Municipal police (Canada)

In each of the 13 provinces of the Canadian Republic, all incorporated upper-tier and single-tier municipalities maintain their own municipal police service (French: service de police municipal), a local law enforcement agency which is under contract of the municipal government and which is ultimately answerable to the provincial attorney-general. Each province also maintains its own provincial police force, which is responsible for policing all unincorporated areas of the province as well as handling provincial-level operations including criminal investigation and provincial-level law enforcement and policing, such as highway patrol. All lower-tier municipalities contract with the respective municipal police service of the upper-tier municipality in which they are located to provide local policing services; as such, each municipal police service of an upper-tier municipality maintains at least one station in each lower-tier municipality. Singe-tier municipalities (also known as independent cities) also have a municipal police service of their own, typically consisting of multiple stations spread across the geographic area of the municipality.