If you want to change something about road safety policy, step one is figuring out who has the power to change it.
There are many moving parts involved in keeping our roads safe. It’s split across three levels of government – federal, provincial/ territorial and municipal – each responsible for different areas within road safety. Once you know who controls what, you’ll know what level of government to direct your advocacy toward.
Who does what
Your local municipality
Your town or city, managed by the local municipal government, is the level closest to you and makes the everyday road safety decisions in your community. Municipalities design, build, and operate local roads, setting local speed limits, bike lanes, sidewalks, crosswalks, stop signs and traffic-calming measures such as speed humps.
Municipal governments use bylaws, which are rules that apply within city limits, and provide local services to help manage how things work in your local community. Municipal governments are run by people who are elected to the city or town council. The head of the council, usually the mayor, works with elected councillors to make decisions for the community. Councillors may represent different wards or areas of the municipality and speak on behalf of the people who live there. Local governments answer directly to you and your neighbours, and they decide many of the key road safety interventions you can advocate for, as you will see in the next section.
Your province or territory
Your provincial or territorial government is the level of government above your municipal government. It is responsible for making and enforcing road safety laws and policies in the province or territory where you live. This includes overseeing driver licensing systems that decide who is allowed to drive, setting the default speed limits for different road types and creating the legal framework that allows municipalities to implement local road safety measures such as traffic calming and automated speed enforcement.
Each province or territory is led by a premier. The premier works with a team of ministers, called the cabinet, who are responsible for different areas of government. For example, the Provincial or Territorial Minister of Transportation helps oversee transportation and road safety policies. The cabinet proposes bills, which can become official laws if they are approved by elected representatives in the provincial or territorial legislature.
Provinces and territories use different titles for their legislative bodies and for the individuals elected to represent a specific geographical area, called a riding. Most use the term Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA). The exceptions are:
- Newfoundland and Labrador: Member of the House of Assembly (MHA)
- Quebec: Member of the National Assembly (MNA)
- Ontario: Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP)
Your Member of the Legislative Assembly, or equivalent, is the person you can contact directly to raise a road safety concern in your community.
The federal government
The federal government is the highest level of government in Canada and sets road safety policies that apply across the country. It is responsible for national road safety issues such as vehicle safety standards, safety guidelines for road infrastructure, laws on criminal traffic offences and providing funding for national road safety organizations that set national road safety frameworks.
Just like MLAs, Members of Parliament (MPs) are elected from ridings, except theirs are spread across the entire country. The political party with the most elected MPs normally forms the government and sets the national agenda. Its leader becomes the Prime Minister, who works with a group of MPs chosen by the Prime Minister called the cabinet. Within the cabinet, the Federal Minister of Transport is responsible for issues related to road safety nationwide. Similar to the provincial cabinet, the federal cabinet helps draft bills, which apply nationwide, and they must be approved by Parliament before they can become law.
- Speed limits on local streets (within provincial limits)
- Bike lanes, sidewalks, crosswalks, stop signs, traffic calming, road design and maintenance on municipal roads
- Bylaws, local enforcement priorities (in partnership with police)
- Vision Zero plans and road safety action plans
Summary chart
| Government Level | What they control | Who you can contact |
|---|---|---|
| Municipal |
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| Provincial/ Territorial |
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| Federal |
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Key terms related to policy and what they mean
| Bill | A proposed law. It gets debated and voted on by elected representatives (Parliament federally, the legislature provincially or territorially). If it passes, it becomes a law. |
| Law | A bill that’s been passed. Laws set the binding rules everyone has to follow, such as a province’s Highway Traffic Act or the Criminal Code. |
| Bylaw | A local law passed by your municipal council. It only applies inside your city or town, such as a 30 km/h limit on residential streets. |
| Standard | A technical benchmark that things must meet, such as federal vehicle safety standards or road design guidelines. Often set by experts and agencies rather than voted on. |
The Canadian policy landscape
Here’s what you should know about happening in the Canadian road safety policy space right now.
Canada’s national strategy
Canada’s Road Safety Strategy 2035 and Beyond (RSS 2035+) is the country’s current national road safety framework, created by the Canadian Council of Motor Transport Administrators (CCMTA), which is funded by the federal government. Its vision is “Towards zero: A safe road system for all Canadians,” which aims to reduce serious injuries and deaths on Canadian roads and eventually reach zero.
In line with the United Nations’s Decade of Action for Road Safety, Canada supports a goal of a 50-per-cent reduction in deaths and injuries by 2030. Recognizing that people can make mistakes, it focuses on creating a road system that helps prevent those mistakes from causing serious harm.
One of the most important things to know about RSS 2035+ is that it doesn’t make the whole country follow one uniform plan. Instead, it asks provinces, territories and municipalities to set their own goals based on local issues.
Here’s what that means for you: the national strategy points the direction but the real decisions get made closer to home, which is exactly where your voice carries furthest. You’re the ones who see these issues day to day in your own neighbourhoods, on your own routes to school, so you’re exactly who should be weighing in.
Your turn: Look up your local plans
Vision Zero is a commitment to achieving zero fatalities or serious injuries on the road. Many Canadian cities and provinces have adopted Vision Zero or are considering Vision Zero.
Before you go any further, take a few minutes to look up a couple of things: whether your city has a Vision Zero plan or road safety action plan and what your province or territory’s road safety strategy says.
To see where and learn more about how your jurisdiction is committed to Vision Zero, check out Parachute’s Vision Zero Map. It lists which places in Canada, whether a local municipality or an entire province, that have committed to a Vision Zero Plan and provides links to those plans.
These plans tell you what your government has done, what’s been promised and what’s still left to be done.