Intergovernmental Relations: Perceived importance of municipal government

Audrey Brennan INRS-UCS

2025-01-28

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iStock Getty Images
iStock Getty Images

1. Introduction

Earlier this month, The Globe and Mail reported municipalities’ concerns over provincial governments’ overreach in municipalities’ jurisdictions’, specifically British Colombia, Alberta and Ontario (Bula 2025). Likewise, La Presse, recently reported that the Quebec government cut funding to schools who allowed municipalities to use their gymnasiums during off hours, stating that municipalities should pay for these facilities (Duca 2025). While these examples underline a complex relationship between provincial and municipal governments, it is crucial to ask: how do municipal officials perceive the importance attributed to municipal policies by other levels of government? We begin to address this question using the CMB’s 2022 survey questions.

2. The Data

In 2022, 1082 elected officials took the time to answer the CMB’s questions.  The number of respondents by gender and province is illustrated in Figure 1. Most respondents are from Ontario and Quebec, followed closely by Alberta and British Columbia.

 

Figure 1 Respondents' Gender by Province (qty)

Regarding differences in gender, the distribution between men and women is comparable when we consider the data per province (Figure 1).

3. Do respondents think they have a seat at the provincial  or federal table?

When asked whether they thought that municipalities should have a seat at the table to discuss issues relevant to their communities, we find that most respondents across each province “somewhat agreed”  or “strongly agreed”  with the statement (Figure 2). In Figure 2, like other figures with agree or disagree responses, the colors correspond to the following answers: “strongly disagree” (black), “somewhat disagree”  (grey), “somewhat agree”  (turquoise), “strongly agree”  (blue). And the numbers at the top of the bars represent the total number of respondents who provided that response.

Figure 2: Municipalities should have a “seat at the table” when federal and provincial governments meet to discuss issues that are relevant to my community?

 

4. How do municipal office holders feel treated by their provincial governments?

Figure 3 compares municipal officials’ responses to two statements on a disagree-agree scale. The left side of the figure depicts responses to the statement “The provincial government treats municipalities as a mature order of government” and the right of the figure depicts responses to the statement “The provincial government treats my municipality as an equal partner in the policy making process.” The left section of Figure 4 shows that while respondents do agree that their provincial government treats municipalities as a mature order of government (346 somewhat agree and 131 strongly agree), respondents disagree (135 and 240, which represents 44%) that they are an equal partner in the policy process (right of Figure 3).  Nevertheless, I must highlight that a total of 375 respondents “strongly disagreed” and “somewhat disagreed”, representing 67% of answers that their province saw them as a mature order of government (346 and 131).

 

Figure 3: Perceived Treatment by Provincial Government

 

 

Figure 4: Perceived Treatment by Provincial Government (Select Provinces)

To better grasp how municipal officials feel treated by their provincial governments, I selected the four provinces for which we have the most respondents: British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario, and Quebec.

Figure 4 should be read in the following way: each province represents a quadrant (top-left,  bottom-right, etc) and within each quadrant the left portion represents the “sees municipality as mature government” statement, and the right portion represents “the treated as an equal partner” statement.

Figure 4 shows that there is variation among the four selected provinces. Most importantly, Ontario respondents disagreed with the statement that they were treated as an equal policy partner by the provincial government (205 disagree, compared to 77 agree). Alberta respondents (top right) are even more in disagreement with the statement compared to their counterparts in other provinces.

Regarding the agreement with the statement that provincial governments treat municipalities as a mature level of government, however, we see mostly agreement across all four provinces.

 

5. How do municipal office holders feel treated by the federal government?

The CMB team asked respondents to respond to  similar statements for the federal government as they did for the provincial government: “The federal government treats municipalities as a mature order of government” (left of Figure 5) and “The federal government treats my municipality as an equal partner in the policy making process.” (right of Figure 5).

The answer patterns for the federal government are the same as for the provincial government, although Figure 5 shows that 414 respondents disagreed with the notion that the federal government saw their municipality as a mature government, representing 50% overall disagreement for the federal question compared to 44% disagreement to the provincial question. However, 197 respondents disagreed with the statement that the federal government saw municipalities as an equal policy partner, for a total of 29% of respondents who disagreed with the latter statement, compared to 67% disagreement for the provincial question.

 

Figure 5: Perceived Treatment by Federal Government

Like with the questions on provincial governments, I chose the four provinces with the most respondents, to examine the extent to which responses vary across provinces of residence.

Figure 6 reads the same  way as Figure 4: in quadrants.

Comparing Figure 6 to Figure 4, the response patterns for the “sees municipality as mature government” are broadly the same as those for the provincial government.

However, when comparing Figure 4 to Figure 6 we find different responses to the statement “treats my municipality as an equal partner in the policy making process”. First, we find a decline in disagreement on the federal statement from respondents in British Columbia compared to the provincial statement (-26 respondents overall), and in Quebec (-87 respondents). Finally, we see an increase in disagreement in Alberta (+39) and in Ontario (+69) respondents.

 

Figure 6: Perceived Treatment by Federal Government (Select provinces)

 

6. How do municipal officials perceive the importance attributed to municipal policies by other levels of government ?

In line with some recent events presented at the start of this blog, it follows that municipal officials in our sample want a seat at the decision table (Figure 2).

The descriptive analysis presented above shows that while municipal governments are treated as a mature level of government, they are not seen as an equal policy making partner by the provincial and federal levels of government. This perception is especially prominent for the federal level of government.

But given that I have only scraped the surface of the surface of this data’s explanatory potential, we must ask: what other dynamics are at play?

One idea would be to examine how elected municipal officials compare ideologically to their provincial and federal counterparts. To this question, Jack Lucas concludes that municipal politicians perceive themselves as moderates, even if their political positions suggest otherwise (see his blog post on the Barometer website here).

We could also ask to what extent does respondents’ municipality size matter in that regard?

In short, the more we ask, the more we uncover that the questions are endless. Fortunately, the CMB data provides several opportunities to answer some of these questions!

 

7. Other CMB article of interest

“Federal-Municipal and Provincial-Municipal Relations in Canada: Insights from Local Politicians” by Nicole McMahon here

8. References

Bula, Francis. “As provinces meddle more in municipal issues, cities raise concerns about political overreach”. The Globe and Mail, January 4th 2025. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-ontario-bc-alberta-politics-city-meddling/

Duca, Isabelle. “Les municipalités indignées de faire les frais de coupes de 9 millions”. La Presse. Le 23 janvier 2025. https://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/2025-01-23/partage-des-gymnases-scolaires/les-municipalites-indignees-de-faire-les-frais-de-coupes-de-9-millions.php