Local And Urban Politics In Canada

The federal government and its policies transform Canadian cities in myriad ways. Canada in Cities examines this relationship to better understand the interplay among changing demographics, how local governments and citizens frame their arguments for federal action, and the ways in which the national government uses its power and resources to shape urban Canada. Most studies of local governance in Canada focus on politics and policy within cities. The essays in this collection turn such analysis on its head, by examining federal programs, rather than municipal ones, and observing how they influence local policies and work with regional authorities and civil societies. Through a series of case studies - ranging from federal policy concerning Aboriginal people in cities, to the introduction of the federal gas tax transfer to municipalities, to the impact of Canada's emergency management policies on cities - the contributors provide insights about how federal politics influence the local political arena. Analyzing federal actions in diverse policy fields, the authors uncover meaningful patterns of federal action and outcome in Canadian cities. A timely contribution, Canada in Cities offers a comprehensive study of diverse areas of municipal public policy that have emerged in Canada in recent years.

Written by one of Canada's foremost authorities on municipal government, this comprehensive introduction to urban local government explores how Canadian municipal governments are defined, why we have them, what they do, and how power is attained and distributed within them.

Given the pressures of integration and assimilation, how are people within communities able to make decisions about their own environment, whether individually or collectively? Governing Ourselves? explores issues of influence and power within local institutions and decision-making processes using numerous illustrations from municipalities across Canada. It shows how communities large and small, from Toronto to Iqaluit, have distinctive political cultures and therefore respond differently to changing global and domestic environments. Case studies illuminate historical and contemporary challenges to local governance. This book covers topics including government structures and institutions and intergovernmental relations and reaches more broadly into geography, urban planning, environmental studies, public administration, and sociology.

Despite decades of talk about globalization, democracy still depends on local self-government. In Local Self-Government and the Right to the City, Warren Magnusson argues that it is the principle behind claims to personal autonomy, community control, and national self-determination, and holds the promise of more peaceful politics. Unfortunately, state-centred thinking has obscured understanding of what local self-government can mean and hindered efforts to make good on what activists have called the "right to the city." In this collection of essays, Magnusson reflects on his own efforts to make sense of what local self-government can actually mean, using the old ideal of the town meeting as a touchstone. Why cannot communities govern themselves? Why fear direct democracy? As he suggests, putting more trust in the proliferating practices of government and self-government will actually make cities work better, and enable us to see how to localize democracy appropriately. He shows that doing so will require citizens and governments to come to terms with the multiplicity, indeterminacy, and uncertainty implicit in politics and steer clear of sovereign solutions. The culmination of a life’s work by Canada’s leading political theorist in the field, Local Self-Government and the Right to the City ranges across topics such as local government, social movements, constitutional law, urban political economy, and democratic theory.

City Politics in Canada offers a new perspective on Canadian municipal politics. Its concern is not with the mechanics of government, but with the practice of politics at the local level. Its focus, moreover, is on seven specific political systems at the heart of what are arguably the most important metropolitan areas in Canada. This book marks the beginning of an effort to specify what is distinctive about Canadian politics at the munisipal level, in relation to practice at other levels and in ther countries. The essays that form the core of City Politics in Canada were commissioned from leading authorities on local politics in the citizes concerned: Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa, Helifax, Vancouver, Winnipeg, and Edmonton. The result is a set of accessible and highly informative essays, each written from a different perspective and based on a diferent approach to the subject, but each contributing to a general portrait of Canadian city politics. Warren Magnusson's introductory essay is itself a sketch for such a portrait. Especially designed for readers who are new to the subject, this essay reviews the development of local government and politics in Canada as a whole. It explains those features of municipal politics that the authors of the case studies have had to take for granted, and it sets the context for comparative analysis. Such analysis is Andrew Sancton's concern in his concluding essay. He bases his observations on the studies in this book, and pays particular attention to the way in which the pattern revealed differs from the American and the British. As he says, Canadian city politics is almost exclusively about boosterism, land development, and the enhancement of property. This is its unifying and distinguishing feature -- a feature that is clarified by the analyses in each chapter of City Politics in Canada.