Place-based policy in Canada: An emerging paradigm?

Neil Bradford


It has been widely observed that Canada lacks a robust tradition of place-based policy making. Analysts offer a range of explanations to account for this Canadian form of 'policy exceptionalism' within the OECD: the long preoccupation with redistributive regional transfers that by-pass neighbourhoods and communities; a federal system of jurisdictional turf protection and vertical departmental accountability; a thin conception of civil society limiting third sector policy roles; weak municipal authorities without the capacity to lead from below; the absence of a strong research community attuned to spatial dynamics of economic, social, and environmental development; and the relative absence of spatially concentrated problems (eg. racialized urban ghettos or large social housing estates) and the related urban social movements that mobilize around their 'neighbourhood effects'.

Acknowledging these views, this paper offers a different perspective. It argues that since the 1990s, Canadian governments at all levels have moved – with varying political commitments and policy styles -- to engage place-based approaches. Interpreting this shift in relation to mounting evidence of "wicked problems" that confound any one-size-fits-all or top-down prescriptions, the paper develops a comparative-historical framework to analyse three distinctive rounds of place-based policy making in Canada over the past two decades (tracking change across the Chretien, Martin and Harper governments). With each period, the paper identifies the prevailing political discourse around place policy, the operative governance arrangements for program delivery, and the research networks 'making the place case'. For each period, signature place-based initiatives on challenges such as unemployment, ill health, crime, and educational performance are profiled.

The paper concludes with three messages: first, further Canadian progress in institutionalizing a place paradigm depends on systematic aggregation of existing pilot and demonstration projects; second, new federal policy leadership (a 'metagovernance capability') is required to ensure purposeful coordination at the provincial level; and third, Canadian policy makers need deeper engagement in cross-national policy learning networks that transfer practical knowledge about place-based approaches.