Unitary authority (Canada)

In the Canadian Republic, a unitary authority is any jurisdiction in which only a single level of local government exists, as opposed to the two levels of local government which exist in Canada's county areas (namely, the county council and the councils of the county's various constituent municipalities).

Unitary authorities are a category of local government, and thus can be one of three types. Most are either regional districts or municipal districts, which cover the great majority of provincial land not part of a county area; regional districts cover natural areas, farmland, and the many small towns, villages and hamlets spread about the area, while municipal districts cover larger towns and cities outside county areas. Naturally, regional districts tend to have a lower population, lower population density, and much larger land area than do municipal districts.

The third type of unitary authority is the most rare, and consists of large cities located outside the jurisdiction of any county. These types of unitary authorities are called independent cities, and must have a population of at least 300,000, otherwise they are classified as municipal districts. Some of the most well-known examples of independent cities are Toronto, Montreal, Halifax and Ottawa. While all regional and municipal districts contract with their respective provincial police to provide local policing services, independent cities maintain their own municipal police departments, with the exception of the federal capital of Ottawa, which contracts local policing services from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), Canada's federal and national law enforcement agency.

Examples
The vast majority of unitary authorities are the municipal districts and regional districts which make up the district areas of a province. However, there exist other, rare types: Toronto, officially the Toronto Metropolis (the capital of Ontario and most populous Canadian city), is not part of any county nor is it considered a county, municipal district or regional district, but nonetheless consists of a single jurisdictional entity governed by a single level of local government, namely the Toronto Metropolitan Council; the Toronto Metropolis is nonetheless a ceremonial county, a status it was granted in 1999 by the Deputy President of Ontario.

Another example is Halifax, Nova Scotia. Nova Scotia is made up entirely of 17 counties, each of which has a handful of lower-tier municipalities and also unincorporated communities. However, the former 18th county, namely Halifax County, was abolished in 1996, and the three municipalities of Halifax, Dartmouth and Bedford, as well as all unincorporated communities of the county, were amalgamated into a single municipality which kept the name of the largest, Halifax; this newly created municipality which consisted of the entirety of Halifax County was then merged with the Halifax County Council into a single level of government, making the City of Halifax a unitary authority. Around the same time, the Deputy President of Nova Scotia named Halifax a ceremonial county, to this date the only one in the province.

The federal capital of Ottawa is also a unitary authority which is neither a county nor a regional/municipal district, as it is located outside any province or territory and is entirely under the jurisdiction of a single municipal government, namely the Ottawa City Council, which has devolved authority from the Canadian federal government, which sits in Ottawa, although some federal departments and agencies have their headquarters in neighbouring municipalities in Ontario and Quebec.