Local and Urban Politics

E01 - Public Space, Sustainability and Democratization

Date: May 30 | Time: 08:45am to 10:15am | Location: Classroom - CL 408 Room ID:15705

Chair/Président/Présidente : Nicole Goodman (Brock University)

Discussant/Commentateur/Commentatrice : Sandra Breux (Institut national de la recherche scientifique)

Buying Sustainability: Analyzing the Green Procurement Policies of Canadian Local Governments: Elizabeth Schwartz (University of Saskatchewan)
Abstract: To what extent do Canadian local governments use their purchasing power to achieve sustainability goals? Governments have long used public purchasing and expenditure as a tool of social policy. Modern procurement systems were developed in concert with the welfare state, and were used, in part, to underpin its goals. Since the early 1990s, there has been a push to encourage the inclusion of environmental criteria in government procurement procedures, particularly at the local government level. However, evidence from studies of European municipalities suggests that there is a significant gap between the rhetoric of green procurement and the degree to which of policies and procedures implement green procurement principles. This exploratory paper provides the first broad assessment of green procurement policies adopted by Canadian municipal governments (with populations of over 100,000 residents). It documents the policies adopted and analyses the criteria included and activities covered. Procurement is an area over which municipal government exert significant autonomy and it is one of the most direct ways in which they can intercede in the local economy. The extent to which they take advantage of this opportunity to promote environmental goals will provide insight into the potential for local governments to contribute to the some of the world’s most pressing challenges.

Assessing the Impact of Immigration and Cultural Diversity on Municipal Parks, Recreation and Cultural Policies: Livianna Tossutti (Brock University)
Abstract: This paper investigates the extent to which six Canadian municipalities have responded to immigration and cultural diversity in the policy domain of parks, recreation and culture. The analysis is situated within the context of debates in urban planning about recognition, redistribution and encounter in diverse urban settings (Fincher and Iveson, 2008; Fainstein, 2005). It draws on documentary and interview evidence to achieve three objectives. The first is to build a multi-indicator inventory of each city’s discursive, policy, program and service responses to demographic change in this policy domain. The selection of indicators is based on a comparative study of integration governance across European cities (EuroCities, 2008). The data are used to situate the municipalities in a typology that describes the normative premises underlying official discourse about the recognition of cultural differences and the breadth of these initiatives in each city. The paper proposes a theory of the most significant endogenous and exogenous factors that shape municipal approaches. Endogenous factors are integral to the personnel, structure and resources of the municipal government. The idea of exogenous factors is similar to the notion of “nested” general and intermediate factors such as provincial context, population diversity, group conflict, and the organization and demands of civil society.

1097.Tossutti.pdf

Comparing Elected Officials’ Reception of Residential Opposition to Urban Development in Urban and Suburban Settings: Aaron Moore (University of Winnipeg)
Abstract: The paper compares and contrasts the level of residential involvement in the politics of urban development and how elected officials respond to resident’s opposition to development in suburban and urban settings.