Bill 204 amends the Charter of Ville de Longueuil to raise the size of city council from 15 to 18 members, expand the executive committee by one council member (so the mayor plus five council members), and reallocate seats in Schedule B so Saint‑Hubert gains two councillors and Vieux‑Longueuil gains one. The amendments flow from a 2022 Order in Council that set Longueuil’s population at 253,629 and from threshold rules in the Act respecting elections and referendums in municipalities that apply once a municipality has 250,000+ residents.
The bill also creates a narrow, time‑limited planning pathway: borough councils may adopt replacement by‑laws under the provincial land‑use statute until 31 December 2024, but any such replacement by‑law must be approved by the borough’s qualified voters and is subject to the Act’s timing rules. The changes trigger immediate operational work — redistricting, election‑administration updates, budget adjustments for extra councillors and possible borough referendums — and compress several deadlines into a short implementation window ahead of the 2025 general election.
At a Glance
What It Does
The bill amends the Longueuil Charter to increase council seats from 15 to 18, raise the executive committee membership by one, and change Schedule B seat allocations for Saint‑Hubert and Vieux‑Longueuil. It also authorizes borough councils to adopt replacement planning by‑laws until 31 December 2024, subject to voter approval and statutory timing rules.
Who It Affects
Ville de Longueuil’s municipal government and election administrators, the borough councils of Saint‑Hubert and Vieux‑Longueuil, residents in those boroughs, and municipal planners and developers who rely on updated planning by‑laws and zoning rules.
Why It Matters
The bill adjusts representation to reflect population growth, shifts executive appointment capacity at city hall, and reopens a deadline-limited route for boroughs to finalize replacement planning by‑laws — each with operational and budgetary consequences for municipal administration and election planning ahead of 2025.
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What This Bill Actually Does
Bill 204 responds to Longueuil’s population crossing the 250,000 threshold by aligning the city’s Charter with the municipal elections statute’s banding for large municipalities. The immediate statutory change is numerical: council membership increases from 15 to 18; the executive committee expands so the mayor designates five councillors instead of four.
The bill ties those numeric changes to Schedule B so seat counts for Saint‑Hubert and Vieux‑Longueuil rise specifically by two and one seats, respectively.
The text expressly grounds the change in the 14 December 2022 Order in Council that fixed Longueuil’s 2023 population at 253,629 and cites the Act respecting elections and referendums in municipalities, which prescribes a minimum number of electoral districts once a municipality reaches 250,000 residents. Practically, the city will need to create or adjust electoral districts to accommodate three new councillors, and election offices must update voter lists, ballots and nomination rules.
The executive committee change gives the mayor additional discretion in selecting council members for executive duties and slightly shifts the balance of internal city governance.Separately, the bill permits borough councils within Longueuil to adopt replacement by‑laws under section 110.10.1 of the provincial land‑use statute even though the city’s revised planning program took effect on 28 October 2021. That permission expires on 31 December 2024; any replacement by‑law adopted under this route must be "approved by all qualified voters in the territory of the borough concerned" for the purposes of section 136.0.1, and section 239 of the land‑use Act applies to the prescribed time limit.
Those requirements import provincial referendum and timing mechanics into the boroughs’ local planning process, which means borough councils and municipal election officials will need to schedule and resource possible borough‑wide approval votes within a compressed calendar.Finally, the Act contains a transitional rule that limits the immediate legal effect of the Charter amendments: before 3 November 2025 the changes apply only for the purposes of an instrument relating to the 2025 general election. The bill comes into force on the date of assent, but several operative effects are tied to electoral and planning instruments and deadlines that will determine how and when the new numbers and by‑laws take practical effect.
The Five Things You Need to Know
Section 1 replaces the council size in the Charter of Ville de Longueuil from 15 to 18 members.
Section 2 amends the executive committee composition so it is the mayor plus five designated council members (previously four).
Schedule B is altered so Saint‑Hubert’s councillors increase from 5 to 7 and Vieux‑Longueuil’s from 9 to 10.
A borough council may adopt replacement by‑laws under section 110.10.1 of the provincial land‑use Act until 31 December 2024, but any such by‑law must be approved by the borough’s qualified voters.
The Charter amendments have effect, before 3 November 2025, only for instruments relating to the 2025 general election (transitional limitation).
Section-by-Section Breakdown
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Increase city council from 15 to 18 members
This provision amends section 15 of the Longueuil Charter by changing the numerical council size. The mechanical change triggers downstream tasks: creating three additional electoral districts or reassigning population across districts, updating electoral rolls and candidate filing rules, and reflecting the new composition in municipal governance documents and budgets.
Expand executive committee membership
Section 22 is changed to allow the mayor to designate five councillors to the executive committee instead of four. Practically, the mayor gains capacity to include an additional councillor in executive decision‑making; this alters internal power dynamics and the pool of councillors who will shoulder executive workloads and responsibilities.
Reallocate borough seats in Schedule B
The Schedule B amendment adjusts seat counts by borough: Saint‑Hubert increases by two seats and Vieux‑Longueuil by one. That reallocation reflects borough population differentials cited in the bill and needs to be implemented through electoral districting and local administrative changes so that councillor constituencies reflect the updated numbers.
Transitional limit tied to the 2025 general election
This transitional clause confines the immediate legal application of the Charter amendments: before 3 November 2025, the changes are effective only insofar as they relate to instruments connected to the 2025 general election. In operational terms this creates a temporal window during which electoral preparations must adopt the new numbers for 2025, while leaving open how the Charter applies to other instruments or future elections after that date.
Boroughs may adopt replacement planning by‑laws; voter approval required
A borough council may, until 31 December 2024, adopt any replacement by‑law contemplated by section 110.10.1 of the Act respecting land use planning and development despite the city’s revised planning program already being in force. The provision requires any adopted replacement by‑law to be approved by all qualified voters in the borough for the purposes of section 136.0.1, and it makes section 239 of the land‑use Act applicable to the time limit. The effect is to permit borough‑level legislative action on planning rules but to subject those actions to provincial referendum/timing mechanics and the administrative work of organizing borough‑wide approval votes.
Commencement
The Act comes into force on the date of assent. While that puts the law on the books immediately, several operative effects—particularly those tied to elections and to the 31 December 2024 and 3 November 2025 deadlines—create staged implementation requirements that municipal officials must manage in the coming months.
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Explore this topic in Codify Search →Who Benefits and Who Bears the Cost
Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- Residents of Saint‑Hubert: They will have two additional councillors, lowering the constituent‑to‑councillor ratio and potentially increasing local representation and attention to borough issues.
- Residents of Vieux‑Longueuil: One additional councillor increases local representation and may improve responsiveness on neighborhood planning and services.
- Borough councils: They gain a limited, statutory window to adopt replacement planning by‑laws and thereby influence zoning/land‑use outcomes at the borough level before year‑end 2024.
- City mayor and executive: The mayor can appoint an additional councillor to the executive committee, expanding executive capacity and flexibility in assigning portfolios or building majorities for initiatives.
- Developers and municipal planners: Clarified seat allocations and the opportunity to finalize replacement by‑laws may expedite or clarify local planning rules—if borough referendums pass—reducing uncertainty for development proposals.
Who Bears the Cost
- Ville de Longueuil (municipal budget): Additional councillors mean higher salary, staffing and operating costs; the city must fund new offices, supports and potentially larger committee budgets.
- Borough administrations: Organizing borough‑wide approval votes by 31 December 2024 will require staffing, voter outreach and election‑style logistics at local expense.
- Municipal election and administrative services: Redistricting, updating voter lists, ballots and candidate processes for the 2025 election impose short‑term workload and system changes.
- Taxpayers: The incremental costs of extra councillors and referendum processes ultimately fall on local taxpayers through municipal budgets unless offset elsewhere.
- Political actors and service providers: Compressed timelines increase the risk of rushed consultations, legal challenges or reduced public engagement, raising compliance and reputational costs for stakeholders involved in planning or election processes.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The central dilemma is between correcting representation to match population growth and preserving efficient, timely municipal governance: adding councillors and reopening borough planning decisions improves democratic representation and local input, but it increases administrative costs, complicates election logistics, and forces high‑stakes voter approvals on compressed timelines—trade‑offs with no unambiguously correct resolution.
The bill resolves a representation gap by adding councillors, but it does so with tight deadlines that will test municipal capacity. Implementing three additional seats requires re‑drawing electoral districts consistent with voter parity rules; doing that cleanly before 2025 electoral instruments must reflect the new numbers will demand legal, technical and public‑consultation work on an accelerated schedule.
The requirement that replacement planning by‑laws be "approved by all qualified voters" in a borough imports referendum procedures into what is otherwise a municipal planning exercise, and organizing such borough‑wide approval votes before 31 December 2024 may be costly and logistically difficult.
There is textual and practical ambiguity in two places. First, the phrase requiring approval "by all qualified voters" raises questions about whether the bill requires a simple majority vote in a borough‑level referendum (the likely operational interpretation) or something closer to unanimous approval; municipal and provincial officials will need to reconcile that language with the Act respecting land use planning and development and with established referendum procedures.
Second, the application of section 239 to the time limit could allow for prescribed extensions or interlocutory timelines, but the bill does not spell out how common timing problems—delays in scheduling a referendum, legal challenges to a replacement by‑law, or ballot‑processing issues—will be handled in practice. Those gaps create a real risk of legal uncertainty, last‑minute litigation or mismatched expectations between boroughs and the city.
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