Local and Urban Politics

E02 - Political Elites and Intergovernmental Relations

Date: Jun 2 | Time: 10:15am to 11:45am | Location:

Chair/Président/Présidente : Zack Taylor (University of Western Ontario)

Discussant/Commentateur/Commentatrice : Shanaya Vanhooren (INRS)

Municipal elected officials in their daily lives: health, stress, and political choices: Sandra Breux (INRS), Jérôme Couture (Université Laval)
Abstract: Numerous studies have analyzed the role of health and stress on electoral behavior and sometimes on voting choices. While this area has been the subject of numerous analyses, sometimes with contradictory results, to our knowledge, none of them have focused on elected officials and how their perception of their health may influence their behavior in their elected positions. However, elected office has been the subject of much debate in recent months due to a rise in incivility and harassment. Based on the 2026 Canadian Municipal Barometer survey, we asked elected officials how they assessed their health and stress levels and what issues they felt needed to be prioritized in their municipalities. The results once again invite us to reflect on how stress and health influence political behavior, but even more so on how political representation plays out.

Elective heredity at municipal level : like father, like son ?: Sandra Breux (INRS), Anne Mévellec (University of Ottawa), Alyssa Vézina (UQAM)
Abstract: The importance of family has been addressed in political science through two central concepts: political heredity, i.e., political socialization, and elective heredity, or the transmission of political office within the same family. While there is a wealth of research on political heredity, studies on elective heredity are rarer and do not focus on the municipal level. However, at higher levels of government, in Canada as elsewhere in the world, studies have shown that institutional systems centered on candidates favor the emergence of political dynasties. Similarly, political heirs are said to enjoy greater electoral success than non-heirs: all factors that are likely to influence electoral competitiveness. Based on the creation of a vast database of candidates in Quebec municipalities with fewer than 2,000 inhabitants, the presence of political dynasties will be identified, starting in 2025 and going back in time according to potential dynasties. Then, analysis of electoral data, institutional changes, and the identification of social and professional networks in the municipality will allow us to grasp the major features of these dynasties and their potential impact on recruitment and electoral competitiveness. More specifically, we will show the extent to which municipal political dynasties are entrenched in certain regions of Quebec and how they may (or may not) be one of the pathways for women to enter municipal politics.

Who Should Govern? Municipal Candidate Preferences Regarding Political Influence: Martin Horak (Western University)
Abstract: The question of who “really” governs – that is, which actors in society have influence over local politics and policy – has been a central preoccupation of North American urban political economy research for decades. While scholars have provided a variety of answers (developers, local business, homeowners, global capital) they have paid relatively little attention to the preferences of the local politicians who authorize and enact local policy and can therefore either advance or thwart the agendas of various societal interests. In this paper, we draw on a 2022 survey of nearly 1,500 candidates for local office in Ontario and British Columbia to paint a portrait of their preferences regarding the influence of various societal groups in local politics. In the survey, we asked candidates whether key societal groups such as local businesses, ratepayer groups, unions, developers, and so on have “not enough”, “about right”, or “too much” influence in local politics. Joining the survey data to election results, financial disclosures and census information allows us to address questions such as: Do incumbents have systematically different preferences than non-incumbents? Are candidates’ preferences regarding who should have influence related to their own socioeconomic and occupational background? Do candidates who self-finance their campaigns have different preferences regarding influence on local politics than those who get their campaign funding from others? The paper explores these questions, providing insight into the political economy preferences of current and aspiring local politicians.

Frozen at the City Level: Intergovernmental Coordination and the Governance of Long-Term Transit Projects in Canada: Hao Xi (University of Waterloo)
Abstract: Canadian cities are increasingly responsible for implementing major transit projects whose timelines often extend far beyond electoral and fiscal cycles. However, many of these projects become “frozen,” constrained by early design and funding commitments that cannot be easily revised as economic, demographic, or technological conditions evolve. This study asks why municipalities possess the expertise to identify necessary adjustments but lack the institutional means to implement them. Using cases such as Toronto's Eglinton Crosstown and Calgary's Green Line, this study examines how large urban transit projects move from initial flexibility to institutional rigidity as multiple governments share authority over funding and oversight. It also examines how cities manage long-term costs and operations but have limited room to change project scope or timing once higher governments set the terms. The findings show how intergovernmental dynamics shape whether cities can respond effectively to the inevitable uncertainties of long-term infrastructure development. The same multilevel arrangements that enable project initiation may also create barriers to project adaptation. This dynamic can help explain the persistent challenges in Canadian urban transit delivery—not simply coordination failures at launch, but systemic constraints on municipal capacity to govern projects across their extended lifecycles.

Is Toronto the Good - an Insurgent?!: Alexander Pekic (University of Toronto)
Abstract: Is the City of Toronto mounting a (policy) insurgency against senior levels of government? Is there a new division within the Canadian state itself, a division not envisioned or sanctioned by the Canadian legal/constitutional arrangement? More specifically, is Toronto’s adoption of a sanctuary city policy (AccessTO) along with its previous acceptance (and tacit approval) of unsanctioned safe injection facilities – and current maintenance of a harm reduction approach in the face of a provincial government diametrically opposed to such an approach – a direct challenge to the policy priorities and laws of senior levels of government? Bazurli and Kaufman (2023) describe municipal policy insurgency (in relation to migration policy in Europe) as municipal defiance of the nation-states ability to regulate migration and subsequent residency/belonging. The emergence (or not) of an insurgent policy, according to them, is dictated by the makeup of multilevel governance arrangements found at the city level. This paper will explore the multilevel governance arrangements corresponding to undocumented migration and safe injection sites/harm reduction within the City of Toronto as a means to explore/explain the emergence of these policies/approaches by municipal officials and determine whether (or the degree to which) Toronto is mounting a policy insurgency against senior governments. This exploration will be conducted through semi-structured interviews of municipal officials, social service providers, NGO representatives and activists in the Toronto area as well as through archival research. The findings will help to advance discussions of insurgent cities/policies by exploring them outside of Europe as well as by discussing them in relation to a new policy domain (harm reduction), along with advancing discussions of urban policy/politics and ‘seeing like a city’. These discussions will simultaneously speak to ongoing conversations about the minimal (legal) place Canadian cities are nested in despite their ever-growing increased importance to the politics and governance of Canada.