Purposes, Powers and Capacity of Municipalities

The Canadian Constitution delegates responsibilities for municipal institutions to the provinces. The province of Alberta provides the structure for local governments by statute with the Municipal Government Act being the primary set of rules under which municipalities must operate.

Council roles and responsibilities 

The council is the governing body of the municipal corporation and the custodian of its powers, both legislative and administrative. The Municipal Government Act provides that councils can only exercise the powers of the municipal corporation in the proper form, either by bylaw or resolution.
The councillor's job is to work with other council members to set the overall direction of the municipality through their role as a policy maker. The policies that council sets are the guidelines for administration to follow as it does the job of running a municipality. A councillor will spend a lot of time while on council creating new policies and programs or reviewing the current ones to make sure they are working as they should.