Municipal Politicians and Local Electoral Institutions in Canada: An Overview

Abstract

Across Canada, tens of thousands of municipal politicians govern thousands of municipalities, making important policy decisions in domains ranging from policing to planning to environmental policy. Despite a recent flowering of research on municipal policy, administration, and politics, we still lack a great deal of basic information about municipal governance in Canada, including core municipal democratic institutions. In this research note, we provide a comprehensive overview of basic electoral institutions in every elected municipal government in Canada, including an estimated count of the number of municipal governments and elected municipal politicians in Canada, a description of the distribution of ward, at-large, and hybrid systems and district magnitudes, and an overview of municipal council sizes. We then describe how these institutional features vary by province, population size, and population density. We conclude by discussing the opportunities for new research in municipal politics, policy, and public administration that are revealed by our comprehensive survey.