The COVID-19 pandemic brings into focus a long-standing need to establish a Canadian Urban Policy Observatory, a “one-stop-shop” for comprehensive, comparable, and actionable information on the state of Canada’s cities and city-regions. Part repository, aggregator, clearing house, and knowledge broker, the observatory would collect, standardize, analyze, and publish qualitative and quantitative data on Canadian cities and, crucially, the political systems and policy frameworks that govern them. Most importantly, the observatory would serve as a building block toward greater intergovernmental dialogue on urban priorities, bringing local challenges to the attention of upper-level governments, and highlighting opportunities for shared problem solving. As a starting point for discussion, we propose several institutional models governments could follow to realize these aims.
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June 18, 2020
The Case for a Canadian Urban Policy Observatory
