Several investigations dealing with provincial-local relations in particular jurisdictions in Canada have been undertaken in recent years. The prevailing emphasis has been on the distribution of taxation sources and the revenues derived from these sources between the two levels of government and, to a lesser degree, on the related question of the allocation of responsibilities for particular services between the provincial and local governments. The clear implications of most of this discussion are that all would be well with our local authorities if they were assured of revenues commensurate with their responsibilities and that local officials and their representatives admit to few ailments which more generous subventions from the senior governments would not cure.
This paper attempts to focus attention on another aspect of central-local relations as strategic in determining the welfare of our local institutions as is the scale of central financial assistance. Characteristically, central governments not only provide a portion of the revenues expended by the local authorities within their boundaries but also engage in an extensive and varied range of activities to regulate, supervise, educate, and otherwise influence the conduct of elected and appointed local officials. Control, viewed broadly as any exercise of central influence, can take these forms: (1) legislative control, in which central influence is exerted through legislative enactments, and subordinate legislation issued under them, enjoining or requiring certain local activities or procedures; (2) judicial control, in which the central government requests a court of law to order particular local authorities or local officials to do or refrain from doing certain things as are allegedly required by law; (3) administrative control, in which elected or appointed officials of the central executive, acting within the authority conferred on. them by law, influence or attempt to influence the conduct of local governments.