Local and Urban Politics

E02(b) - Urban Resilience and Adaptation: Climate Change, Public Health, and Food Insecurity

Date: Jun 3 | Time: 10:15am to 11:45am | Location:

Chair/Président/Présidente : Michael Murphy (Queen's University)

Discussant/Commentateur/Commentatrice : Guy Chiasson (Université du Québec en Outaouais)

Are We at the Tipping Point? - Food Insecurity in Niagara: Joanne Heritz (Brock University)
Abstract: “There is no traditional field of study for food security” (Hendricks 2019). The number of people relying on food banks is increasing at an alarming rate. There were over two million visits to food banks across Canada in 2024, up six per cent from 2023 and 90 per cent from 2019 according to Hunger Count 2024. The increasing dependency on food banks is an indicator of a bigger policy problem: increasing poverty in Niagara. Rapid inflation, unaffordable housing, precarious employment, and inadequate social assistance are the primary contributors to increasing food-bank reliance. The increasing number of children facing food insecurity has lifelong impacts on their physical and mental wellbeing, and educational attainment. There is no indication by the federal government that it will implement an income program like CERB that reduced food bank visits during the pandemic. Likewise, the Ontario government has lagged in to increase social benefits or raise the minimum wage to meet increasing inflation or increase social housing allocations for truly affordable housing builds. Food security programs are carried out by non-profit organizations that depend on their own fundraising schemes to respond to increasing number of residents facing poverty while receiving no support from government. This paper asks, where is the tipping point? How can municipalities, the sites where food insecurity occurs, sustain the immediate and long-term social impacts of federal and provincial inaction? While the drivers of food bank use are not adequately addressed, how are food banks coping with the unprecedented demand on their services?

Determinants of Local Climate Change Adaptation Governance: A Comparative Analysis of Cities’ Policymaking Processes: Eve Bourgeois (Université de Sherbrooke)
Abstract: As the negative impacts of climate change are expected to get worse over the next decade, there is a growing interest among local governments toward climate change adaptation. As a result, more and more research studies have been published to explain the barriers and drivers of climate change adaptation efforts made by cities. That said, the literature generally focuses on identifying the factors influencing adaptation efforts and neglects the way these factors play out throughout the policymaking process. As of now, the literature provides a ‘shopping list’ of potential factors influencing climate change adaptation governance but does not suggest a systematic lens through which these factors could be analyzed in a more rigorous manner. This paper aims to fill this gap by studying urban climate change efforts in the province of Quebec (Canada) using Lasswell’s (1959) policy cycle. By doing so, this paper argues 1) different factors are influencing different stages of the policymaking process; and 2) the role of policy entrepreneurs does not stop at the agenda-setting but it is also crucial at the implementation stage. The rest of this paper discusses the theoretical and practical implications of such findings.

Resilient seniors care and services: municipal and neighbourhood responses to COVID: Livianna Tossutti (Brock University), Jose Cardoso (Brock University)
Abstract: The concept of resilience, or the capacity of individuals, communities and systems to survive stresses and shocks, and transform when required (Akbar, 2017), is increasingly regarded as a resource for cities confronted with uncertainties and challenges (United Nations, 2020). The disruptions associated with COVID-19 were magnified in Canada’s elderly population (Statistics Canada, 2021). This paper examines the resilience-based adaptations that organizations responsible for delivering care and services to seniors in Toronto, Canada, adopted in response to COVID. It will address two questions arising from conceptual tensions in the multidisciplinary resilience literature. It will also identify the keys to resilience, as they are perceived at the city-wide and intra-urban scale. The first tension relates to different notions of the “equilibrium” to which systems should return following a major disruption (Holling, 1973; Pickett, Cadenasso, and Grove, 2004). Did organizational policies and practises revert to their pre-disturbance state after the end of the emergency (single-state equilibrium), flip from one operating state to another (multiple-state equilibrium), or are they undergoing constant change (dynamic non-equilibrium)? The second interrogates three potential pathways to urban resilience (Chelleri, Waters, Olazabal, & Minucci, 2015). The pathway of persistence reflects the engineering principle that systems should resist disturbances and maintain their function. The transition pathway refers to the system’s ability to incrementally adapt. The third pathway - transformation - involves a purposeful, fundamental transformation of structures (Brown et al, 2012; Folke et al., 2002). The analysis is based on documentary evidence and interviews with municipal officials and community representatives in two hard-hit neighbourhoods.