Regional municipality
This article needs additional citations for verification. (February 2011) |
A regional municipality (or region) is a type of Canadian municipal government similar to and at the same municipal government level as a county, although the specific structure and servicing responsibilities may vary from place to place. Regional municipalities were formed in highly populated areas where it was considered more efficient to provide certain services, such as water, emergency services, and waste management over an area encompassing more than one local municipality. For this reason, regions may be involved in providing services to residents and businesses.
Regional municipalities, where and when they include lower-tier municipalities within their boundaries, are sometimes referred to as upper-tier municipalities. Regional municipalities generally have more servicing responsibilities than counties. Typical services include maintenance and construction of arterial roads (including urban areas), transit, policing, sewer and water systems, waste disposal, region-wide land-use planning and development and health and social services.
Regions are more urbanized than counties and are implemented in census divisions where an interconnected cluster of urban centres forms the majority of the division's area and population.
Alberta
British Columbia
There is only one regional municipality in British Columbia, the
Regional districts, which cover most of the rest of the province, are technically municipalities, though containing other municipalities within them. In the NRRM the government of the former Fort Nelson and the regional municipality are merged. Like regional districts, the regional municipality does not include Indian Reserves or their governments.
Nova Scotia
In
Ontario
In Ontario, regional municipalities always contain lower-tier municipalities within them and were created to provide common services to mixed urban and rural divisions in the way that counties typically provide common services to fully rural municipalities (this paradoxically gives many of the largest urban areas in the province a subtle semi-rural character, such as the presence of numbered "county" roads with rural-type signage within them). Today, only certain predominantly urban divisions containing two or more urban municipalities but lack a defined core city are given the status of a regional municipality; most census divisions instead retain the status of a county or a district. However, there is one district municipality, the District Municipality of Muskoka that has the same structure as a regional municipality, but is predominantly rural or wilderness.
The specific relationship of a regional government and the cities, towns, townships and villages within its borders is determined by provincial legislation; typically the regional municipality provides many core
The province's first regional municipality, the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto, was created in 1954, by severing Toronto and its surrounding suburban townships from the southern portion of York County. It was the only regional municipality in the province until the Regional Municipality of Ottawa–Carleton was created in 1969 by restructuring Ottawa and the whole of Carleton County. Between 1970 and 1974, several more regional municipalities were created by the government of Bill Davis, mostly by restructuring the entirety of existing counties.
The later government of
The Harris government also split the
In January 2019, the provincial government announced a review of the eight regional municipalities in the province (Durham, Halton, Muskoka, Niagara, Oxford, Peel, Waterloo, and York) and Simcoe County, as well as their constituent lower-tier municipalities.[3] The review will be headed by special advisers Ken Seiling and Michael Fenn, who will conduct consultations with politicians, civil servants, business owners, and residents of the nine affected municipalities.[4]
In 2022, the More Homes Built Faster Act received royal assent and will remove most planning responsibilities from seven upper-tier municipalities (Durham, Halton, Niagara, Peel, Simcoe, Waterloo, and York) at a still undetermined date.[5]
Quebec
In Quebec, regional county municipalities or RCMs (French, municipalités régionales de comté, MRC) have constituted the "county" level of government for the entire province since the early 1980s.
See also
- History of cities in Canada
- Origins of names of cities in Canada
- List of cities and towns of Upper Canada
- List of city nicknames in Canada
- List of cities in North America
- List of the largest cities and towns in Canada by area
- List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population
- List of the largest population centres in Canada
- List of metropolitan areas in Canada
- List of largest Canadian cities by census
- Population of Canada by province and territory
- Population of Canada by year
- List of cities in Canada
- List of towns in Canada
References
- Alberta Municipal Affairs. January 5, 2022. Retrieved January 21, 2022.
- Alberta Municipal Affairs (2010-11-15). "Municipal Profile – Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo". Retrieved 2010-11-17.
- ^ Kopun, Francince (15 January 2019). "Special advisers named to review Ontario regional municipalities called 'honest, thorough, fair'". Toronto Star. Retrieved 16 January 2019.
- ^ Boisvert, Nick Boisvert (15 January 2019). "Ontario reviewing regional governments, raising prospect of future amalgamations". CBC News. Retrieved 16 January 2019.
- ^ "More Homes Built Faster Act, 2022".