ABSTRACT
There are three important points to bear in mind in any treatment of the issues in rural land use and approaches to solutions in Canada. First, Canada possesses a very decentralized system of government which is reflected in the planning function (Audet & Le Hénaff 1983). Furthermore, on top of the different levels of government – municipal, provincial, federal and, in several parts of the country, various forms of regional or quasi-regional government – there are also many special-purpose bodies such as the Conservation Authorities in Ontario which have an interest in the fortunes of rural land.
