The Province of Quebec is divided into entities that deliver local government, along with other types of functional divisions.
The primary level of local organization is the local municipality. This general term includes specific types 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 via property 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 over public 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 example urban agglomeration, regional county municipality, or metropolitan community. Montreal, Quebec City, Longueuil, Sherbrooke, Saguenay, Lévis, Métis-sur-Mer and Grenville-sur-la-Rouge are divided into arrondissements (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 the ex-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 the 2000–2006 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 the Urban 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 are unincorporated areas that are not part of any municipality. Municipal authority is exercised the MRC or equivalent to which they belong. [6]
The Nord-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 are 17 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 into census divisions, designated places, population centres, and economic regions.
The Ministry of Health and Social Services serves 18 health regions. [10]
There are federally-administrated Indian reserves, as well as northern villages and Inuit reserved lands, and Cree and Naskapi territories.
Canadian Forces bases in the province include CFB Valcartier, Proof and Experimental Test Establishment, CFB Montreal, and CFB Bagotville.
Quebec was divided into counties until the early 1980s when they were dissolved and the province was divided into regional county municipalities.
The Eastern Townships was an administrative region in southeastern Quebec. Since 1987, most of the area is within the administrative region Estrie, and the term Eastern Townships is now used in tourist literature.
The province is divided into 36 judicial districts.
Saguenay is a city in the Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean region of Quebec, Canada, on the Saguenay River, about 200 kilometres (120 mi) north of Quebec City by overland route. It is about 126 kilometres (78 mi) upriver and northwest of Tadoussac, located at the confluence with the St. Lawrence River. It was formed in 2002 by merging the cities of Chicoutimi and Jonquière and the town of La Baie. Chicoutimi was founded by French colonists in 1676. As of July 2021, the city had a population of 145,000 and the metropolitan area had a population of 165,000.
Nord-du-Québec is the largest, but the least populous, of the seventeen administrative regions of Quebec, Canada. With nearly 750,000 square kilometres (290,000 sq mi) of land area, and very extensive lakes and rivers, it covers much of the Labrador Peninsula and about 55% of the total land surface area of Quebec, while containing a little more than 0.5% of the population.
The census geographic units of Canada are the census subdivisions defined and used by Canada's federal government statistics bureau Statistics Canada to conduct the country's quinquennial census. These areas exist solely for the purposes of statistical analysis and presentation; they have no government of their own. They exist on four levels: the top-level (first-level) divisions are Canada's provinces and territories; these are divided into second-level census divisions, which in turn are divided into third-level census subdivisions and fourth-level dissemination areas.
La Haute-Côte-Nord is a regional county municipality in northeastern Quebec, Canada, in the Côte-Nord region. It is located on the Gulf of Saint Lawrence where the Saguenay River flows into it. The seat is Les Escoumins. The municipality has a land area of 11,612.68 square kilometres (4,483.68 sq mi) and its population was 10,846 inhabitants as of the 2016 census. Its largest community is the city of Forestville.
Marguerite-D'Youville is a regional county municipality located in the Montérégie region of southwestern Quebec, Canada. The seat is in Verchères.
La Vallée-du-Richelieu(The Valley of the Richelieu) is a regional county municipality in the Montérégie region in southwestern Quebec, Canada. Its seat is McMasterville.
The term regional county municipality or RCM 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.
Montréal is one of the administrative regions of the Canadian province of Quebec. It is also a territory equivalent to a regional county municipality (TE) and a census division (CD), for both of which its geographical code is 66. Prior to the merger of the municipalities in Region 06 in 2002, the administrative region was co-extensive with the Montreal Urban Community.
Greater Montreal is the most populous metropolitan area in Quebec and the second most populous in Canada after Greater Toronto. In 2015, Statistics Canada identified Montreal's Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) as 4,258.31 square kilometres (1,644.14 sq mi) with a population of 4,027,100, almost half that of the province.
The Municipality of Baie-James was a municipality in northern Quebec, Canada, which existed from 1971 to 2012. Located to the east of James Bay, Baie-James covered 297,332.84 km2 (114,800.85 sq mi) of land, making it the largest incorporated municipality in Canada — only eight unorganized territories were larger. Its territory almost entirely covered the administrative region of Jamésie, although it contained less than five percent of the population. Essentially, it was the remainder of the Jamésie Territory's land after all of the major population centres were removed.
The South Shore is the general term for the suburbs of Montreal, Quebec located on the southern shore of the Saint Lawrence River opposite the Island of Montreal. The South Shore is located within the Quebec administrative region of Montérégie.
An agglomeration, or urban agglomeration, is an administrative division of Quebec at the local level that may group together a number of municipalities which were abolished as independent entities on 1 January 2002 but reconstituted on 1 January 2006.
The urban agglomeration of Longueuil was created on January 1, 2006 as a result of the de-amalgamation process brought upon by the Charest government. It encompasses all the boroughs that were merged into the previous city of Longueuil and still retains the same area as that mega-city.
The two metropolitan communities or CMs are multi-functional institutions of local government in the Canadian province of Quebec. They cover, respectively, the metropolitan areas of Greater Montreal and Quebec City.
A regional conference of representatives was a type of governance in an administrative region of Quebec.
An equivalent territory, formally known as territory equivalent to a regional county municipality, is a territorial unit used by Statistics Canada and the Institut de la statistique du Québec.
Champlain was a former regional county municipality and census division in the Canadian province of Quebec. It ceased to exist when it amalgamated into the expanded city of Longueuil on January 1, 2002.
Eeyou Istchee James Bay is a local municipality in the Jamésie (TE) in administrative region of Nord-du-Québec. Located to the east of James Bay, Eeyou Istchee James Bay covers 283,123.42 km2 (109,314.56 sq mi) of land, making it the largest incorporated municipality in Canada — only eight unorganized territories are larger. Its territory covers almost entirely the Equivalent territory of Jamésie.