Abstract: Over the past decade, discussion around city charters has increased. Seen primarily as a method of increasing local autonomy and enhancing policy capacity, city charters have been sought after many numerous local governments in Canada. Four cities in Canada currently have independent legislation that could be seen as a charter: Vancouver, Toronto, Winnipeg and St. John’s. Others, such as Calgary and Edmonton, have recently called for independent city charters. What, however, is the effect of city charters? In this paper we examine Canada’s four city charters and compare the provisions provided by each provincial government to the provisions that are actually utilized by each charter city. We group these provisions using three categories: legal-administrative provisions, financial provisions and political provisions. Overall, we find that while provincial governments have not provided many additional powers and responsibilities through Charter legislation, the charter cities have also not been apt to fully utilize the powers they have been granted. In a sense, little is given and little is taken. We argue that this is primarily due to the restricted financial autonomy of cities. We explore these findings in detail and make the argument that Canada’s charter politics have revolved more around increasing the perception of local autonomy and creating distinctions between large and small cities rather than fully increasing local autonomy for Canada’s largest urban centres.