Where's The New Deal For Canada's Cities?

"[T]he [previous] Liberal government’s New Deal for Cities and communities attempted what European researchers call an explicit national urban policy aiming to transform federal-local relations. Since its election in 2006, the Conservative government has substantially scaled back the federal urban agenda. Seeking what amounts to a 'New Deal for the Provinces,' the Conservatives are content with managing the federal urban presence in cities. The two approaches involve different urban visions, policy instruments, and institutional arrangements. And these differences have consequences for the role that local actors – municipalities and community-based organizations – play in urban policy."

"[C]ities are the engines of national economies; cities are also the places with the most concentrated poverty and forms of socio-spatial polarization; and...with economic and social issues of such national consequence playing out in cities, upper level governments must bring an “urban lens” to their policy activity."

"Upper level governments need to rethink policy approaches that ignore local voices and disregard place quality...Yet...both federal and provincial governments have been criticized for their inattention to today’s urbanizing flows. Their policy and fiscal decisions – too often designed in isolation and delivered unilaterally – reflect what the OECD terms Canada’s 'disjointed approach' to urban affairs."