The governance of public space by legally unique bodies: A case study of Vancouver’s Granville Island

This article focuses on the governance of Granville Island, a former industrial stretch of land that operates as an arts destination abutting the City of Vancouver’s waterfront. While Granville Island might look like any other neighbourhood in Vancouver, it is in fact owned and managed by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, a federal agency, on behalf of the Government of Canada. This article examines what it means, democratically speaking, for the federal government to operate public space in a city. Public entities are each legally unique, raising questions as to how they and their relationships with other entities can be understood, evaluated and adjudicated. This article animates how public entities are understood under Canadian law by demonstrating the difficulty in crafting inclusive, participatory governance models that respond to the many interests involved in public space, especially spaces that are explicitly identified as ‘innovative’. Drawing on qualitative data and document review, the article highlights the manner in which Granville Island has been structured and operated by the federal government, its singular focus on commerce and tourism and its weak commitments to accountability, transparency and representation. Granville Island is rendered ‘invisible’ in its governance: it blends into the urban form as though part of the City of Vancouver, while at the same time lacking in accountability, transparency and representation. We conclude that while Granville Island governs public space, making it seem like a neighbourhood in a municipality, it cannot be conceptualised as a ‘democratic body’.