A Tale of Two Cities

Under the federal constitution of Canada, never forget that municipalities have their powers given to them by their provincial governments. 

In an ideal world, municipalities and provincial governments should work in tandem. But, municipal governments and provincial governments often are politically misaligned. Political power is one thing, but financial power is debatably more important. Municipalities get almost all of their funding through property taxes, which they can control, and money given to them by provincial governments, which is not under their purview. This is an oversimplification obviously, as municipalities get funding from the federal and provincial governments through various grants and programs as well. 

I’ve noticed this strange parallelism between Edmonton and Toronto in the news recently, where Provincial governments act at odds with the city. 

In Toronto, the Ontarian government is trying to enact legislation where city governments would need provincial permission to build bike lanes that would take away space from motor traffic. I wouldn’t want to put words in the mouth of anyone reading this, but you can imagine where this urbanist blog and student organization lands on this topic. 

In Edmonton, there is a budget shortfall due to the provincial government refusing to pay full property taxes on government buildings. 

You can see in these articles regarding these issues how mayors, Olivia Chow and Amarjeet Sohi respectively, are put in these tenuous positions. They give statements that have to simultaneously project their strength in opposition and also not go too far to burn the relationship with their provincial governments.

It can be tempting to ignore the political dimensions of Planning and Human Geography, but it’s essentially impossible to. A lot of ‘good’ urbanist ideas challenge common practice and norms. It’s important to present ideas effectively, especially to people who disagree with you. It’s obvious to people reading this who’s ‘right’ in both of these situations. I can make a very good guess that you are a massive nerd that loves bike lanes and wants the provincial government to pay what is owed. So am I!

Being ‘right’ can feel good, but does it help people? You can see this in a lot of urbanist activism; a smug ‘holier than thou’ attitude, or an incapability of understanding ideas outside a certain bubble. Municipal governments in Canada have to fight an uphill battle in that their policies may have the largest immediate impact on the lives of their constituents, yet they have little legal authority on a federal/provincial level. Being ‘right’ means very little unless you have the political skills to fight for and communicate your beliefs.

-Written by Raymond Li