AbstractScholars who study centralization and decentralization in Canada usually rely on the distribution of authority and financial/human resources to identify transfers of “power to” and “power over” among different levels of government. We argue that patterns of non‐financial asset ownership are a useful yet frequently overlooked measure of “power to.” We demonstrate that Canadian municipal policy responses to the COVID‐19 pandemic were shaped in part by the physical assets owned by municipal and provincial governments. These patterns of non‐financial asset ownership reveal Canadian municipalities to be more important policy actors than typically assumed. A full understanding of the distribution of power within the Canadian federation requires attention to government ownership of physical assets.