The road to innovation, convergence or inertia: Devolution in housing policy in Canada

The focus of this paper is on housing policy in Canada since 1945 with a pa rticular emphasis on the period since 1986 when the federal government bega n its withdrawal from housing policy. The paper applies existing theories o f policy change, namely innovation, convergence, policy learning, and polic y inheritance to the five phases of housing policy that have occurred in po stwar Canada. It also incorporates two surveys of provincial housing policy conducted by the authors in 1994 and 1997 to assess the changes that have occurred since the federal government withdrawal in 1996. The analysis sugg ests that within a broader model of the policy process which deals with bot h periods of change and non-change, the theories of change can explain prev ious periods of activism, but the model can also explain the current period which can best be described by inertia. This inertia is understandable bec ause the preceding conditions for change which existed in the earlier phase s of housing policy are largely absent today.