Municipal Mumbo Jumbo
According to the Community Charter, this person serves as a municipality's Chief Executive Officer.
Who is the Mayor?
The elected official who heads the regional district. Don't sit on them.
Who is the Chair?
Section 92 of this document gives Provincial legislatures the power to "exclusively make Laws in relation to" the matter of "Municipal Institutions in the Province".
What is the Canadian Constitution? (Or the Constitution Act, the British North America Act of 1867, or the Constitution Act of 1982.
This organization's Minister is Christine Boyle, the New Democratic Party's MLA for Vancouver - Little Mountain.
What is the Ministry of Housing and Municipal Affairs?
This East Kootenay municipality, dissolved in 2021, wasn't named after a circus elephant. But it did have a bear, even if it had no humans.
What is Jumbo? (Or the Jumbo Resort Municipality.)
Municipalities are required by legislation to have Finance Officers (aka, Treasurers) and Corporate Officers (aka, Clerks). But they are not required to have anyone at all in this leadership position.
What is a Chief Administrative Officer?
Citizens were getting No Satisfaction with rural governance and services. Regional Districts were created in this year, when the Rolling Stones song topped the charts.
What is 1965?
When local government legislative reform processes stalled in the early 2000s, British Columbia local governments were left with these two main pieces of legislation instead of one.
What are the Community Charter and Local Government Act?
The common name for the B.C. Executive Council, which is compromised of the Lieutenant Governor in Council, the Premier, and Ministers.
What is the Cabinet? (Or the Provincial Cabinet.)
This Central Coast community was once home to the province's largest pulp and paper mill. All but abandoned when the mill closed in 1980, this place is no longer an incorporated municipality, but it is home to a 2MW clean-energy crypto currency mining operation.
What is Ocean Falls?
The Community Charter says a British Columbia municipality has the same capacity, rights, powers and privileges as this. Naturally.
What is a natural person?
After signing a modern treaty in 2007, this First Nation became a full member of the Metro Vancouver Regional District, the first - and so far only - First Nation to do so.
What is the Tsawwassen First Nation?
Although King Charles isn't actually involved, after a bill passes its third and final reading in British Columbia's legislature, this action required before it becomes law.
What is Royal Assent?
This new office was created in 2024, creating an peculiar "state" where there are effectively two provincial Ministers responsible for local government.
What is the Minister of State for Local Governments and Rural Communities?
The community of Greenwood, located British Columbia's Boundary region, has a population about 600 people, and is incorporated as this type of municipality.
What is a city?
This type of municipal restructuring has been forced in many provinces, including Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec. The last one in British Columbia happened in Abbotsford in 1995, following a referendum.
What is amalgamation?
At 119,000 square kilometers, this regional district - the largest in British Columbia - is roughly the size of North Korea, and just under half the size of the United Kingdom. If it was a country, it would be the 98th largest on earth.
What is the Peace River Regional District?
This Provincial statute, passed in 1953, incorporated today's City of Vancouver while granting the City different powers than other communities in the province.
What is the Vancouver Charter?
British Columbia is known for its wine. But when residents need to whine about their local governments, they should contact this provincial body instead of visiting a vineyard.
What is the Office of the Ombudsperson?
Once referred to as Alta Lake, the village core of this resort municipality sits on top of a garbage dump that was in operation until 1977.
What is Whistler?
In this municipal governance system, the mayor wields significant executive powers, often overseeing budgetary decisions, hiring decisions, and administrative functions. The mayor may also have a veto over certain council decisions. This system is not in BC, but has recently returned to Ontario.
What is a strong mayor system?
Established by regional district bylaws, these small organizations consist of an Electoral Area director and four others elected by residents, and are generally used to provide services to a very small area.
What is a community commission? (Or a local community commission, or a commission.)
Local governments in British Columbia lobby for provincial legislative changes through this process, which unfolds over months at regional and province-wide conventions.
What is the UBCM Resolutions Process?
After a scandal-plagued start in 2012, this office published a series of "good practice" booklets before being dissolved by the NDP provincial government in 2021.
What is the Auditor General for Local Government?
Residents in this small unincorporated community, located between Yale and Boston Bar in the Fraser Valley Regional District's Electoral Area B, are beyond Hope. Before the Coquihalla Highway was constructed in the mid 1980s, they were also short of Merritt.
What is Spuzzum?