By: Pino Di Mascio
June 9/00 - Ask a foreigner to describe Canada and they are likely to conjure up images of wilderness. For some, Group of Seven landscapes come to mind. For others, Canada is the barren Arctic. Haven't we all met an American who thinks we live in igloos and drive snowmobiles?
Such imagery persists within our country as well. What depictions of Canadian life do we hold? Prairie farms. BC forests. Quebec parishes. East coast fishing villages. We carry with us pictures of a rural country to which most of us do not belong. Our geography sometimes overwhelms our mindscape. Perhaps we are captive to history and nostalgia.
We are blessed to be stewards of such beautiful landscapes, and we should do all we can to protect our rural and natural landscapes.
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Writers from both ends of the political spectrum have described a new global economy where cities are the main nodes of activity. The importance of urban regions to our national finances cannot be overstated. |
Still, the fact remains that Canada has one of the most urbanized populations in the world. According to Statistics Canada, in 1999 close to 20 million Canadians lived in the country's 25 large urban regions. That figure represents almost two thirds of our population, and the proportion of urbanites continues to grow.
The importance of these urban regions to our national economy and finances can not be overemphasized. Researchers and writers from both ends of the political spectrum have described a new global economy wherein transnational corporations have superseded the regulation and control of nation states. The result is that urban regions have become the main economic nodes in a globalized world and must compete with each other to attract economic activity.
Whether or not this as a positive development, is a matter of opinion. But the economic importance of cities is a clear fact that should lead to federal policies to promote the health and vibrancy of our cities. This has happened in the United States, where federal initiatives such as 'Smart Growth' and ISTEA (a federal transportation program) have ensured funding for urban initiatives such as downtown revitalization, containment of urban sprawl and public transit. Canadians have benefited from no such initiatives.
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The market system has never been able to provide affordable housing for people with low-incomes. Even the United States government understands this. |
It may be a stretch to suggest that the federal government has a disdain for cities. But the feds have clearly been unresponsive to many urban concerns. Most importantly, the federal government has no overarching policy framework to deal with the cities. And it has failed to address the two most important services that allow cities to function well: housing and public transit.
The biggest problem facing Canadian cities today is a lack of affordable housing - especially rental housing. The market system has never been able to provide affordable housing for people with low incomes. As a result, there has always been a need for publicly built or subsidized housing. Even the United States has been active in this regard. The federal government in Canada was involved in housing in the 1970s and 1980s as the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) helped fund co-operative housing projects in cities throughout the country. The cutbacks of the 1990s, however, ended all federal subsidies. The CMHC became a much smaller agency and is now only involved in collecting data and administering the government's mortgage insurance program - which instead of making housing more affordable, merely helps lower-income Canadian assume a heavier debt load.
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Every G-7 country - with the exception of Canada - provides support and funding for public transit in cities |
Other governments in North America and Europe went through the same cutbacks last decade and also saw housing programs reduced. But those countries have at least understood the importance of affordable housing to a city's health and have not completely withdrawn from this area, as our government has done.
The federal government's record in public transit is even worse. Every G-7 country, with the exception of Canada, provides national support and funding for public transit in cities. It is a generally accepted principle in most other countries that the funding of public transit should not be left solely to municipalities.
There are numerous public benefits from transit including, reduced pollution, less expenditure on road construction and maintenance, savings on policing and traffic control and savings on health care costs related to traffic accidents (not to mention the saved lives). All of these advantages are in addition to the role transit plays in increasing mobility and improving the urban quality of life. It is not surprising that other countries provide capital and operating support for urban transit systems. Canada provides none. Some provinces, such as British Columbia and Quebec,do provide funding, but in other provinces municipalities are left to themselves and consequently have difficulty operating adequate transit systems.
The current government may dispute this assessment by pointing to their role in supporting initiatives such as Olympic bids, and to recent announcements like the creation of a central park in Toronto, as evidence of federal support for cities. But these are ad hoc frills that have nothing to do with core urban infrastructure needs. The decisions to support them are made by a government that cannot see the cities for the fields, leaving urban citizens unsupported, and leaving municipalities struggling to maintain healthy and well functioning cities.
Pino Di Mascio is an urban planner with Toronto-based international planning and design firm Urban Strategies Inc. He can be reached at pdimascio@urbanstrategies.com.
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