Abstract

 
 
 Although sometimes still referred to as ‘creatures of the province’, municipalities in Canada now shape their own policies in a number of complex areas. This includes culture, since municipal cultural planning has broadened the municipal role. While municipalities still provide ‘cultural services’, such as arts centres and museums, cultural planning involves a more strategic role for the municipality in supporting the development of the local cultural sector, while integrating culture across many areas of municipal decision-making. The literature on organizational theory and design suggests that for municipal cultural planning to achieve these objectives, municipalities should adopt an organizational structure that supports this role. The Culture Position Study was initiated to better understand the different ways in which culture is currently situated within municipal organizational structures, and how these structures are evolving.
 
 
Highlights
How should responsibility for culture be positioned within municipal organizational structures? For municipalities that already have a branch with responsibility for culture, at what point should they consider making a change? Is a complete overhaul necessary, or could more subtle changes achieve some of the same objectives with lower transitional costs?
We argue that municipal governments ought to consider the position of culture within their organizational structures within the context of municipal cultural planning and the increasingly complex and strategic role that municipalities are expected to play with respect to culture
We have considered the effects that culture’s organizational position can have on cultural planning and policy development, allocation of resources, strategic ‘visibility’ and effectiveness, knowledge management, collaborative endeavours, and the relationship between the municipality and the community with respect to culture
Summary
In Canada, municipal governments are sometimes referred to as ‘creatures of the province’. The role of these local governments is often associated with so-called ‘hard infrastructure’ (e.g. roads, bridges, and sewers), along with a few basic services like wastewater treatment and garbage collection and administration of some provincially mandated programs. Municipalities began to be expected to provide recreation and leisure services in the post-WWII period. This stemmed from an agreement between the federal and provincial governments to encourage ‘fitness,’ broadly defined to include “social, cultural, moral, and physical aspects” In Ontario, during the 1950s and 1960s, the province supported “the creation of municipal recreation departments; the hiring of municipal recreation directors; the development of resource materials in arts and crafts, music, drama, social recreation, physical recreation and sports; and the establishment of English and citizenship classes for new Canadians” (Karlis, 2011, p. 43)
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