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The Language of Community in Canada

Community has become an important theme in political rhetoric in Canada: building strong communities, partnership with community, strengthening community involvement. Such language has resonated in political campaigns and has increasingly been the basis of programming across the political spectrum and at federal, provincial and local levels of government. The activation of community by the state is framed as a response to the pressures of the information age, where traditional borders are becoming increasingly porous and the relevance of traditional systems of governance are called into question. Community is portrayed as a means by which individuals can remain connected to a larger collective and is portrayed as both a counterweight to the stark individuality of the free market and the bureaucratic subjugation of the welfare state. In this conception, membership and participation in community is less a function of demography or geography and more a matter of personal choice and agency in a world of multi-layered and diverse communities.

But what do we mean by ‘community’? How is a community defined and by whom? What are the dynamics at play when the state engages communities in the process of decision-making and governance?

This paper investigates these questions by exploring four dyadic themes which highlight the main contradictions present within the language of community in Canada: place/people; bottom up/top down; inclusion/exclusion; representation/participation. The background material for this paper was drawn from academic literature, case studies, government documents and materials produced by community development practitioners. In addition, this literature review was supplemented with ten interviews held with leaders, representatives, and active members of a variety of communities, including ‘traditional’ geographic and ‘virtual’ communities.