This text is part of the special Francophonie notebook
Published by Presses de l’Université Laval at the beginning of the year, the Political dictionary of the Quebec municipal scene represents a first, moreover in French.
“To my knowledge,” writes one of the prefaces, Andrew Sancton, of the University of Western Ontario, “this dictionary describing the “municipal scene” is the very first to be published in North America. »
The manual was co-directed by SandraBreux, professor-researcher at the National Institute for Scientific Research (INRS), and Anne Mévellec, professor at the School of Political Studies at the University of Ottawa. It brings together the feathers of around sixty specialists. “The objective was to raise awareness of this municipal scene which is very varied and not a uniform whole. And this can greatly modify the reality of each municipality, whether in terms of electoral participation or, for example, the way in which the function of elected official is exercised,” explains M.me Breux.
Often considered as simple administrations strictly dedicated to taking care of roads and snow removal, they are, on the contrary, according to the co-directors, “the place where the challenges and political questions of contemporary governance are embodied”.
Municipalities intervene in many other areas linked to personal services, according to Mme Mévellec. “We can think of immigration, cultural and family policies or leisure,” she lists.
It was therefore essential for them to produce a work that would show this diversity of implications. “Municipalities are a level of political government, in the strict sense of the term, where choices of values and policies are made on the future of the community. They don’t just have technical responsibilities, like making asphalt,” explains the University of Ottawa professor.
The adoption in 2017 of Bill 122 in Quebec and the multitude of challenges with which municipalities juggle further highlight the importance of their role in people’s daily lives, according to the co-directors.
Various skills
“Even if municipalities do not strictly speaking have “general skills”, their action covers fields as diverse as economic development, leisure and the fight against homelessness. […] They are often on the front line during crisis situations,” we can read in the words of the co-directors. They cite as examples the Saguenay flood (1996), the attack on the Quebec mosque and the floods of 2017.
According to them, the multilevel political system that prevails in the country creates a certain confusion among voters regarding the powers devolved to each level of government. “If the phenomenon is not unique to Canada, the institutional dependence of the municipal level on the provincial tends to accentuate this confusion, largely fueled by the idea that the municipal government would only take care of waste and waste services. “aqueduct, in other words, services to property,” they write. “It was one of the objectives, to try to decipher all of this to make this scene more accessible to everyone,” underlines the INRS professor.
The dictionary offers a range of expanded and contextualized definitions on more than 70 subjects related to the municipal world: voting, electoral participation, political issues, elected officials, institutions, etc. “We wanted to deal with a set of themes that we considered essential to the writing of a political dictionary of the Quebec municipal scene, but also sociopolitical realities. Notions such as rurality, cybersecurity, training of elected officials, apoliticism and everything related to skills,” explains Mme Breux.
After establishing the main themes, they approached experts, professors, researchers and students from multiple fields: regional planning, history, economics, law, sociology and political science. “The individuals had to reflect the liveliness and diversity of municipal studies,” she adds.
The co-directors emphasize that this dictionary is a dynamic, evolving project, which is expected to be improved from one edition to the next and which should soon be available online to be accessible to all. “There are themes which, due to not being able to find experts, have not yet been developed. It will come,” specifies Mme Mévellec.
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