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The Present System of Local Government in Canada: Some Problems of Status, Area, Population, and Resources*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 November 2014

K. Callard
K. Callard*
Affiliation:
McGill University
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Extract

The limitations imposed upon the central and provincial governments by the Canadian federal system have been discussed elsewhere in some detail. But almost no attention has been paid to those difficulties of maintaining an efficient structure of local government which arise from the prior existence of two superior tiers of administration. This does not imply that there has been no interest in local government, but that interest has been partial and spasmodic. Many theories have been formed concerning the role of the provinces, but few have examined the proper role of municipalities. There could be no constitutional argument to focus opinion: local government lies unequivocally within the realm of provincial power, and in an age and a country where legal dispute and politics have gone hand in hand, the affairs of roads and sewers, dog-catchers and relieving officers have seemed prosaic and uninteresting. Education is in a class of its own, for it has been elevated to the arena of constitutional conflict. Outside that arena educational administration has been the concern of only a few interested groups.

Local government has no deep historical roots in Canada. It was discouraged by the French administration, and no counterpart to the New England town meeting appeared. After the Revolution, British policy was hostile to any local demonstrations of independent action. Lord Durham regarded this as a major weakness, and Lord Sydenham set about remedying the deficiency.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science/Revue canadienne de economiques et science politique , Volume 17 , Issue 2 , May 1951 , pp. 204 - 217
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association 1951

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Footnotes

*

This paper was presented to the Royal Society of Canada at its meeting in Kingston, June, 1950.

References

1 British North America Act, 1867. 30 Vic., c. 3, s. 92(8).

2 The Report of the Earl of Durham (London: Methuen, 1905), 211.Google Scholar

3 Knaplund, Paul, ed., Letters from Lord Sydenham, Governor-General of Canada, 1839-1841, to Lord John Russell (1931), 75.Google Scholar

4 The county system exists only in Quebec and Ontario, although counties are used in New Brunswick as simple rural municipalities. Some of the counties in Nova Scotia are also constituted as municipalities.

5 Confederation Debates, 1865, e.g. Hon. A. T. Galt, 70.

6 It should be remembered that the administrative county does not include the county borough (city). Figures are from Local Government Boundary Commission Report, 1947, H.C. 86 (1948).

7 Unless otherwise indicated all references to population figures are taken from Census of Canada, 1941.

8 Canada Year Book, 1948–1949, 43.Google Scholar

9 Such guarantees are a recognition of a problem though they have seldom been able to withstand the ingenuity of the state politician.

10 Greater Montreal with 34 per cent of the population of Quebec has 20 per cent of the seats in the Legislature.

11 No such survey has yet been published, but Professor Crawford, K. G. of Queen's University has prepared a mimeographed study, “Local Government in Canada” (1949)Google Scholar, which contains a great deal of invaluable material.

12 Dominion Bureau of Statistics, Finance Statistics Branch, Report on Dominion-Provincial Conference on Municipal Statistics (1937), 2.Google Scholar

13 Buck, A. E., Financing Canadian Government (Chicago, 1949), 315ff.Google Scholar For details of financial procedure, with special reference to Ontario, see Wrenshall, C. M., Municipal Administration and Accounting (Toronto, 1947).Google Scholar

14 Dominion Bureau of Statistics, Dominion-Provincial Conference on Municipal Statistics in Canada: Classification of Different Types of Local Government Units in Canada (1940).Google Scholar

15 Figures are for nine provinces. Goldenberg, H. C., Municipal Finance in Canada (Ottawa, 1939), 12, Table II.Google Scholar

16 Canada Year Book, 1948–1949, 310.Google Scholar

17 Crawford, “Local Government,” 48a, Table 5.

18 Unless otherwise stated, all population figures are for 1941.

19 Figures based on Census of Canada, 1941, II, Tables 10, 15.

20 For comparative population figures see Local Government Boundary Commission Report, 1947, 4-5.

21 Ibid., 4.

22 In 1941 there were 78 urban municipalities exceeding 10,000 population, containing a total of 4,544,346 persons, or 38.52 per cent of the Canadian population. Canada Year Book, 1948–1949, 143.Google Scholar

23 Frood Mines District of Sudbury, population 60; area 912 acres. Figures used in this paragraph are from Province of Ontario, Department of Municipal Affairs, 1949 Municipal Directory.

24 Port Carling, District of Muskoka, population 510; area 3,890 acres.

25 Newburgh, County of Lennox and Addington, population 500; area 3,200 acres.

26 York Township, population 90,108; area 5,050 acres; density, approximately 17.8 per acre. York East Township, population 53,552; area 3,742 acres; density, approximately 14.3 per acre.

27 Dysart et al. Township, County of Haliburton, population 2,694; area 391,033 acres; density approximately 1 per 145 acres. Dalton Township, County of Victoria, population 217; area 41,600 acres; density approximately 1 per 191 acres. Drury, Denison, and Graham Townships, District of Sudbury, population 495; area 130,880 acres; density approximately 1 per 264 acres.

28 Mattawan Township, District of Nipissing, population 86; area 10,370 acres.

29 Province of Nova Scotia, Department of Municipal Affairs, Annual Report of Municipal Statistics, 1947 (1948).Google Scholar

30 Province of British Columbia, Department of Municipal Affairs, Report (1949).Google Scholar

31 Province of Alberta, Department of Municipal Affairs, Annual Report, 1947.Google Scholar The District of Athabasca has a density of 1 person per 370 acres; population 3,991; area 1,477,085 acres.

32 Hanson, E. J., “Local Government Reorganization in Alberta,” Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science, XVI, 1950, 56.Google Scholar

33 Mooney, G., “Post-War Municipal Problems,” Public Affairs, 06, 1940.Google Scholar

34 Canada Year Book, 1948–1949, 961.Google Scholar

35 Bank of Canada, Statistical Summary, 05-Oct.-Dec., 1948.Google Scholar

36 Goldenberg, H. C., Provincial-Municipal Relations in British Columbia: Report of the Commissioner (Victoria, 1947), 84.Google Scholar

37 Province of Saskatchewan, Department of Municipal Affairs, Annual Report, 1947-8 (Regina, 1949), 29.Google Scholar

38 Goldenberg, , Provincial-Municipal Relations, x27.Google Scholar

39 Crawford, , “Local Government,” 222.Google Scholar

40 Ibid., 230.

41 Western Municipal News, XLIII, no. 5, 1948, 135.Google Scholar

42 Statement of Department of Supply, Newfoundland, March, 1950.

43 Montreal Gazette, March 9, 1950.

44 The figures given in the following section are drawn from the provincial annual reports cited in footnotes 24, 30, 31, 37. One other annual report used but not already cited is: Province of Ontario, Department of Municipal Affairs, Annual Report of Municipal Statistics, 1948 (1949).Google Scholar

45 Crawford, , “Local Government,” 176.Google Scholar

46 Goldenberg, , Provincial-Municipal Relations, x62.Google Scholar

47 Canada Year Book, 1948–1949, 1000–1.Google Scholar

48 Montreal Gazette, Nov. 15, 1949.

49 Goldenberg, , Provincial-Municipal Relations, x68.Google Scholar

50 Bourinot, J. G., “Local Government in Canada: An Historical Study,” Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada, First Series, IV, 1886, 75.Google Scholar

51 Goldenberg, , Municipal Finance in Canada, 4.Google Scholar