The Creation of Regional Dependency

Certain regions of Canada suffer chronically from social and economic underdevelopment. Economists, geographers, and sociologists have written voluminously about the problem; politicians and policy-makers have mounted grand schemes in a vain effort to rectify imbalances; and planners have created and implemented programs in order to satisfy political exigencies, vested power elites, or the discontent of the Canadian citizens who inhabit these regions.
 Matthews, in a lucid, systematic analysis of regionalism and regional underdevelopment in Canada (particularly Atlantic Canada), takes us through the academic cant, political puffery, and bureaucratic bumbling to show how regional disparity and regional underdevelopment are the result of exploitation by powerful central Canadian interests – often acting in concert with and aided by the federal government, and too often armed with theoretical models and justifications designed by ‘establishment’ economists to legitimate their self-interests.
He provides a devastating critique of the neo-classical economic and other models that have been created to analyse regional disparities, and in their place champions an approach that rejects economic determinism and structural determinism. He maintains that individuals bring about change and development and individuals, he asserts, are capable of acting in the general interest and not simply out of class interest.
The Creation of Regional Dependency makes a landmark contribution to our understanding of the causes of regional dependency in this country and original contribution to the study of Canadian society.

David Ralph Matthews is Associate Dean, Graduate Studies, McMaster University.