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

Alberta Alberta is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Canada. It is a part of Western Canada and is one of the three Canadian Prairies, prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to its west, Saskatchewan to its east, t ...

does not have an official municipal status type of ''regional municipality''. However, that has not prevented one municipality from branding itself as one. Wood Buffalo, formed as a specialized municipality on April 1, 1995, through the amalgamation of the City of Fort McMurray and Improvement District No. 143, changed its official name from ''Municipality of Wood Buffalo'' to ''Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo'' on August 14, 1996, while maintaining its ''specialized municipality'' status.

British Columbia

There is only one regional municipality in British Columbia, the Northern Rockies Regional Municipality (NRRM), formerly a regional district of the same name. Unlike other Canadian regional municipalities it is near-entirely wilderness and has only one "urban" centre, the former Town of Fort Nelson. Only sparsely populated outside Fort Nelson, it is vast in extent, covering the northeastern corner of the province north of the 58th Parallel, from the Grand Canyon of the Liard on the west to the Alberta boundary on the east. 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 Nova Scotia, regional municipalities are a single level of government, and provide all municipal services to their communities. As they include both urban centres and rural areas, they are not called cities, towns or villages. Such municipalities in Nova Scotia take over the area and name of a county. Counties still exist as a geographic division but may contain a single municipality or may be divided into municipal districts within them.

Ontario

Ontario Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...

, 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 services such as

police The police are Law enforcement organization, a constituted body of Law enforcement officer, people empowered by a State (polity), state with the aim of Law enforcement, enforcing the law and protecting the Public order policing, public order ...

protection, waste management and (in some RMs) public transit. Similar to counties, they also provide infrastructure for major roads, sewers, and

bridge A bridge is a structure built to Span (engineering), span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or railway) without blocking the path underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, whi ...

s and also handle social services. Organization of regional government has occasionally been controversial, as council membership is sometimes determined by the constituent municipalities rather than elected directly. The province's first regional municipality, the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto, was created in 1954, by severing

Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

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 Ottawa is the capital city of Canada. It is located in the southern Ontario, southern portion of the province of Ontario, at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the cor ...

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 Mike Harris subsequently dissolved four regional municipalities with a dominant central city that formed metropolitan areas into amalgamated single-tier cities. In 1998, the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto became the amalgamated City of Toronto, and in 2001, three other regional municipalities—Ottawa–Carleton, Hamilton–Wentworth and Sudbury—were similarly amalgamated into the single-tier cities of Ottawa, Hamilton and

Greater Sudbury Sudbury, officially the City of Greater Sudbury, is the largest city in Northern Ontario by population, with a population of 166,004 at the 2021 Canadian Census. By land area, it is the largest in Ontario and the List of the largest cities and t ...

. The Harris government also split the Regional Municipality of Haldimand–Norfolk (an anomalous predominantly-rural RM) into two separate single-tier municipalities—the Town of Haldimand and the Town of Norfolk, which immediately changed their names to Haldimand County and Norfolk County. In January 2019, the provincial government announced a review of the eight regional municipalities in the province ( Durham, Halton, Muskoka, Niagara,

Oxford Oxford () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and non-metropolitan district in Oxfordshire, England, of which it is the county town. The city is home to the University of Oxford, the List of oldest universities in continuou ...

, Peel, Waterloo, and

York York is a cathedral city in North Yorkshire, England, with Roman Britain, Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers River Ouse, Yorkshire, Ouse and River Foss, Foss. It has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a Yor ...

) and Simcoe County, as well as their constituent lower-tier municipalities. 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. 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.

Quebec

Quebec Quebec is Canada's List of Canadian provinces and territories by area, largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with the provinces of Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, ...

, '' 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.

References