Restoring the “Regional” to Regional Policy: A Regional Typology of Western Canada

Abstract

The analysis and definition of economic regions at the sub-provincial scale is a neglected policy issue in Canada notwithstanding the severity and persistence of disparities in regional growth. Employment growth in the 30 Economic Regions (ERs) of Western Canada 2001–2006 is partitioned into region and industry-mix effects and the resulting regional typology identified. Western Canada became a single development-region in 1988, a quarter of a century ago, with a single policy focus of diversifying its industry-mix. However, its ERs display great diversity in their economic structure and growth rates and they have experienced both the highest and the lowest employment growth rates in Canada. Regional diversity creates policy quandaries that require development policies crafted to individual regional opportunities and needs in place of the one-size-fits-all approach of Western Economic Diversification Canada.

Economic shock and regional resilience: Continuity and change in Canada's regional employment structure, 1987–2012

“…A new partitioning model termed multifactor partitioning (MFP) has been developed to correct these errors and to partition growth into two or more variables (Ray, 1990). This analysis therefore joins the growing list of applications of MFP (Barbonne, 2003;Breathnach et al, 2015;Gardiner et al, 2013;Lagravinese, 2015;Lamarche et al, 2003;Ray, 1990Ray, , 1996Ray et al, 2012Ray et al, , 2013. It follows Gardiner et al (2013) and Lagravinese (2015) in tracking the MFP effects cumulatively for each successive period, which in this study is from 1987-1988 to 1987-2012. Using the same base year (1987) ensures comparability of the rates for each period.…”

Regional income disparities in Canada: exploring the geographical dimensions of an old debate

“…By emphasizing the continuously shifting nature of regional disparities in Canada, our results show that standard approaches to the study of convergence at the provincial level miss out on important geographical patterns. Our findings also add a voice to the growing calls for renewed efforts at developing a 'place-based' policy framework where spatially aware regional development policies are balanced with other, more general, 'place-neutral' (or spatially blind) policies in areas such as education and training, health and social capital (Alasia, 2003;Bradford, 2005;Barca, McCann, & Rodríguez-Pose, 2012;Ray et al, 2013). As Polèse recently argues: 'nothing really changes if all places adopt similar strategies' (Polèse, 2013, p. 252).…”

“…By 2006, 60% of significant associations fell into the LL category, with most of the increased clustering of these low-low regions (i.e., 89% of all LL regions) concentrated in Quebec (e.g., the côte Nord and Gaspésie regions) and the Atlantic provinces (e.g., New Brunswick's Northeastern peninsula, Nova Scotia's Bay of Fundy and South shore regions, and Newfoundland's central and western regions). Changes in the spatial distribution of HH associations are marked by losses in the northern regions of Ontario and Quebec and rural regions of British Columbia, which are ultimately offset by a greater concentration of 'richer' regions in Alberta where incomes continued to be buoyed by the westward shift in manufacturing employment (Ray et al, 2013) and the growth of extractive industries (though the distribution of incomes within many of these 'oil patch' regions is increasingly uneven (e.g., Bolton and Breau, 2012;Breau, Kogler, & Bolton, 2014). The top/bottom 10 regions based on average total income for 1996 and 2006 are reported in Appendix A.…”

“…Existing studies of income disparities in Canada have focused almost exclusively on provincial-level differentials. This is so mainly because statistical, political and administrative convenience has dictated the use of provincial boundaries and data for policy purposes (Mansell & Copithorne, 1986;Ray, Lamarche, & MacLachlan, 2013). However, if analysis of provincial-level data is particularly useful in identifying long-term convergence trajectories, the trade-off is that studies at such a geographical scale can mask important underlying spatial patterns in regional disparities.…”

In the Footsteps of Mackintosh and Innis: Tracking Canada’s Economic Centre of Gravity since the Great Depression

“…In 2010, the figure was 36 percent." Other studies point to western Canada's more dynamic labour markets (with lower unemployment rates and higher participation rates than the national average), faster population growth, slower aging demographic, higher levels of private capital investments and a rising proportion of corporate head offices (Beckstead and Brown 2006;Ray et al 2013;Siddiq and Babins 2013). In the end, the evidence converges towards a commonly held view: the westward shift in the country's economic centre has been a steady drift, now decades old (Berdahl and Gibbins 2014).…”