Canadian Municipal Barometer researchers Gabriel Eidelman and Jack Lucas were recently awarded the J.E. Hodgetts Award for best English-language article in the 2023 volume of Canadian Public Administration. Their article, “How do municipal mayors and councillors communicate with other levels of government? Evidence from a multi‐level survey of Canadian elected officials,” reports findings from the Canadian Municipal Barometer’s 2022 survey of local mayors and councillors. We recently caught up with Gabe and Jack to learn more about their award-winning article.

How did the idea for this article come about?

A few years ago, one of us (Jack) worked on a paper with Alison Smith about patterns of municipal-provincial and municipal-federal communication in Canada. One of the things we learned from this research was the importance of informal communication between municipal, provincial, and federal politicians. When we think about municipal-provincial or municipal-federal relations in Canada, what might come to mind are provincial-municipal association conferences or high-profile meetings between mayors and cabinet ministers. Those are important, but our research suggested that much less formal communication channels – like personal phone calls and text messages – were also an important part of how municipal politicians think about their role as intergovernmental advocates for their communities.

In our article, our goal was to dig into these communication channels a bit more deeply, and to do so in a way that reflected a larger and more representative group of municipal politicians. We also wanted to know if the politicians on the other side of these conversations – provincial and federal MLAs and MPs – felt the same way about these communication channels.

How did you go about doing the research?

We wrote up a quite detailed set of survey questions about intergovernmental communication channels and advocacy techniques, and we fielded these questions as part of the 2022 Canadian Municipal Barometer survey of local elected representatives. In total, we received about 850 responses to our questions.

Alongside these municipal survey questions, we also fielded a survey of every provincial and federal elected representative at the same time, using the same questions written from the provincial or federal point of view. About 100 provincial and federal politicians answered this survey. This gave us a valuable glimpse into the municipal-provincial and municipal-federal relationships from the perspective of provincial and federal politicians.

What did you find in your article?

Our findings reinforced Jack and Alison’s earlier work about the importance of informal channels of intergovernmental communication in Canada. We found that the overwhelming majority of municipal politicians report that their most common channel of intergovernmental communication was with their provincial and federal elected counterparts. Local politicians also considered this informal communication extremely important, generally ranking it at or near the top of a list of intergovernmental communication channels.

We also found an interesting difference between larger and smaller municipalities in who municipal politicians thought should be the spokesperson and chief advocate for the municipality. In larger municipalities, the answer is overwhelming and clear: the mayor. In smaller municipalities, however, many municipal politicians suggested that the chief administrative officer is the optimal advocate for the municipality. To us, this finding reinforced the critical importance of the CAO role, especially in smaller municipalities.

Looking ahead, what new directions do you see for your research? Are there any follow-up studies or projects you’re planning?

The Canadian Municipal Barometer recently received a SSHRC Partnership Grant, allowing us to substantially expand the work that our partnership is doing – and one of the new research pillars we’ve set up is focused entirely on multilevel governance.

We’re excited to dig further into municipal intergovernmental relations – and especially to expand our focus beyond “vertical” relationships with provincial and federal governments to include “horizontal” relationships with other municipalities as well. We hope that our survey research will help us expand the work that one of us (Gabe) has been doing, in collaboration with former Edmonton Mayor Don Iveson, on the “Metro Mindset” in Canadian regions.

Do you have any advice for early-career researchers who are interested in exploring similar topics or pursuing awards like this?

Go for it! This is a great time to be doing work on municipal government, municipal politics, and municipal intergovernmental relations. The community is growing rapidly, and opportunities for data collection are also expanding quickly. Plus, this is an area of interest to municipal policymakers themselves, and sharing findings with folks outside the academic community can be very rewarding.

Want to know more? On December 10th, Gabe and Jack will be participating in a webinar on their research, organized by the Institute of Public Administration of Canada. Feel free to contact us if you’d like more information about the webinar!