Amalgamation of Winnipeg

The City of Winnipeg, several surrounding municipalities and the Metropolitan Corporation of Greater Winnipeg were subject to a municipal amalgamation on January 1, 1972 that created a unicity or unified city. The creation of the current City of Winnipeg as a unicity was an ambitious experiment in local government reform. Until that point, the greater Winnipeg area comprised 12 municipalities under a single metropolitan government, in a "two-tier" system.

The City of Winnipeg Act amalgamated the rural municipalities of Charleswood, Fort Garry, North Kildonan, and Old Kildonan, the Town of Tuxedo, the cities of East Kildonan, West Kildonan, St. Vital, Transcona, St. Boniface, and St. James-Assiniboia, the City of Winnipeg, and the Metropolitan Corporation of Greater Winnipeg into one city. The unicity system replaced the two-tier metropolitan system established in 1960. Winnipeg City Council consisted of 50 councillors elected on the basis of one from each of the 50 wards, and a mayor elected from the city at large.

The unicity reforms were originally proposed by the New Democratic Party (NDP) government elected in 1969. The NDP's goals included greater citizen participation in government, "financial equity, the elimination of conflict and stalemate between the Metro and municipal levels, greater efficiency in the delivery of services, and a greater degree of involvement by the public at large in local politics". However, the unicity reforms as actually enacted were far from those laid out in the NDP's original "White Paper" on the subject (Proposals for Urban Reorganization in the Greater Winnipeg Area, December 1970).

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