The term township , in Canada , is generally the district or area associated with a town. The specific use of the term to describe political subdivisions has varied by country, usually to describe a local rural or semirural government within the country itself.
25-615: North Grenville is a township in eastern Ontario , Canada, in the United Counties of Leeds and Grenville on the Rideau River . It is located just south of Ottawa in Canada's National Capital Region . It was established on January 1, 1998, through the amalgamation of Oxford-on-Rideau Township, South Gower Township, and the Town of Kemptville . In 2003, a motion of the municipal council adopted
50-536: A township is one form of the subdivision of a county . In Quebec, the term is canton in French. The historic colony of Nova Scotia (present-day Nova Scotia, New Brunswick , and Prince Edward Island ) used the term township as a subdivision of counties and as a means of attracting settlers to the colony. In Prince Edward Island, the colonial survey of 1764 established 67 townships, known as lots, and 3 royalties, which were grouped into parishes and hence into counties;
75-467: A district, i.e. in Northern Ontario ). A township municipality may consist of a portion of one or more geographic townships united as a single entity with a single municipal administration. Often rural counties are subdivided into townships. In some places, usually if the township is in a county rather than in a regional municipality , the head of a political township may be called a " reeve ", not
100-411: 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
125-606: A mayor. However, the distinction is changing as many rural townships are replacing the title with "mayor" to reduce confusion. A few townships keep both titles and designate "mayor" as the head of the municipal council and use "reeve" to denote the representative to the upper tier (usually county) council. The term "geographic township" is also used in reference to former political townships that were abolished or superseded as part of municipal government restructuring. In Quebec , townships are called cantons in French and can also be political and geographic, similar to Ontario although
150-474: A political unit called a rural municipality in general is 3 townships by 3 townships in size, or 18 miles squared, about 324 square miles (840 km ). Three municipalities in British Columbia , Langley , Esquimalt and Spallumcheen , have "township" in their official names but legally hold the status of district municipalities . Regional municipality A regional municipality (or region )
175-1176: Is a type of Canadian municipal government similar to and at 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
200-767: 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
225-544: 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
250-527: 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
275-402: The 2021 Census of Population conducted by Statistics Canada , North Grenville had a population of 17,964 living in 7,038 of its 7,244 total private dwellings, a change of 9.2% from its 2016 population of 16,451 . With a land area of 351.9 km (135.9 sq mi), it had a population density of 51.0/km (132.2/sq mi) in 2021. Township (Canada) In Eastern Canada ,
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#1732859384095300-631: The Prairie Provinces and parts of British Columbia , a township is a division of the Dominion Land Survey . Townships are (mostly) 6-by-6-mile (9.7 by 9.7 km) squares, about 36 square miles (93 km ) in area. The townships are not political units (although political boundaries often follow township boundaries) but exist only to define parcels of land relatively simply. Townships are divided into 36 equal 1-by-1-mile (1.6 by 1.6 km) square parcels, known as "sections." In Saskatchewan ,
325-549: The 1800s. They are used primarily for geographic purposes, such as land surveying, natural resource exploration and tracking of phenomena such as forest fires or tornados , but are not political entities. Township municipalities, also called "political townships", are areas that have been incorporated with municipal governments, and are a lower-tier municipality (if located in a county or regional municipality , i.e. in Southern Ontario ) or single-tier municipality (if located in
350-532: 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
375-558: 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
400-547: The communities of Actons Corners , Bedell, Bishops Mills , Burritts Rapids (the oldest community on the Rideau River) , East Oxford, Heckston, Hutchins Corners, Kemptville , McReynolds, Millars Corners, Mountain, Newmanville, Oxford Mills, Oxford Station, Pattersons Corners, Peltons Corners, Sabourins Crossing, Schipaville, Swan Crossing and Van Allens. The administrative offices of the municipality are located in Kemptville. In
425-711: The designation of 'municipality'. The largest community in North Grenville is Kemptville, with a population of 3,911 in the 2016 census, up from 3,620 in the Canada 2011 Census . It is located on the Kemptville Creek (historically South Branch of the Rideau River) approximately 56 km (35 mi) south of Ottawa, sitting midway between suburban Ottawa and the Ogdensburg–Prescott International Bridge along Highway 416 . The municipality comprises
450-754: The geographic use is not used much or at all. They were introduced after the British Conquest, primarily as a surveying unit. They were designated and cover most of the unattributed territory in Eastern Quebec and what is now known as the Eastern Townships and later used in surveying the Outaouais and Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean regions. Townships often served as the territorial basis for new municipalities, but township municipalities are no different from other types such as parish or village municipalities. In
475-422: 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
500-619: 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
525-478: 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
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#1732859384095550-601: 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,
575-473: 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
600-401: The townships were geographically and politically the same. In New Brunswick, parishes have taken over as the present-day subdivision of counties, and present-day Nova Scotia uses districts as appropriate. In Ontario , there are both geographic townships and township municipalities. Geographic townships are the original historical administrative subdivisions surveyed and established primarily in
625-449: 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,
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