This collection is a major contribution to the study of both municipal and federal government in Canada. More centrally, it advances our understanding of federal-municipal interaction and of how this relationship shapes policies that are important to all Canadians. The chapters presented here depict the changing role of the federal government and show the importance of leadership and political considerations in policy making.
Two types of policy field are examined here. First are traditional areas under the domain of federal departments – infrastructure, immigrant settlement, emergency management, and urban Aboriginal policy. Second are newer, “horizontal” policy areas where federal interventions target particularly complex and difficult problems such as homelessness, child care, and community economic development. Together, these thorough case studies greatly expand our knowledge of federal initiatives and how they affect municipalities.
The analyses in this volume are concerned with three main aspects of policy. The first is demographic change. Many important policies devised by Ottawa are responses to the changing composition of the citizenry and to anticipated trends. The second policy dimension is how issues are framed by different governments and leaders. Finally, once the problems have been defined, is the choice of policy instruments that are deployed to solve them. While these concerns inform the studies gathered here, one of the strengths of this work is its historical coverage. Every chapter traces the context and evolution of the policy in considerable detail. This is one reason why the research should be of interest not only to scholars, students, and policy makers but also, we hope, to citizens. Part of our goal is that suggestions for improving policy and the policy-making process will benefit citizens.
This collection presents original research that stands alone, making a big advance in the study of federal-local governance. But it is also part of a larger project, Multilevel Governance and Public Policy in Canadian Municipalities. This project has several components – studies of how major cities fit the structure of other federations, in-depth explorations of several policy fields, and work that concentrates on Canada’s major cities. The overall objectives of the project are to document the policies that exist in many places and to analyze the processes of intergovernmental relations and the pressures of social forces that have produced them. We also aim to draw conclusions about how better policies could be made. More information about the project is available at www.ppm-ppm.ca.
Some acknowledgements are appropriate here. The first debt is to the authors. It is almost a decade since the idea for this volume was conceived. Not surprisingly then, it is the product of a great deal of effort and patience by many. We would like to thank our authors and co-authors for their contributions to the volume. Aside from your diligence as scholars, you were patient with the sometimes slow pace of our work and responsive when we needed quick action. Your commitment and support for this project has been remarkable. Nothing would have been accomplished, however, without the support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada through its Major Collaborative Research Initiatives Program. Katherine Graham and Caroline Andrew were both instrumental in advancing this project, along with Andrew Sancton and Harvey Lazar. We especially thank SSHRC’s Jean-François Fortin, who worked with the project and supported it over several years. The University of Western Ontario contributed generously to the project, and Carleton University and the University of Ottawa also helped. We thank McGill-Queen’s University Press for its commitment to and for supporting this project. Special thanks go to Jacqueline Mason, who shepherded the work through the editorial approval process. Ms Kelly McCarthy has served as project manager for the whole research project. And thanks are due to Amy Cunningham of Carleton University, who facilitated the editor-author-publisher shuffle in the preparation of this volume.
Robert Young
Katherine Graham
Caroline Andrew