A funded mandate is a provincial requirement imposed on municipalities that includes funding sufficient to implement it. This contrasts with unfunded mandates, where provinces require municipal action without providing financial resources. Examples of funded mandates might include provincial requirements to implement new administrative systems where the province provides software and training, or service delivery requirements accompanied by ongoing grants. Municipal advocacy consistently emphasizes that mandates should be funded—if provinces decide municipalities must do something, provinces should provide the money to do it. The reality often falls between extremes: some mandates come with partial funding, one-time startup funding without ongoing support, or funding that proves insufficient for actual implementation costs. Evaluating whether mandates are adequately funded requires careful analysis of true implementation costs against provided resources.