tenants historically chose to fund, not detailed in this page’s sources beyond the equity-formula description. Confidence: low.

Evidence

Confidence & uncertainties

Medium-high confidence this is a genuinely under-utilized local asset worth a status-confirmation action at minimum, given how directly it matches the master briefing's own success criteria (meaningful money, multi-year duration, equity formula). Low confidence on cost and current operational details, since the entire premise of this card is that the program's current status is unknown in this page’s evidence — this card's own action (a status report) is designed to resolve that gap, not assume an answer to it.

Status

DRAFT — blocked on: a direct status check with Toronto Community Housing (not performed this review — this page’s sources are all secondary/master-briefing-derived on this specific point), fairness and legal review.

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Production record

Version: v1.0 (2026-07-14) → v2.0 (playbook pass, 2026-08-11, Lane L3c): opened with the honest-bottom-line paragraph salvaged from the retired day-one memo (archive/dayone/participatory-budgeting-outcomes.md, now superseded, kept as history); per-card metadata consolidated to one line; empty ROI confessions collapsed to one line each; all facts, comparators, and figures preserved. Status: DRAFT.

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