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The bulletin is prepared by John Sewell, the site manager, with the assistance and under the guidance of the advisory committee. It is published monthly, and is being sent to a wide range of people across Canada. Past copies of the bulletin will be archived in this section of the site.

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Bulletin No. 29, July 2002
Local Government Bulletin No. 29, July, 2002

The purpose of this bulletin is to focus debate on the need to increase the powers and authorities of local government in Canada and to ensure local communities achieve more autonomy. The new Local Government website is http://www.localgovernment.ca . This site replaces www.localself-govt.org .

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In this issue:
1. The Cities Act, Saskatchewan version
2. City of Winnipeg Charter introduced
3. Free speech in a billboard culture
4. Revenue sharing with municipalities, a correction
5. Subscribing to this bulletin

1. The Cities Act, Saskatchewan version

Saskatchewan has frequently proved itself an innovative province, most notably for the successful creation of medicare under Tommy Douglas half a century ago. It has continued that tradition with the creation of new municipal legislation to govern Saskatchewan’s 13 cities. (‘City’ is a malleable word here: the largest settlement in the province is Saskatoon, with 210,000 residents, while the city of Melville has a population of a mere 5,000.)

The legislative process was an innovative response to a familiar situation. Two years ago municipal officials grew tired of waiting for the province to respond to their concerns. They decided to create their own agenda of legislative reforms for municipalities. The coordinator of the project was Teresa Dust, city solicitor for Saskatoon, and as she describes it, “The idea was to do it as a cooperative effort within existing resources. The key was that the mayors were all together and committed.” Using legislation from other provinces as models, the group quickly put together a draft that was presented to the government in October 2001. A lawyer experienced in drafting legislation turned the draft into a bill that could be passed by the Legislature.

Government officials felt that the municipalities were proceeding too hastily in taking matters into their own hands, but after considerable lobbying the government gave the bill serious consideration. It was given First Reading as Bill 75 in June 2002, the other readings followed quickly, and Royal Assent in early July.

The new law (it comes into effect on January 1, 2003) is similar to legislation seen in other provinces. Cities are given broad ability to address local issues and they are free from the minutia of provincial tinkering by being given “natural person” powers. Reflecting initiatives in other legislation, the bill sets out procedures for public notification. (It is curious how much attention provincial legislators pay to public notification and involvement at the local level when is sorely lacking at the
provincial and federal levels.)

Several of the more interesting provisions in Bill 75 are:

a) Section 6 states that “the power of a city to pass bylaws is to be interpreted broadly for the purposes of (i) providing a broad authority and respecting the Council’s right to govern the city in whatever manner the council considers appropriate . . . and (ii) enhancing the council’s ability to respond to present and future issues in the city.”

b) Section 8 lists areas in which the city has “a general power to pass by-laws for city purposes that it considers expedient.” Interestingly, two broad catch-all areas are included: “peace, order and good government of the city;” and “the safety, health and welfare of the people and the protection of people and property.” These sections seem sufficiently broad to justify fairly wide powers, and might be considered the serious attempt of municipal governments in Saskatchewan to gain much broader powers of self-management.

The powers of the provincial government are set out in Part XIV, Sections 352-358, but they are relatively limited in scope. Ms Dust explains that the bill does not enact provisions for provincial consultation similar to those in British Columbia and Ontario since “those provisions do not stop the province from doing what it wants.”

It is impressive that a group of municipalities takes the initiative to draft the legislation they need rather than wait for the provincial action. The mayors in Saskatchewan are now ready to move on to the second phase of their agenda which Ms. Dust explains “is to obtain adequate stable funding for the long term.” One expects this to be a somewhat more difficult fight.

The final version of The Cities Act is found at http://www.legassembly.sk.ca Click on “Progress of Bills” and go to Bill 75.

2. City of Winnipeg Charter introduced

In mid-June the Manitoba provincial government introduced new legislation for Winnipeg that parallels other legislative initiatives to unfetter municipalities in their day-to-day work. Winnipeg is given “natural person” powers and defined spheres of authority, and the bill creates much more flexibility in the city’s regulatory, licensing and enforcement powers. The need for provincial approval is abolished in a number of areas and the city is given the power to intervene in various municipal matters previously not available to it, such as entering onto derelict properties, making repairs and billing the owners. The city is also given the ability to undertake “tax incremental financing” that permits funds to be raised in a specifically defined neighbourhood for neighbourhood improvement in that area. This device has been used in American cities but this is one of the first instances it has been permitted in Canadian cities. (In Ontario, Business Improvement Areas exercise some of these powers in a limited fashion.)

The legislation includes enhanced methods of public notification and permits council to specify certain areas of decision-making in which more than a 50% majority will be required.

Mayor Glen Murray has expressed his pleasure with the legislation, but no one sees these changes as more than house-keeping steps. They do not give a city the size of Winnipeg the financial or legislative ability to respond to citizens’ needs on the big questions. The powers and authorities for the big issues remain at the provincial and federal levels.

The bill can be found at http://www.gov.mb.ca/leg-asmb/bills/session/index , and go to Bill 39.

3. Free speech in a billboard culture.

Ogden Nash wrote a great little ditty:

I think that I shall never see
A billboard lovely as a tree
In fact, unless the billboards fall,
I’ll never see a tree at all.

Oakville, Ontario, operated in the spirit of the Nash poem by passing a bylaw in 1994 to prohibit any signs advertising products and services not provided on the premises where the sign is located, and restricting the size of billboards in the town to less than 7.5 square meters (approximately 8 x 10 feet.) In 2000, an advertising company, Vann Niagara Ltd., applied to erect 86 billboards. To ensure its public support, the town put the matter out for a public vote. Citizens voted against a modification of the by-law to permit billboards, but since less than 50% of eligible voters cast their ballots, the results of the referendum were not considered binding.

Vann took the matter to the courts, arguing its rights had been infringed under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It fared badly in the first instance, but appealed. In mid-June the Ontario Court of Appeal released its decision agreeing that the billboard company’s rights to expression had been infringed and the bylaw had to fail. As stated: “The town argues that its sign bylaw reflects the will of the community, as evidenced by the results of the non-binding referendum and therefore should be upheld.” Mr. Justice Borins wrote. “In my view the results of the non-binding referendum are of no assistance to the respondent. The will of the public to restrict rights does not, without more, justify that restriction.” The whole bylaw was struck down.

Mr. Justice Macpherson dissented on the question of restricting the size of billboards, which he felt was reasonable. He noted that the Supreme Court of Canada has agreed in the past that municipal regulation of the size of posters and signs is permitted, concluding “once it is accepted that size restrictions on billboards are appropriate, it strikes me that the courts should be deferential about the actual line chosen by a municipality. Absent evidence or of an improper purpose or a thoroughly unreasonable or impractical line, courts should respect the municipality’s choice.”

The decision can be found at http://www.ontariocourts.on.ca/appeal.htm , go to Decisions, 2002, June, and scroll down to the Vann Niagara decision.

Oakville will decide at a council meeting in mid-August if it will appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada in hope the same liberal interpretation will be taken of municipal powers as in the Town of Hudson case, which permits municipalities to control and prohibit the use of pesticides. That would be an interesting argument - do billboards cause as much environmental damage as pesticides?

4. Revenue sharing with municipalities – a correction

In the last Bulletin, it was suggested that the proposed sharing of sales taxes in Quebec was the first instance of such revenue sharing in Canada, apart from petroleum revenues sharing in Alberta and British Columbia. However, it has been pointed out that between 1978 and 1994 British Columbia had several innovative schemes for sharing revenues with local governments, including 1 per cent of personal and corporate income taxes, 6 per cent of revenues from sale taxes, gas and diesel fuel taxes, crown land leases, forest and mineral royalties, and natural gas sales. Apparently a stabilization fund was established to flatten the cycles in income and sales tax revenues.

These innovative forms of revenue sharing were finally replaced by a system of conditional grants, where political credit (obviously a key determinant for any tax system) was more visible for provincial politicians.

5. Subscribe to this bulletin.

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