Third Wheeling: The Disjointed Municipal-Federal Relationship
This week’s class focused on understanding the provincial and federal outlook when it comes to urban policy. The week was, in many ways, similar to earlier weeks in PPG2017: The lecture was engaging, the alumni were interesting, and the readings revealed a new dimension to urban policy. However, what struck me this week — and what differentiated it from earlier classes— was just how frustrated I found myself by some of what I learned — namely, the incoherent and disjointed relationship between municipalities and the federal government.
Professor Eidelman’s Reimagining the Canadian Federation through an Urban Lens is particularly illustrative of this complicated dynamic. On one hand, Professor Eidelman demonstrates that there is a degree of meaningful engagement between municipalities and the federal government. This is most apparent in areas like immigration and public health, where there is significant trilateral (federal-provincial-municipal) cooperation and coordination.
With that said, though, these areas of engagement appear to be the exception, not the rule. For example, municipal-federal engagement is characterized by informal arrangements, such as personal calls to Members of Parliament. Meanwhile, in order to consistently foster dialogue and coordination, the provinces and federal government enjoy a “durable machinery” of considerably more formal engagement mechanisms/channels, such as intergovernmental committees and regular meetings between first ministers.
Given the importance of cities in some of Canada’s most pressing policy files, the disjointed structure of the municipal-federal relationship is frustrating (and concerning) enough. However, what I find particularly egregious is the possibility that the COVID-19 crisis is not spurring meaningful change on this front. Unfortunately, the negotiations underpinning the Safe Restart Agreement suggest this is the case: Per Professor Eidelman, Canadian cities were relegated to bit players during these negotiations, despite the fact that they are the epicentres of the pandemic within Canada.
The COVID-19 pandemic has been a once-in-a-century crisis, and it has shown that significant reforms are needed across different policy areas. One such area is clearly the intergovernmental relationship between municipalities and the federal government, and it should be treated as a priority going forward.
