Book Excerpt: The Past, Present, and Future of Canadian Cities
The Foreword I would write today would have a lot more to metabolize...
I was delighted to be asked to contribute some thoughts to The Past, Present, and Future of Canadian Cities: Where the Law Went Wrong and How We Can Fix It. When I sat down to write what you see below back in 2022, this all felt pretty spicy. Doubtless, were I writing this today I would have a lot more to say about the dispiriting, dislocated, dysfunctional, and downright disrespectful developments since.
Nevertheless, this new anthology describing how we got into the mess, the mess as it stands, and how we might work our way out, is fascinating and mostly timeless to the extent that the origins of the plight(s) of Canadian local governments are ultimately structural.
This volume, and its companion Cities and the Constitution both made it onto the Hill Times’ list of Top 100 Best Books in 2024. Congratulations to Editors Alexandra Flynn, Richard Albert and Nathalie Des Rosiers — and to the many other contributing authors in both books.
You may order the book here if you are one of the rare and special nerds who are as excited about this topic as your humble scribes below!
Please enjoy this fragment, with a few extra notes & links, from the recent past (or as I now think of it, the Good Old Days):
As Mayor of Edmonton from 2013-2021, and Chair of Canada’s Big City Mayors from 2016-2021, I would often reflect that it felt as if we were sitting at the children’s table, constitutionally-speaking. It still seems odd, because by title and influence — and indeed being the only Canadian political leaders elected directly with community-wide mandates — mayors wield considerable soft power, yet hold precious little material sway over many of the most impactful issues arising in our cities. The paradox was even stronger when we convened as a group of mayors and took a unified position on housing policy or transit investment, moving mountains in recent years in the national realm. In that sense, cities have never been more influential. Yet over the same period, City Charters came and went in Alberta, Premier Doug Ford shrank Toronto City Council in the months before an election (over their objections, while wielding the Notwithstanding Clause) and provincial politicians came to routinely scapegoat local governments for everything from economic conditions to public safety.
I am more and more convinced that this continued diminution of our local democracies — especially the all-too-frequent punching down from hostile provincial governments — poorly serves Canadians to whom elected officials at all levels have sworn parallel oaths of service.
Canadians demand and deserve better outcomes on basic services, on housing, on economic development, on safety, on public health and on climate leadership. Instead, the inertia of many Provincial governments thwarts progress by either hoarding powers that might be more effectively devolved (like public health in Alberta), or by download unfunded responsibilities (like public housing in Ontario). Poor results are sometimes scapegoated on municipalities whether they had the mandate or the resources or not, which can be crazy making for local elected officials. All to say, cities are set up to fail under the current arrangements, and that is a huge practical problem for all Canadians since the global competition for talent and investment is waged at the city-region level. And it’s a problem for Canadians who live in our cities, especially our most vulnerable community members who too often fall between the inter-jurisdictional cracks on complex issues like housing, mental health, addictions or public safety.
In Alberta, Mayor Naheed Nenshi of Calgary and I persevered through five different Premiers (six for him) to secure City Charters. These contained not only special enabling authorities for things like energy efficiency above provincial building codes, but material fiscal improvements like permanent transit infrastructure funding. A new legislated general infrastructure funding transfer mechanism was based on a revenue risk sharing model with the Government of Alberta: as the economy (and provincial coffers) grew, so would our infrastructure transfer; if general revenues shrank, so would our transfer — thus we would be incentivized to support and drive growth, and share the pain (with a lag for planning purposes) during downturns. It was a big step forward on fiscal arrangements, and we were pleased to see it enshrined in legislation to provide a measure of guarantee. That legislation passed under Premier Rachel Notley’s NDP, with support from Jason Kenney’s opposition United Conservative Party. Mr. Kenney’s election platform also included honouring the Charter, as well as expanding the infrastructure risk/revenue sharing model to all municipalities. A few months after the election, however, the legislation was gutted, the transit funds eliminated, and the revenue sharing mechanism discounted substantially. It was even made clear to us that if we sought to use some of the remaining powers, like stricter building codes to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, that those powers would be struck from the Charter. [Note: which ere repealed in 2023.] All to say: legislation can change and campaign promises can be broken, so unless or until there is constitutional-level protection for powers afforded to local governments, nothing is really certain for any of our cities.
The intergovernmental realm remains tricky for local governments at the national level, though the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) does an extraordinary job of bringing together diverse local governments into a strong national voice. I remember advocating to Justin Trudeau in 2015 (months prior to his election as Prime Minister) for an FCM-hosted federal leaders debate on municipal issues. He was hesitant, and asked why he should take up our invitation over the 18 he had from other stakeholder groups? I reminded him gently that we were not mere stakeholders but a proper order of government; it was a lightbulb moment for him, and he agreed on the spot. Sadly, not all other party leaders agreed to the 2015 debate so it didn’t go ahead, but the insight stuck with him as Prime Minister and has informed his government’s regular engagement with FCM and the Big City Mayors since then, and how he speaks about the role of local governments in Confederation. However, squarely facing the fundamental constitutional barriers to building great Canadian cities remains off the table for the current Federal government.
As ‘creatures of the province,’ there was frequent rumbling and reticence from premiers and provincial ministers about the Mayors’ direct access and engagement with the Federal government in recent years. There was even brief consideration of legislation in Alberta to prohibit direct federal-municipal collaboration as part of a 2019 panel revisiting (or regurgitating) ideas from the infamous ‘Firewall’ letter. In Quebec, municipalities are explicitly forbidden from entering into direct arrangements or agreements with the Federal government. Whether formalized or passive aggressively nudged, the provincial role of constitutional choke point is not likely to be surrendered lightly. [Note: Alberta legislated this extra red tape for local authorities in 2024.]
For a time, local government delegations were invited to meetings of the Federal, Provincial and Territorial governments. This refreshing practice arose under the influence of former municipal leaders in Federal Cabinet (like Hon. Amarjeet Sohi, first an Edmonton City Councillor, then Federal Minister of Infrastructure and Communities, and coincidentally my successor as Mayor of Edmonton). These ‘FPT’ meetings on social policy, or health, or housing, or infrastructure had never included municipal representatives before. It was a sea change to even be invited to present our case, but I gather even our brief appearances prompted heartburn from some provincial ministers. We were even invited to stay for lunch once. While the gesture was courageous on the part of Minister Sohi, we were not invited to stay for the consequential intergovernmental negotiations after lunch. That’s the table that really mattered, and as the old saying goes, ‘if you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu.’
Formally, in law, as ‘weak mayors’ and without constitutional standing, mayors — and the communities they lead — remain supernumeraries in Confederation proper. Vexingly, expectations on civic governments’ ability to deliver solutions remain out of synch with their ability to deliver economic, social and environmental outcomes, especially when complex issues cross borders and jurisdiction. Not only mayors, but de facto our largest functional economic and social organizing units (i.e. our metropolitan regions) really are at the kids table in Canada. If this country stands a chance of reaching its potential, much less overcoming its persistent challenges, the seating arrangements will need updating eventually.
For contrast, Ireland is a significantly younger country that Canada (their modern constitution dates from 1937), yet there have been 38 amendments to it as their country has evolved. Canadians have come to treat our constitution as chiseled in stone since the impasses after Meech and Charlottetown, and courageous talk of any reform is commonly viewed as a third rail in Canadian politics. This volume of work on the place of our hometowns and regions in our fragile, brittle country is timely as Canada struggles to deal with a rapidly changing world. The three themes herein covering the past, or how we got ourselves into this situation, the present grim state of affairs, as well as possible future states to embolden our thinking, are worth digesting.
I have to get the book. I didn't buy it while in Ottawa.