Canada's attitudes and political structure
ensure cities have to beg for funding

By Michael McMordie
for Headwaters News

A paradox of fiscal conservatism, allied as it usually is with a populist version of democracy, is extreme reluctance to trust the people.

Cities have suffered from this as much as any component of the nation.

Despite the theoretical appeal of political devolution and local financial responsibility, national authorities have devolved costs but not funding, responsibilities but not the wherewithal to fund them.

The paradox reaches further: In our rapidly growing region, the growth -- economic and demographic -- has been city-based. Resource industries continue to power the Alberta economy, but they are directed by and overwhelmingly support urban populations. Here and elsewhere in the region, services and industries in the cities drive provincial and state economies.

What is needed is some sub-constitutional solution that is less unstable and undependable than the present system of grants, tax rebates, and short term programs.

Logic suggests that cities should be the target of major public, as well as private, investment. Health, education, social services, fire, police, cultural and recreational facilities all need to grow to meet the needs of growing populations.

Well-funded cities would compete to offer better environments for work and families, increasing levels of urban amenity. More should be leading the way towards sustainable environments. All this demands higher levels of funding, with potentially great returns on the investment.

Instead, our cities are strapped for funds. One symptom is the desperate search for corporate sponsors, for sports facilities, concert halls and theatres when, in other parts of the world, this would be seen as demeaning. And of course, when sponsoring corporations fail or change their advertising strategy, the citizens -- the real owners and supporters -- are expected to learn a new name. No matter how tainted (the Talisman Aquatic Centre in Calgary comes to mind) city councils and the electors must hold their nose and take the money.

Meanwhile the cities increasingly are the major source of revenues for the provincial and federal governments. Income taxes, the gasoline tax, the GST and provincial sales taxes (or in a regressive sleight of hand, Alberta's users' fees) flow to the provinces and the feds.

Some is returned, but the cities must be supplicants and the donors are fickle. The federal government once had a cabinet post devoted to urban matters and something similar may return depending on shifting perceptions of political advantage.

It has certainly slashed the funds it makes available for urban initiatives, and these tend to be dispensed in response more to party priorities than public benefit.

Alberta's flip-flops over the amount of gasoline tax returned to the cities for investment in transportation infrastructure, and their dismantling of arms-length dispensation of provincial lottery funds demonstrate the unreliability of existing arrangements.

In a recent discussion, Alberta Minister of Municipal Affairs Guy Boutilier, an unusually well-informed and savvy politician, once a city planner and mayor himself, merrily quipped he'd gladly see the federal share of the gasoline tax returned to the cities. It seems unlikely he could persuade his cabinet colleagues to give up the provincial cut.

This points to the root problem, almost certainly beyond fixing. When the U.S. and Canadian constitutions were agreed upon (for Canada the British North America Act of 1867), cities were nowhere on the political horizon.

Not only were both countries still predominantly rural and agricultural, attitudes still reflected the 18th-century British disdain for city life. The novels of Jane Austen epitomize the view that cities are centres of sophistication: that is, greed, superficiality, and vice, where rural life is wholesome, honest, and the source of virtue. Thoreau's Walden embodies a similar train of thought.

Constitutional change to mend the problem seems far beyond reach. Canadians are still dealing with the fallout from the last round, now 20 years old. Still, a direct and independent share in the nation's wealth remains an enticing dream.

One reason for its distance beyond reach is an electoral system more directly related to representation by hectare than by population. Again, rural beginnings, plus the problem of representing enormous rural and northern constituencies biases representation and the legislatures against municipal interests.

Explicit constitutional provincial power over municipalities (creatures of the provinces) further complicates federal efforts to intervene (although direct federal measures are not debarred). In the past this has meant federal involvement in cities only with provincial agreement (and, usually cost-sharing).

The three levels of government have to find common ground on proposed policies; a difficult though not impossible goal given their divergent interests, and the diversity of provincial views and circumstances. Usually Quebec opts out. I gather arrangements are looser and federal power to intervene much greater to the south. Much more generous tax sharing also prevails, at least in some states.

What is needed is some sub-constitutional solution that is less unstable and undependable than the present system of grants, tax rebates, and short term programs.

As well, cities need to band together, both in regional and national alliances, to muster the maximum lobbying power. Some of this is already happening, and some responses are evident.

When aspiring prime minister Paul Martin cut loose from the federal cabinet earlier this year, he declared himself in favour of new arrangements favouring cities. The incumbent, Jean Chretien, is now expected "to pledge billions to urban infrastructure" in the next federal budget (The Globe and Mail, Saturday, September 21 2002, p.A4).

A rash of thoughtful recent reports and studies from, among others, the Calgary-based Canada West Foundation has framed the issues and canvassed possible solutions.

It has taken a long time: as a very green, young architecture student at a conversation organized by a well-connected residence don, I remember raising some of the same issues with Lester Pearson in the early '60s.

Perhaps the tide is at long last flowing in the right direction. Certainly there seems to be a new and broader recognition of the economic and cultural importance of cities to our nations.

Let's hope new resources and better long-term policies wash ashore.

Michael McMordie is a professor in the Faculties of Environmental Design and Communication & Culture, and director of the Resources and the Environment Program in the Faculty of Graduate Studies at the University of Calgary. He is president of the Calgary Civic Trust.

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