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Time for Municipal Elder Rights Law: An Anglo-Canadian Perspective*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 March 2010

Israel Doron
Israel Doron*
Affiliation:
University of Haifa
*
Requests for offprints should be sent to:/Les demandes de tirés-à-part doivent être adressées à: Israel Doron, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Gerontology and the School for Social Work, University of Haifa, Haifa 31905, Israel, ([email protected])
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Abstract

In an age of globalization and privatization, local governments and municipalities are searching to define their social role and place. In an aging society such as Canada, arguing that promoting the legal rights of older persons should be part of the legal authority of the municipal government is not simple. It is easier to abide by the position that, without an efficient centralized machinery, social and environmental problems will remain unsolved or unaddressed.

This article presents a different understanding of the place of municipal government in Canada. The goal of this article is to present an original legal-policy argument: It is time for local communities and local governments in Canada to use their legal authorities to enact local bylaws that define and establish the rights of their older citizens. The argument maintains that local municipalities hold the legal power and the social potential to make a significant contribution in the legal sphere for promotion of the rights of older people, and that this power has been neglected.

The article supports the argument on three pillars: (1) an empirical analysis of bylaws in different municipalities across Canada; (2) a socio-legal analysis of the advantages of municipal law as a tool for social change; (3) a case analysis of a recent municipal legal reform in British Columbia.

Résumé

En cette ère de mondialisation et de privatisation, les gouvernements locaux et les municipalités cherchent à définir leur rôle et leur place dans la société. Dans une société vieillissante comme le Canada, faire valoir que les droits juridiques des aînés devraient faire partie du fondement juridique des obligations municipales n'est pas simple. Il est moins compliqué de soutenir que sans une machine centralisée efficace les problèmes sociaux et environnementaux demeureront insolubles ou non traités.

Le présent article propose une idée différente de la place de l'administration municipale au Canada. L'article vise à présenter un argument original en politique juridique: il est temps que les communautés locales et les gouvernements locaux au Canada utilisent leur droits fondamentaux pour adopter des règlements locaux qui définissent et établissent les droits des citoyens âgés. L'oargument maintient que les municipalités locales détiennent le pouvoir légal et le potentiel social leur permettant d'oapporter une contribution importante à la promotion des droits des aînés dans la sphère politique, et que ce pouvoir a été jusqu'oà maintenant négligé.

L'oarticle soutient l'oargument de trois façons: 1) une analyse empirique des règlements existants dans diverses municipalités du Canada; 2) une analyse socio-légale des avantages de la loi municipale comme outil de changement social; et 3) une analyse par cas d'oune récente réforme des lois municipales dans la province de la Colombie-Britannique.

Keywords

vieillissementloi municipale sur les aînésloi sur les aînésgouvernement localdroits des aînésla loi et le vieillissementagingmunicipal elder lawelder lawlocal governmentseniors'o rightslaw and aging
Type
Policy and Practice Note/Note sur la politique et la pratique
Information
Canadian Journal on Aging / La Revue canadienne du vieillissement , Volume 27 , Issue 3 , Fall/Automne 2008 , pp. 301 - 313
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Association on Gerontology 2008

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Footnotes

*

The author wishes to thank the Canadian Centre for Elder Law Studies (CCELS) and the Minerva Center for Human Rights at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, for their financial support of this study. Specifically, the author would like to thank his research assistants, Lisa Mackie and Mike Fulton, law students from CCELS.

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