Civic metropolitan regionalism: The politics of competitive multiculturalism in Toronto

Building on and contributing to debates in critical political economy, geographically informed state theory, and political sociology, this dissertation analyzes the politics and practices of the Greater Toronto Civic Action Alliance (formerly known as the Toronto City Summit Alliance) and the Toronto Region Immigrant Employment Council (TRIEC) as strategies of state rescaling and the creation of "new state spaces" (Brenner 2004) in Canada. The civic metropolitan regionalism promoted by the two organizations is used to highlight the rise of a new economic localism (Rose 2000) and the promotion of new forms of social development and governance innovation at the city-regional level in Canada. The project traces the emergence of new governance structures and processes that have developed alongside---and as part of---neoliberalism and highlights the role of particular elite actors in these structures and their implication for undermining processes of democratic accountability. The project uncovers the political constitution of subnational spaces of governance in the historical context of the dismantling of national frameworks of territorial-economic governance and social regulation. It analyzes processes of neoliberalization within the Canadian urban context, in particular the heightened emphasis on promoting city-regions as competitive engines of the Canadian national economy within the historical context of North American economic integration. The project is based on a combination of document reviews, news media analysis and interviews with actors involved in Toronto's civic regionalism and the immigrant settlement sector. The argument developed here is that a new politics of competitive multiculturalism promoted through Toronto's civic regionalism is part of a wider process of neoliberalization within the Canadian urban context. The Toronto case study demonstrates that the politics and practices of competitive multiculturalism are rolled out through voluntary business-driven initiatives and are characterized by a shift from state-led employment equity and anti-discrimination efforts to a market-based and meritocratic approach to recognizing immigrant skills and promoting ethno-cultural diversity as a strategy to enhance a city-region's economic competitiveness.