Who Does What?

A round photo of three rows of low apartment buildings, with a red and blue circle emerging from the right corner

Who Does What?

Who Does What is a collaborative paper series produced by the Lab and the Institute on Municipal Finance and Governance. The series gathers leading academics and practitioners across Canada to examine the role municipalities should play in key areas of urban policy, the reforms required to ensure municipalities can deliver on their responsibilities, and the collaboration required among governments to meet the country’s challenges.

Canadian municipalities play increasingly important roles in addressing the policy challenges that are at the centre of political debate, including addressing climate change, increasing housing affordability, reforming policing, and confronting public health crises. The growing prominence of municipalities, however, has also led to overlapping responsibilities with provinces and the federal government. Such “entanglement” between orders of government has the potential to result in poor coordination and opaque accountability. At the same time, combining the strengths and capabilities of different orders of government – whether in setting policy, convening, funding, or delivering services – can sometimes lead to more effective action.

The series is produced by the Institute on Municipal Finance and Governance and Urban Policy Lab and edited by Gabriel Eidelman, Tomas Hachard, and Enid Slack.