Cities and the Constitution
Giving Local Governments in Canada the Power They Need
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Canada's largest cities have faced exponential growth, with the trajectory rising further still. Due to their high density, cities are the primary sites for opportunities in economic prosperity, green innovation, and cultural activity, and also for critical challenges in homelessness and extreme poverty, air pollution, Indigenous-municipal relationship-building, racial injustice, and transportation gridlock. While city governments are at the forefront of mitigating the challenges of urban life, they are given insufficient power to effectively attend to public needs. Cities and the Constitution confronts the misalignment between the importance of municipalities and their constitutional status. While our constitution is often considered a living document, Canada has one of the most complicated amending formulas in the world, making change very difficult. Cities are thus constitutionally vulnerable to unilateral provincial action and reliant on other levels of government for funding. Could municipal power be reimagined without disrupting the existing constitutional structure, or could the Constitution be reformed to designate cities a distinct tier of government? Among other novel proposals, this groundbreaking volume explores the idea of recognizing municipalities in provincial constitutions. The first volume of a complementary pair, authored by renowned Canadian legal and urban studies scholars, Cities and the Constitution suggests contemporary solutions to one of our most pressing policy dilemmas.
About this Author
Alexandra Flynn is associate professor in the Peter A. Allard School of Law at the University of British Columbia. Richard Albert is William Stamps Farish Professor in Law, professor of government, and director of constitutional studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Nathalie Des Rosiers is a judge of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice.
Reviews
"The question of constitutional status for Canadian cities is not new - but it is salient as never before. This timely volume explores the options for addressing this gap in cities' power. Contributors provide a diverse and useful overview of some traditional arguments, as well as a range of creative and novel ones." Cherie Metcalf, Queen's Law
"Written by a diverse group of acknowledged, experienced experts, Cities and the Constitution advances the emerging Canadian and international literature on the constitutional (in the legal and political senses of that term) status of cities." Peter Oliver, co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of the Canadian Constitution
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