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]
Elections are held across the province on the same day in every municipality every four years.[2]
Agglomerations
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]
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.
Supralocal organizations
Regional county municipalities
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.
The three territories equivalent to a regional county municipality
The Nord-du-Québec is divided into three territories each equivalent to a regional municipality:
The Kativik Regional Government offers regional services to 14 northern villages and associated Inuit reserved lands as well as the Naskapi village municipality of Kawawachikamach. The Cree village Whapmagoostui, on the eastern shore of Hudson Bay, is an enclave and does not participate in the Kativik Regional Government.
Jamésie: the four towns of Jamésie are not covered by a regional government, and supply their own services. It surrounds but does not administer the towns of Chibougamau, Chapais, Lebel-sur-Quévillon, and Matagami, as well as the unconstituted localities of Radisson, Valcanton, and Villebois.
Eeyou Istchee James Bay Regional Government, offers regional services to its nine Cree village municipalities and their associated reserved lands. It an uncontiguous territory enclaved within Jamésie.
Metropolitan communities
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:
The Communauté métropolitaine de Montréal comprises 82 municipalities,[7] encompassing four RCMs and parts of another six RCMs. The council is chaired by the mayor of Montreal.[2] The CMM contains four RCMs and overlaps with six.
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.