The term regional county municipality or RCM ( French : municipalité régionale de comté, MRC ) is used in Quebec , Canada to refer to one of 87 county -like political entities. In some older English translations they were called county regional municipality .
26-643: Regional county municipalities are a supralocal type of regional municipality , and act as the local municipality in unorganized territories within their borders. The system of regional county municipalities was introduced beginning in 1979 to replace the historic counties of Quebec . In most cases, the territory of an RCM corresponds to that of a census division ; however, there are a few exceptions. Some local municipalities are outside any regional county municipality ( hors MRC ). This includes some municipalities within urban agglomerations and also some aboriginal lands, such as Indian reserves that are enclaves within
52-411: A geographic division but may contain a single municipality or may be divided into municipal districts within them. 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
78-458: A unique five-digit geographical code. The first two digits are the code of the census division in which the municipality is located. For a list of all municipalities in Quebec together with their legal status , geographical code and date of incorporation, see List of the official municipalities of Québec , Institut de la Statistique du Québec (ISQ). The ISQ includes the six Indian settlements in
104-602: Is a general-purpose administrative subdivision, as opposed to a special-purpose district . The English word is derived from French municipalité , which in turn derives from the Latin municipalis , based on the word for social contract ( municipium ), referring originally to the Latin communities that supplied Rome with troops in exchange for their own incorporation into the Roman state (granting Roman citizenship to
130-560: Is divided into 98 CDs, each of which is assigned a unique two-digit geographical code. For the most part, Census Divisions consist of a single RCM or TE (territory equivalent to an RCM), exactly as defined above. The only exceptions are five census divisions divided into 11 RCMs or TEs, two or three each. For a list, see List of regional county municipalities and equivalent territories in Quebec used as census divisions . All local municipalities, equivalent Aboriginal territories, Indian settlements and unorganized territories in Quebec are assigned
156-776: 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 protection, waste management and (in some RMs) public transit . Similar to counties, they also provide infrastructure for major roads , sewers , and bridges and also handle social services . Organization of regional government has occasionally been controversial, as council membership
182-567: 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
208-542: 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 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
234-418: Is usually elected by and from the council by secret ballot. Universal suffrage may also be used. The warden's term is two years when elected by council or four years when elected by universal suffrage. A MRC must: RCMs, in their definition as political units, do not cover the entire territory of Quebec. The local municipalities of Quebec (and equivalent Aboriginal territories) not belonging to an RCM fall into
260-670: The state . Municipalities may have the right to tax individuals and corporations with income tax , property tax , and corporate income tax , but may also receive substantial funding from the state. In some European countries, such as Germany, municipalities have the constitutional right to supply public services through municipally-owned public utility companies . Terms cognate with "municipality", mostly referring to territory or political structure, are Spanish municipio (Spain) and municipalidad (Chile), Catalan municipi , Portuguese município . In many countries, terms cognate with "commune" are used, referring to
286-414: The "county" level of government for the entire province since the early 1980s. Municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term municipality may also mean the governing body of a given municipality. A municipality
SECTION 10
#1732772527133312-589: 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 . 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
338-558: 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 , Peel , Waterloo , and York ) 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
364-534: The community living in the area and the common interest. These include terms: The same terms "Gemeente" (Dutch) or "Gemeinde" (German) may be used for church congregations or parishes, for example, in the German and Dutch Protestant churches. In Greece, the word Δήμος ( demos ) is used, also meaning 'community'; the word is known in English from the compound democracy (rule of the people). In some countries,
390-513: The following categories: For provincial statistical purposes, the Institut de la Statistique du Québec uses the following system so that the entire territory of Quebec is divided into 104 units known as municipalités régionales de comté géographiques (MRCG) "geographical regional county municipalities". Indian reserves which would, but for their status as Indian reserves, belong to a certain RCM in
416-501: The inhabitants) while permitting the communities to retain their own local governments (a limited autonomy). A municipality can be any political jurisdiction , from a sovereign state such as the Principality of Monaco , to a small village such as West Hampton Dunes, New York . The territory over which a municipality has jurisdiction may encompass: Powers of municipalities range from virtual autonomy to complete subordination to
442-422: 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
468-540: The list, whereas the Répertoire des municipalités of the Ministère des Affaires municipales et régionales does not list them as separate from the legal municipalities or unorganized territories in which they are located. Both sources include all other types of Aboriginal communities. Regional municipality A regional municipality (or region ) is a type of Canadian municipal government similar to and at
494-623: The majority of the division's area and population. Alberta 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. There
520-489: 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. In Quebec , regional county municipalities or RCMs ( French , municipalités régionales de comté, MRC ) have constituted
546-463: The political sense are included in the geographical RCM corresponding to that RCM. There are 86 MRCGs of this kind, one for each RCM. The rest of the province is grouped into 16 " territories equivalent to an RCM " (French: territoires équivalents à une MRC or territoires équivalents , abbreviated TÉ ), which are also considered to be MRCGs. This is done as follows. Census divisions (CDs) are used for statistical purposes by Statistics Canada. Quebec
SECTION 20
#1732772527133572-620: 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,
598-479: The regional municipality does not include Indian Reserves or their governments. 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
624-1113: 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
650-454: The territory of an RCM but not juridically part of it. Where complete territorial coverage is desired, for example for the census, the Indian reserve enclaves are added in to create "geographical RCMs", and the urban agglomerations are considered to be "territories equivalent to an RCM". The council of a RCM is composed of the mayors of the member municipalities as well as the warden. The warden
676-449: 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 Mike Harris subsequently dissolved four regional municipalities with a dominant central city that formed metropolitan areas into amalgamated single-tier cities. In 1998,
#132867