In everyday life whether applying for a building permit, dealing with a traffic headache, or making your way to a summer festival, our interactions are governed by municipal decisions. It is also often easier to get a hold of your City Councillor than your MLA or Member of Parliament and you can more easily attend and speak at a City Council meeting while participation in decisions by the provincial or federal legislature is often restricted to engagement periods and written submissions.
However, despite this daily interaction with citizens and significant opportunities for public participation, municipalities have consistently been losing control over local decision making with changes to provincial legislation moving these issues from municipal to provincial jurisdiction. Future blog posts will analyze this shift and how it impacts local decision making, and the increasing limits on public participation.
In this blog we focus on the foundational principle of “subsidiarity”, or the idea that ‘the decision maker closest to the decision should be in charge’ and examine how this applies to municipalities and whether this principle is being upheld throughout these changes to provincial legislation, particularly to the Municipal Government Act.
What is subsidiarity?
The principle of subsidiarity states that decisions should be made at the level closest to those being affected by the decision. It can be defined as a “principle by which the smallest possible social or political entities should have all the rights and powers they need to regulate their own affairs freely and effectively. It also requires that the responsibilities of the larger social and political entities be limited to the things that the smaller entities cannot accomplish alone.”[1] This principle intends to provide local authorities with a “degree of independence… in order to ensure that powers are exercised as close to the citizen as possible.”[2]
The principle can be applied to our understanding of the constitutional division of powers between the federal and provincial governments which stresses that the federal government should only step in to act in the event that the sub-federal levels of government cannot do so.[3] Although municipal governments do not exist in any constitutional documents, and are rather a creation of provincial statute, the same concept can apply. If a municipality can take over the management and control of a matter, they should be the ones to do so as the closest decision maker to the issue. Division of powers should be based on “the degree of proximity to the citizens involved in each state intervention.”[4]
In Canada, there is no direct reference to the concept of subsidiarity in our constitutional documents, nor are municipalities awarded any direct powers under the Constitution. However, the Supreme Court of Canada has contemplated how the principle of subsidiarity may apply to municipalities.[5] One of the most important instances of this finding was in the 2001 decision in Spraytech v Hudson.[6] The Spraytech decision required the Court to rule on the constitutionality of a municipal bylaw governing and restricting the use of pesticides. In deciding that the bylaw was constitutional, the SCC wrote:[7]
“The case arises in an era in which matters of governance are often examined through the lens of the principle of subsidiarity. This is the proposition that law-making and implementation are often best achieved at a level of government that is not only effective, but also closest to the citizens affected and thus most responsive to their needs, to local distinctiveness, and to population diversity.”
The Alberta Court of Appeal has also discussed the principle of subsidiarity, describing a benefit of the principle as invigorating “confidence in the electors that their voice is heard and valued, which is vital to the rule of law itself.”[8]
Although the principle of subsidiarity cannot be used in such a way that contradicts the constitutional division of powers (i.e. municipalities cannot invoke control over issues that lie solely within federal control), “subsidiarity alerts us to another way of understanding municipal power: as a principle that understands the municipality as a government with broad authority to make decisions for their constituents.”[9]
What does this mean for municipalities in Alberta?
The idea of providing municipalities with broad decision-making power is reflected in several provisions of the Municipal Government Act (MGA). The MGA is the primary piece of legislation in Alberta that awards power to municipalities and, despite the principle of subsidiarity being confirmed by the SCC, municipalities cannot act outside the bounds of this legislation. As such, it is relevant to note that the general powers awarded to municipalities under the MGA are quite broad.
For example, the MGA sets out the purposes of a municipality as follows:[10]
- To provide good government,
a.1) To foster the well-being of the environment,
a.2) To foster the economic development of the municipality,
- To provide services, facilities or other things that, in the opinion of the council, are necessary or desirable for all or part of the municipality,
- To develop and maintain safe and viable communities, and
- To work collaboratively with neighbouring municipalities to plan, deliver and fund intermunicipal services.
The MGA also enumerates a municipality’s general jurisdiction to pass bylaws including the power to pass bylaws for matters including: the safety, health and welfare of people; businesses and business activities; services provided by or on behalf of the municipality; and the enforcement of bylaws.[11] In addition to these broad powers, municipalities are assigned several specific land use planning powers, control and management of roads and water bodies, authority to expropriate and annex land, and the power to raise revenues.[12] These sections highlight the breadth and importance of municipal decision making, as well as, the localized nature of municipal jurisdiction with several purposes focused on the community and neighbourhood level. Arguably, these types of decisions must be made by those decision makers closest to the affected citizens as they will be the ones with the clearest understanding of these individual community needs. In other words, this is the principle of subsidiarity embedded in legislation.
However, despite these broad statements of municipal power and despite the acknowledgment of subsidiarity applying to municipal power from the SCC, provincial decisions over the past several years have been removing significant areas of municipal jurisdiction over land use planning decisions, thereby limiting opportunities for public participation and municipal participation in regulatory processes. As a result, municipalities are losing control over local decisions, and the principle of subsidiarity is being dramatically undermined. In the next section we will highlight some of these changes to demonstrate the current trend in provincial-municipal relations in Alberta.
Changes to Provincial Legislation with Environmental Impacts
Despite retaining broad purposes and bylaw making powers in the MGA, there have been several amendments at the provincial level which serve to consolidate decision making power and move decision making out of the municipal realm. Since the early 1990’s provincial legislation has been amended to centralize power and to remove municipal control. The following image highlights some of the legislative amendments that have had impacts on municipal decision-making.
Image 1: Legislative changes limiting municipal control.
While recognizing this ongoing history, we will focus primarily on more recent changes in today’s post.
To read more about past amendments check out our report “Municipal planning and environmental autonomy: An update on provincial paramountcy and its implications for progressive environmental planning and decision making”
A notable example of a shift of control from municipalities to the provincial government came through Bill 28 introduced on April 2, 2026. Perhaps the most controversial decision in the environmental sphere was the addition of section 619.1 to the MGA called “Pit Registration under Environmental Protection and Enhancement Act” which largely eliminated the municipal role in gravel pit regulation.[13] Following this amendment, municipal control over gravel pit approvals will be clawed-back from municipalities as a registration of a gravel pit in accordance with the Environmental Protection and Enhancement Act now prevails over any municipal planning decisions. This means that despite land use bylaws, subdivision decisions, or sensitive environmental areas, municipalities will not be able to prevent a provincially approved gravel pit.
Bill 28 also made several amendments to the MGA which enable the provincial government to direct municipal planning and development decisions. Specifically, amendments limit municipal approaches to planning and development such as by disallowing the use of off-site levies to capture capital costs incurred to build to a higher standard than those under the applicable building codes; the potential to require automated development permit decisions as well as regulations that dictate processes, timelines or other requirements for issuing development permits; and finally the proposed new provincial authority to impose community design codes.
You can read more about these changes in our blog posts here and here.
Land use planning decisions are hyper local as they consider neighbouring properties, goals for the community, and daily life experience. A municipal decision maker will live and work in the city where they are making planning decisions and will often have the most access to citizens thereby upholding the basic tenets of subsidiarity – the “proposition that law-making and implementation are often best achieved at a level of government that is not only effective, but also closest to the citizens affected and thus most responsive to their needs, to local distinctiveness, and to population diversity.”[14] Provincial level decision making is more removed from local priorities.
Another recent example of the provincial government stepping into a land use planning role is the recent announcement regarding proposed provincial legislation limiting or removing bike lanes located within a municipality. This past spring, the provincial government announced that legislation would be coming in the fall sitting of the legislation that would grant the provincial government the power to review or remove bike lanes.[15] While it is not yet clear how the legislation would work in this situation, it does serve to raise several questions. Primarily, if a bike lane is removed who is responsible for the cost of removal and is there an opportunity for reimbursement to the municipality for costs accrued to build these bike lanes in the first place? Secondly, how would this limit land use planning or bylaw making powers at the municipal level? Again, these provincial decisions overrule local decision making for broader provincial priorities wholly undermining subsidiarity.
Municipal councils are elected in large part to make planning decisions and are accountable to the electorate for this local decision-making. This protects local democracy and ensures that those government officials tasked with land use planning oversee this type of decision-making. In contrast, provincial MLAs are elected for a broader mandate which often does not include land use planning or community decision-making.
There are also examples of changes that do not relate specifically to land use planning. For example, following the rise of COVID-19 cases in 2020 and 2021, several municipalities began to impose mask or vaccination requirements within their municipal boundaries. One of the challenges for Albertans was that these rules differed depending on where you were. For example, rules in Edmonton were different than those in St. Albert. Although this may have required flexibility, it also serves to demonstrate that these decisions were hyper local and based on the priorities of each individual municipality. However, the provincial government eventually stepped in to set a blanket rule limiting a municipality’s bylaw making powers in this regard. Specifically, the MGA was amended to prohibit a council from bringing into force a bylaw or bylaw amendment which requires an individual to wear a face mask or other face covering for the primary purpose of preventing a communicable disease and/or requires an individual to provide proof of vaccination against COVID-19 or proof of a negative COVID-19 test on entering a premises, unless approved by the Minister.[16] This demonstrates a blanket approach to a previously local decision.
What does this all mean?
Taken together, these changes suggest a significant shift of power and decision-making control away from municipalities and towards the provincial government. With this shift the principle of subsidiarity is undermined as decisions are no longer being made by the level of government closest to the citizens being impacted. This results in less opportunities for individualized decision making and public participation and leads to more blanket approaches to planning.
We recommend legislative amendments that return land use planning and general bylaw making powers to municipalities to fulfill the principle of subsidiarity and its benefits. For example, section 619 of the Municipal Government Act positions authorizations from the NRCB, EAB, AER, or AUC ahead of municipal decision-making and as more environmental decisions are moved to these tribunals (such as gravel pits) local decision-making is stymied. Limiting or removing this priority or ensuring that provincial tribunals and agencies must consider local planning documents would maintain the principle of subsidiarity in action. In our next blog post, we will consider the impacts that these changes have on opportunities for public participation and how increased provincial control often means decreased opportunity to have your voice heard.
Cover Photo by Div Pithadia on Unsplash. Moose crossing Moose Lake in Jasper National Park, Canadian Rockies, Canada. Published December 9, 2025
[1] Eugenie Brouillet, “Canadian Federalism and the Principle of Subsidiarity: Should we Open Pandora’s Box?” The Supreme Court Law Review: Osgoode’s Annual Constitutional Cases Conference (2011) 54:21 at 605 [Brouillet].
[2] Alexandra Flynn, “Operative Subsidiarity and Municipal Authority: The Case of Toronto’s Ward Boundary Review” Osgoode Hall Law Journal 56:2 (2019) 271-300 at 271 online: https://digitalcommons.osgoode.yorku.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3482&context=ohlj [Flynn].
[3] Centre for Constitutional Studies, “Subsidiarity” (4 Jul 2019) online: https://www.constitutionalstudies.ca/2019/07/subsidiarity/.
[4] Brouillet, supra note 1 at 609.
[5] Ibid at 618.
[6] 114957 Canada Ltee (Spraytech, Societe d’arrosage) v Hudson (Town), 2001 SCC 40 [Spraytech].
[7] Spraytech at para 3.
[8] Reference re Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act, 2020 ABCA 74 at para 141.
[9] Flynn, supra note 2 at 273.
[10] Municipal Government Act, RSA 2000, c M-26, s 3 [MGA].
[11]Ibid, s 7.
[12] Ibid, ss 14-15, 16-27.6, 60, 112.1-128, 326-452, 616-697.
[13] Note that although this Bill has received Royal Assent these sections will not come into force until proclamation, which has not yet occurred.
[14] Spraytech at para 3.
[15] Emily Williams, “Alberta government takes aim at bike lanes, with legislation expected this fall” (12 May 2026) CBC News online: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/alberta-government-bike-lanes-legislation-9.7195867.
[16] MGA, supra note 10, s 7.1.