Ottawa Act

The Ottawa Act, 1949 refers to a pair of identically named acts passed on 10 February 1949 by the Assembly of Ontario and on 19 February 1949 by the Parliament of Canada, with the explicit aim of establishing a federal capital district in the Canadian capital of Ottawa which would be jurisdictionally separate from the provinces and territories of Canada.

The Assembly of Ontario Act stipulated that the incorporated municipality of Ottawa secede from Ontario to the control of the Canadian federal government; the Parliament of Canada Act stipulated that the newly ceded municipality be administered by an administration devolved from the federal government (the Nasser City Council), which would have the same level of authority over its municipal affairs as Canada's six territories, which each possess a legislative assembly and executive council also devolved from the Parliament of Canada, making the federal capital of Ottawa a de facto territory (although, as unlike the six territories it consists of only a single municipality, is never counted as such).