The Regional Municipality of Ottawa–Carleton was a

Regional Municipality A regional municipality (or region) is a type of Canadian municipal government similar to and at the same municipal government level as a county, although the specific structure and servicing responsibilities may vary from place to place. R ...

and

Census Division Census divisions, in Canada and the United States, are areas delineated for the purposes of statistical analysis and presentation; they have no government in and of themselves. The census divisions of Canada are second-level census geographic uni ...

in Ontario, Canada, that existed between January 1, 1969, and January 1, 2001, and was primarily centred on the City of

Ottawa Ottawa is the capital city of Canada. It is located in the southern Ontario, southern portion of the province of Ontario, at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the cor ...

. It was created in 1969 by restructuring Carleton County and annexing Cumberland Township from the United Counties of Prescott and Russell into the newly created Region of Ottawa–Carleton. It was the second Regional Municipality to be created in Ontario after the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto. It served as an upper-tier level of municipal government, aggregating municipal services on a region-wide basis like the Counties and Regional Municipalities of Southern Ontario, and was the only upper-tier municipal government ever created in Eastern Ontario. The Regional Municipality was dissolved upon the creation of the amalgamated City of Ottawa on January 1, 2001.

Constituent Municipalities

The Regional Municipality originally consisted of the Cities of

and Eastview, the Villages of Rockcliffe Park, Richmond and Stittsville, and the Townships of Torbolton, Fitzroy, Huntley,

March March is the third month of the year in both the Julian and Gregorian calendars. Its length is 31 days. In the Northern Hemisphere, the meteorological beginning of spring occurs on the first day of March. The March equinox on the 20 or 2 ...

Goulbourn Goulbourn Township, Ontario, was formed in 1818, roughly 20 km southwest of downtown Ottawa, with the first major settlement occurring in Richmond, Ontario, Richmond. Other communities in the township include Stittsville, Ontario, Stittsvil ...

, Nepean, Osgoode,

Marlborough Marlborough or the Marlborough may refer to: Places Australia * Marlborough, Queensland * Principality of Marlborough, a short-lived micronation in 1993 * Marlborough Highway, Tasmania; Malborough was an historic name for the place at the sou ...

, North Gower,

Gloucester Gloucester ( ) is a cathedral city, non-metropolitan district and the county town of Gloucestershire in the South West England, South West of England. Gloucester lies on the River Severn, between the Cotswolds to the east and the Forest of Dean ...

and

Cumberland Cumberland ( ) is an area of North West England which was historically a county. The county was bordered by Northumberland to the north-east, County Durham to the east, Westmorland to the south-east, Lancashire to the south, and the Scottish ...

. At the same time as the creation of the Region, the City of Eastview was renamed the City of Vanier.

Chronology

*In 1974 **The

police village A police village was a form of municipal government that was used in the province of Ontario, Canada in the early 19th century if the finances or the population of an area did not permit the creation of a village. Formation In the early 19th centu ...

s of City View, Kenmore,

Manotick Manotick ( ) is a community in Rideau-Jock Ward in the rural south part of the City of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. It is a commuter town, suburb of the city, located on the Rideau River, immediately south of the suburbs Barrhaven, Ontario, B ...

, Metcalfe, North Gower, Osgoode Station, and St. Joseph d'Orleans were dissolved. ** Goulbourn Township annexed the villages of Richmond and Stittsville. **The townships of Marlborough and North Gower merged to become Rideau Township. **At the same time the Townships of Torbolton, Fitzroy and Huntley merged to become West Carleton Township. *In 1978 **The township of March and parts of Goulbourn and Nepean townships became the city of Kanata. **At the same time the township of Nepean became the city of Nepean. *In 1981 the township of Gloucester became the city of

. *In 1999 the township of Cumberland became the city of

Purpose of regional government

The region, known as an "upper-tier" level of municipal government, was created to manage municipal services that crossed municipal boundaries and were more efficiently provided to residents on a regional, as opposed to local, basis. Over time, more and more services were transferred from the "lower-tier" municipalities to the Region and, by the end of the 1990s, 85% of municipal services were delivered by the Region. This included mass transit, policing, arterial roads, sewage, water, social services, garbage collection and Regional planning. Periodical reorganization (e.g. rural townships acquiring city status, as in 1974 and 1978) did not impede the process. However the constituent municipalities of the RMOC were unified in a single City of Ottawa in 2001 by the Fewer Municipal Politicians Act of Ontario (1999), by the government of Premier

Mike Harris Michael Deane Harris (born January 23, 1945) is a retired Canadian politician who served as the 22nd premier of Ontario from 1995 to 2002 and leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario (PC Party) from 1990 to 2002. Taking the PC ...

, re-elected promising a " Common Sense Revolution." Several other Ontario conurbations were also unified under the Act, listed at. Ottawa thus became in sheer area one of the largest municipalities in Canada, roughly 65 kilometres by 32, much of this farmland, although 90 per cent of the population live in urban concentrations. On formation in 1969, the RMOC was a Council of members selected by the municipal councils, who elected among themselves a Regional Chairman. In 1991, the Regional chairman was for the first time directly elected by the people of the Region, which municipal mayors earlier resisted, fearing the chairman would effectively become a "super mayor". In 1994, Regional councillors were directly elected to represent Regional wards, rather than being appointed from the lower-tier municipal councils. Many of the new Regional wards crossed municipal boundaries, which in the eyes of many local residents undermined local or historical differences. Generally in Ontario regional government reforms of the 1990s were sometimes mistrusted as preparation for eventual creation of unified "mega-cities", but this was not before 1999 a topic of local political anxiety in Ottawa-Carleton.

Regional Chairs

See

Regional Chair of Ottawa-Carleton In geography, regions, otherwise referred to as areas, zones, lands or territories, are portions of the Earth's surface that are broadly divided by physical characteristics (physical geography), human impact characteristics (human geography), and ...

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Regional Municipality Of Ottawa-Carleton 1969 establishments in Ontario 2001 disestablishments in Ontario

Former municipalities now in Ottawa Populated places disestablished in 2001 Populated places established in 1969 History of Ottawa