Administrative Supervision of Local Government: the Canadian Experience

Canadian local-government institutions have been influenced by those of both Great Britain and the United States, yet they retain a distinctly Canadian character. Few residents of the United States have been acquainted with Canada's internal governmental problems, because there has been relatively little information available. Canada's top political leaders have been pre-occupied with making Canada a nation, one prepared to take its place in world affairs. But what of the governments within the Dominion? The Rowell-Sirois Commission hearings and its reports in 1939 brought to the attention of many people the problems of dominion-provincial relations. More recently, the Goldenberg report in British Columbia brought attention to certain provincial-local relationships. During the 1930's, many persons in the United States became interested in the Canadian provincial boards of municipal affairs because those boards seemed to offer a means for disciplining improvident municipalities and maintaining good fiscal standards. Viewed in their full perspective, however, these boards and the departments of municipal affairs in Canadian provinces illustrate vital developments in central-local relations. Within the past forty-five years, Canadians have moved rapidly in developing the vast natural resources of the country and in building cities, towns, and villages.