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On January 1, 1995 the new Municipal Government Act (M.G.A.) became law in Alberta. This legislation has drastically altered the governance of municipalities. Under previous legislation, municipalities had only those powers specifically set forth by statute. Now, municipalities have all the powers of a natural person unless limited by legislation. The difference being that under the old legislation the municipality had to check the legislation to see if it could do a specific act, now it checks the legislation to see if there is a specific prohibition. The new legislation specifically states that council is to have broad authority and the right to govern in whatever way the council consider appropriate as long as they are within the legislative jurisdiction delegated to it by statute.
The new legislation has also made municipalities more like business corporations rather than a lower form of government. Although the new legislation states that the purposes of a municipality is to provide good government, services, facilities or other things that, in the opinion of council, are necessary or desirable for all or a part of the municipality and to develop and maintain safe and viable communities, the fact that it now has the powers of a natural person (unless specifically limited) gives it basically the same powers as a corporation incorporated under the Business Corporations Act.
The Act set out the parameters for the formation of the various types of municipalities as follows: a municipal district must have more than 1000 persons and have the majority of its buildings used as dwellings on land of at least 1850 square meters. The urban type of municiality must have the majority of the buildings used for dwelings on land smaller than 1850 square meters and a population of more than 300 for a village, 1000 for a town and 10,000 for a city. The legislation also permits the minister to form a specialized municipality such as when Fort McMurray became the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo.
The officers and directors (council) of a municipality are now more in line with that of other corporations. The mayor is the chief elected official (Chairman of the Board) while the municipal manager is the chief administrative officer (President). The specific offices of city solicitor and city clerk have been eliminated so that all administrative staff are under the control and direction of the chief administrative officer unless council, by bylaw, otherwise determines. [This change has given the City Manager for the City of Edmonton the power to re-organize the administration by eliminating the Offices of the City Clerk and the City Solicitor as separate, stand-alone departments responsible directly to council, into a consolidated department under one general manager who will report to the City Manager.] Also gone are the specific designations of officers such as city engineer and treasurer. Council now has the power to establish one or more positions of a designated officer who will report to the chief administrative officer unless the bylaw provides otherwise.
The new legislation is all encompassing and contains 740 sections. Gone are the separate statutes dealing with planning, municipal taxes, etc. In fact the new legislation repealed 21 former statutes such as the Municipal Taxation Act, the Municipal Tax Exemptions Act, and the New Towns Act. The Planning Act is in a transitional stage to permit the orderly transfer to the new M.G.A.