“It’s the system”: The Movement for Citizens Voice and Action, Community Activism, and the Local Initiatives Program, 1971-1973

The Local Initiatives Program (LIP) illustrates the problematic character of the relationship between the liberal state and community activists during the early 1970s in Halifax. The LIP was part of a new trajectory of federal programs that was intended to facilitate community and participatory action while addressing unemployment. The Movement for Citizens Voice and Action (MOVE), a coalition of community and social action groups that came together in the Halifax area during the early 1970s, initially made use of LIP funding to support its objectives. Its interaction with the LIP carried with it, however, a series of unforeseen and problematic effects.