How well does local democracy work in Canada? For five years, the Canadian Municipal Barometer (CMB) partnership has been building the evidence needed to answer that question, bringing together more than 40 researchers from over 25 universities, municipal organizations, and civic partners.
This event launches The State of Local Democracy in Canada, a new School of Cities report that draws on annual surveys of thousands of mayors, councillors, and residents to take stock of what we have learned.
The findings challenge some familiar assumptions about municipal politics. Are local elections really non-partisan? Who gets the opportunity to run for office, and who gets left out? Do elected officials actually understand what their constituents want? And how do local leaders advance their priorities when so much authority rests with provincial and federal governments?
Drawing on five years of evidence, the presentation offers some surprising answers about how Canadian local democracy works in practice.
About the Canadian Municipal Barometer
The Canadian Municipal Barometer (CMB) is a national research partnership funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council that aims to understand and improve local democracy in Canada. The CMB brings together more than 40 researchers from over 25 universities, municipal organizations, and civic partners to conduct annual surveys of mayors and councillors in more than 1,000 Canadian municipalities, as well as public opinion polling and in-depth qualitative research on local representation and diversity, elections and voting, policy making, and multi-level governance. Learn more on the Canadian Municipal Barometer website: https://cmb-bmc.ca
About the speaker
Gabriel Eidelman is Associate Professor, Teaching Stream, at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, as well as the Institute for Management and Innovation. He is director of the School of Cities’ Urban Policy Lab, a Faculty Fellow at the Institute on Municipal Finance and Governance, and the Knowledge Mobilization Lead for the Canadian Municipal Barometer, a national research partnership studying local democracy across Canada.
Read more about Gabriel’s teaching and research on his website, gabrieleidelman.com
