Project C 10 - Municipal Government Support of the Social Economy Sector

The purpose of this study is to research the current state of municipal government involvement in and support of the social economy sector. The social economy sector can offer innovative responses to the complex social and economic challenges that municipalities face. As the level of government closest to people and communities, municipal governments can play a lead role in supporting the social economy sector. This research into the role of municipal government in the social economy will help us to understand their intermediary role, and identify opportunities for strengthening this role.This research project will explore municipal government support of the social economy sector in a Canadian context, with an emphasis on BC, Alberta and the Prairies and Northern Ontario. This is a collaboration between the BC-AB node and the Prairie node of the Canadian Social Economy Hub with conceptual support for the research from CCEDNet. The research will: -Take into account the working definitions of the social economy in both nodes and CCEDNet to arrive at one that is effective for research across both research groups and understandable to the municipalities; - Take into account the larger literature scan on municipal aspects of SE being developed by Dr. Mendell’s research group at Concordia; - Take into account the classification framework relevant to policy research in the fields of CED and the social economy being developed by SERC 3; and - Take into account the examples of municipal participation that turn up in the mapping processes being developed in both nodes