TheProvince of Quebec is divided into entities that deliverlocal government, along with other types of functional divisions.
The primary level of local organization is thelocal municipality. This general term includes specifictypes of municipalities in Quebec such as city or town, municipality, village, parish, township, and northern village.
Municipal governments are authorities that are elected locally to provide services that are best managed locally. Revenue for services is mostly raised viaproperty taxes[1] and other local sources.[2] They are created by the province under the Cities and Towns Act[3] and the Municipal Code of Québec.[4]
Municipalities have power overpublic transport,fire protection and emergency,municipal court,drinking water, sewage, and rubbish collection. Shared powers with the province include housing, roads, police, recreation and culture, parks, and urban planning.[2]
Quebec has a multi-tier system, with a layer of government between the municipality and the province, for exampleurban agglomeration,regional county municipality, ormetropolitan community.Montreal,Quebec City,Longueuil,Sherbrooke,Saguenay,Lévis,Métis-sur-Mer andGrenville-sur-la-Rouge are divided intoarrondissements (boroughs), sub-municipal entities that have mayors and councillors.
Elections are held across the province on the same day in every municipality every four years.[2]
Urban agglomerations (UA) are collections of municipalities with certain shared services, managed by the agglomeration council. The council is formed from elected officials from all of the municipalities, and votes are weighted according to the relative population of each municipality.[2] Each agglomeration contains a "central municipality" which has extended powers; the mayor of the central municipality becomes theex-officio mayor of the agglomeration council.[5] The UAs of Montréal, Québec, and Longueuil have each been delegated powers usually reserved for regional county municipalities.[2]
The urban agglomerations are:[5]
Urban agglomerations came into effect after the2000–2006 municipal reorganization in Quebec, which saw the provincial government merging municipalities in large cities against the wishes of many of the municipalities, themselves.
Regional county municipalities coordinate among neighbouring municipalities on services. There are 86 in total.[2] Most municipalities belong to an RCM. None of the municipalities in theUrban agglomeration of Montreal are in an RCM. Other municipalities have certain powers usually reserved for RCMs, including Québec,Saguenay,Trois-Rivières, Longueuil,Lévis,Shawinigan,Sherbrooke,Laval,Mirabel,Rouyn-Noranda,Gatineau, Les Îles-de-la-Madeleine and La Tuque.
RCMs have responsibility for territorial planning, realty assessment, waste management, emergency planning, local economic development and employment assistance as well as local financing of the local development centre or CLD.
The powers of the RCM are exercised by the RCM council.[6] It is composed of the mayors of each of the member municipalities and possibly other elected municipal officials as well as a warden.[2] Depending on the RCM, a warden can either be appointed by the council (in which case the warden must be one of the mayors) or elected by universal suffrage (in which case they cannot hold any other elective office).
The voting strength of each municipality on the council is determined in part by its population, but a formula is used to prevent a small number of large municipalities from making decisions unilaterally.
Unorganized territories areunincorporated areas that are not part of any municipality. Municipal authority is exercised the MRC or equivalent to which they belong.[6]
TheNord-du-Québec is divided into three territories each equivalent to a regional municipality:
Metropolitan communities have responsibility for areas of common interest to their constituent municipalities such as urban planning, economic development, promotion of international trade, artistic and cultural development, public transportation and waste management. Each CM also has specific areas of jurisdiction defined by the legislation governing it.
There are two metropolitan communities or CMs in Quebec:
There are17 administrative regions of Quebec.[9] They have no government, but serve to organize the provision of provincial services. They are:
Statistics Canada divides the province intocensus divisions,designated places,population centres, and economic regions.
TheMinistry of Health and Social Services serves 18 health regions.[10]
There are federally-administratedIndian reserves, as well asnorthern villages and Inuit reserved lands, andCree and Naskapi territories.
Canadian Forces bases in the province includeCFB Valcartier,Proof and Experimental Test Establishment,CFB Montreal, andCFB Bagotville.
Quebec was divided intocounties until the early 1980s when they were dissolved and the province was divided intoregional county municipalities.
TheEastern Townships was an administrative region in southeastern Quebec. Since 1987, most of the area is within the administrative regionEstrie, and the term Eastern Townships is now used in tourist literature.
The province is divided into36 judicial districts.
