Canada

The vast majority of Canadians live within the jurisdiction of a general-purpose municipality to which they elect representatives and pay taxes and fees, and from which they receive a wide range of services. Municipalities function in a variety of contexts, from ones of rapid growth, as in metropolitan areas, to ones of relative or absolute decline, as occurs on the periphery. More widely, they function in a context of intergovernmental entanglement: in Canada, local governance is multilevel governance.  As local governments are creations of provincial legislation, their legal authority and fiscal resources are defined by the provinces. The Covid-19 pandemic has intensified debates regarding the constraints imposed by municipalities’ constitutional position.