ABSTRACT
This chapter describes and analyzes the various approaches adopted within Canada to the problems of metropolitan governance over the past fifty years. It focuses on Canada's ten largest Census Metropolitan Areas (CMAs). Among the ten largest CMAs in Canada, there are effectively four different types of institutional arrangements for metropolitan governance. This is the arrangement for each of the remaining top-ten CMAs, including Ottawa in Ontario and Gatineau in Quebec, which are the dominant municipalities within the National Capital Region. Of the major CMAs being analyzed, only Vancouver has a distinct metropolitan-level institution of government with any real functional capabilities. Except in Ottawa-Gatineau, Canadian provincial boundaries do not bisect metropolitan areas, and in Ottawa-Gatineau, the federal government's National Capital Commission pulls them together. together. This means that Canadian provinces are much better suited than American states are to act as overarching governments for entire city-regions.
