Metropolitan government in Vancouver: the strategy of gentle imposition††

The creation of a metropolitan government in the Greater Vancouver urban region was a deliberate policy adopted by Municipal Affairs Department strategists in the mid-1960s even though for several years the Minister publicly argued that the regional district was not a metropolitan government. The policy was essentially to create a local federation variety of metropolitan government. The strategy was to gently impose an administrative structure without any functions at 1st so as to not unduly compel the local leaders or predetermine those matters on which inter-municipal cooperation was to be based. In time, the local leaders themselves became aware of the potential of this innocuous regional district. The province remained ready to impose an integration of those functions more efficiently performed at the regional level in the event of any recalcitrance developing within established bureaucracies or local political units which was inimical to the provincial policy. The uniqueness of the experiment in BC had two main features: the low-key initiative of the province and the basic flexibility of the new form of government which permitted adaptation to the forces for metropolitan functional integration coming from both the provincial level and the local level. The success in launching regional overnment in British Columbia was to a large extent a result of the heeding, by the strategists, of the experience in the United States, in other places in Canada, and an earlier attempt in the late 1950s in Vancouver. Sommaire. La creation d'un gouvernement metropoIitain dans la region urbaine du Grand Vancouver a ete une politique premeditee qui a ete adoptee par les strateges du Ministere des Affaires municipales am environs de 1965, bien que le Ministere ait affirme publiquement pendant longtemps que le “district regional” n'etait pas un gouvernement metropolitain. La politique a ete essentiellement de creer un genre de gouvernement metropolitain ressemblant a une federation de municipalites. La strategie a consiste d'abord dans l'imposition d'une structure administrative sans aucune function faint de be pas forcer la main aux chefs Iocaux ou de ne pas determiner a l'avance les questions qui serviraient de base a la collaboration intermunicipale. Plus tard, les chefs locaux se sont rendus compte du potentiel de ce “district regional” inoffensif. Le gouvernement provincial de son coteetait pret a imposer une integration regionale des fonctions qui s'executent mieux a ce niveau advenant le cas ou une resistance se developperait au sein des bureaucraties ou des cons& municipaux, des oppositions qui iraient a l'encontre de la politique provinciale. Les deux traits principaux de cette experience en Colombie-Britannique furent: l'initiative discrete de la province et f flexibilite de base de ce nouveau genre de gouvernement qui ont permis une adaptation aw forces locales et provinciales pour une integration metropolitaine des fonctions municipales. Le lancement du gouvemement regional en Colombie-Britannique fut un grand succes dua l'attention que les strateges ont porte aux expeiences americaines et canadiennes ainsi qu'a la tentative anterieure faite a Vancouver entre 1957 et 1960.