canasia.org

The division of Canadian provinces has been a topic here a few times. Ontario is a hodgepodge of counties, regional municipalities, districts and single-tier municipalities. One time, I pointed out that while Ontario cities are considered parts of counties for geographic purposes, they are not parts of counties for governmental purposes. I came across an interest Ontario regulation: Division of Ontario into Geographic Areas (http://www.e-laws.gov.on.ca/DBLaws/Regs/English/030180_e.htm). The regulation divides the province into 49 (my count) areas _base_d on the level of government or service area directly below the province. For the purposes of territorial divisions, cities are considered part of their surrounding counties, even though they are not subject to county government. For example, the Territorial Division of Wellington consists of: 1. a. The upper-tier municipality of Wellington (County) 1. b. The seven lower-tier municipalities of Wellington County and 2. The single-tier municipality of Guelph It looks to me like Nova Scotia is the only province that has kept its system of counties more or less intact, although the province has consolidated a few counties into single-tier regional municipalities. Like Connecticut and Rhode Island, New Brunswick still uses counties for geographic purposes, but unincorporated territory in that province is now divided into local service areas run by the provincial government. Quebec reorganized its old counties into new, bigger ones some time ago. PEI's counties seem to serve no governmental function. I don't know if the other six provinces ever had a full-scale division into counties. Also interesting is the French Language Services Act, which lists the municipalities in which the provincial government must offer services in French (http://www.e-laws.gov.on.ca/DBLaws/Statutes/English/90f32_e.htm). I suppose this list shows where highway signs must be bilingual. The list seems extraordinarily generous; only 1.4 percent of the population of the Toronto and London areas speak French as a first language. From an entirely technical point of view, it would make more sense to have Toronto highway signs in Chinese. Matt

It looks to me like Nova Scotia is the only province that has kept its system of counties more or less intact, although the province has consolidated a few counties into single-tier regional municipalities. Like Connecticut and Rhode Island, New Brunswick still uses counties for geographic purposes, but unincorporated territory in that province is now divided into local service areas run by the provincial government. Quebec reorganized its old counties into new, bigger ones some time ago. PEI's counties seem to serve no governmental function. I don't know if the other six provinces ever had a full-scale division into counties. BC is divided into counties, but only for juridical purposes: each county has a county court and a sherriff (whose job is totally court-related, very much unlike the job of a typical US sherriff; also sherriffs are not elected.  Basically, counties don't exist here in one's day-to-day consciousness. For local-government purposes, the province is divided up into regional districts, each of which contains a cluster of incorporated municipalities plus the surrounding areas. Stefan Ewing