Présentation de l’éditeur

Empowering Canadian cities with the legal authority to manage their own obligations is a crucial democratic project.

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.

Alexandra Flynn is associate professor in the Peter A. Allard School of Law at the University of British Columbia.

Richard Albert is the 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.

Sommaire

Foreword 
Alan Broadbent

Introduction
Alexandra Flynn, Nathalie Des Rosiers, and Richard Albert

Part One | Constitutional Innovation: New Paths to Municipal Autonomy

1 From City Autonomy to the Metagovernance of Place
Zack Taylor

2 Cities and the Promise of Equalization
Mary Janigan

3 Getting Rid of the Laundry List: Exploring the Roots and Effects of the Municipal Powers Act in Quebec
Benoît Frate, David Robitaille, and Jack M. Little

Part Two | Constitutional Principles: Subsidiarity

4 Subsidiarity as a Tool of Municipal Empowerment
Nathalie Des Rosiers and Iulia Anescu

5 Constitutionalizing Cities: Realizing Government Agendas or Sites for Denizen Engagement?
Maartje De Visser

6 Operative Subsidiarity and Indigenous-Municipal Legal Relationships
Alexandra Flynn

Part Three | Constitutional Innovation: New Paths to Constitutional Amendment

7 The Possibility of Constitutional Amendment for Municipal Empowerment
Emmanuelle Richez

8 A Constitutional Safeguard for Municipalities: Entrenching Protections for Local Democracy
Emmett Macfarlane

9 Constitutional Amendment and the Canadian City
Hoi L. Kong

Part Four | The Potential of Provincial Constitutions

10 Are Canadian Cities Entrenched in Provincial Constitutions? A Question of Political Constitutionalism
Erin Crandall

11 Moving Beyond the “Creatures of the Provinces” Doctrine: Exploring Pathways to Municipal Empowerment in Provincial Constitutions
Kristin R. Good