Inclusion of an Urban Municipality in a Rural Municipality

Section 53(1)(c) of The Municipalities Act provides the authority for a village or resort village to apply for inclusion. Inclusion is the process of transitioning the governance of a community from an urban council to the council of the surrounding rural municipality (RM).

A municipal council may wish to consider restructuring when a municipality faces significant challenges that make it difficult to provide sufficient services to its citizens, such as:

• An inability to recruit and retain a qualified administrator upon resignation or retirement;
• Difficulty filling vacant seats on council;
• An inability to manage the municipal assets;
• Non-compliance with legislative requirements, which in turn jeopardizes access to grants;
• Financial difficulties; or
• Other reasons that are evident to the residents, elected officials or staff members.

Municipal councils experiencing administrative or governance challenges should be proactive in order to avoid a decrease in the level of service provided to citizens, legislative compliance issues or costly administrative issues.

Funding for restructuring may be available through a Communities in Transition grant. This grant is only available at the time of restructuring.

Municipalities wishing to learn more about inclusion should refer to the Restructuring Guide - Inclusions for more information.