How are municipal by-laws made?
The British North America Act gives the provinces full control over municipal institutions. Each municipal government receives its power from the provincial legislature. In Nova Scotia, there are four types of municipal units: 1) cities incorporated under their own Charter, 2) towns which come under the Municipal Government Act (the Municipal Government Act replaced the Towns Act and the Municipal Act in the late 1990s), 3) municipalities (sometimes called rural municipalities) incorporated under the Municipal Government Act, and 4) villages created by the provisions of the Municipal Government Act. Laws and regulations made by municipal councils are called by-laws. Councils also pass resolutions to deal with administrative matters such as agreeing to a contract for paving a road. Each council creates a by-law that sets out the procedure it must follow to make a law (that is other by-laws). The procedure is similar from council to council. By-laws are reviewed at a committee stage befo
