Theme and Variations: Metropolitan Governance in Canada

Zack Taylor
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Zack Taylor: Western University

No 49, IMFG Papers from University of Toronto, Institute on Municipal Finance and Governance

Abstract: This paper takes stock of current practices of metropolitan governance in Canada to identify patterns of institutional and policy development. While Canada was best known in the postwar decades for innovating two-tier metropolitan local governments in Toronto, Montréal, Winnipeg, and other cities, this model no longer exists at the metropolitan scale anywhere in the country. Instead, we see five distinct models in operation, sometimes in combination with one another: the “unicity,” or single-tier municipal model; the compulsory regional intergovernmental organization; the voluntary intermunicipal partnership; the metropolitan single-purpose body; and the provincial policy overlay. This diversity of institutional forms found across Canada reflects variation in both provincial systems of local government and geographies of urban settlement. It also points to both the flexibility of Canadian governance and policy making and the central role provincial governments play in establishing these systems.

Keywords: Metropolitan; governance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H10 H70 H73 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 65 pages
Date: 2020-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ure
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https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/bitstream/1807/ ... 0and%20Variation.pdf First version, 2020

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:mfg:wpaper:49

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