The gravel looks the same from the Manitoba escarpment to the Alberta parkland. The election calendar does not.
Each province writes its own municipal act, names the offices, and sets the term. Some places elect a reeve from the whole municipality. Some elect a mayor. Some still run wards the way they ran them when the township lines were the whole of local politics. Some went at-large and now discover that one hamlet can outvote three sidings.
A by-election is not a courtesy. In one statute a vacancy past a certain date in the term must be filled. In another, council may appoint under a threshold. People borrow the rule from the next province over and then get surprised when the clerk cites the section.
School boards run on their own clock more often than town people remember. You can have a quiet municipal year and a loud trustee year in the same kitchen. If a frame on this desk is about an election, it will say which office, which statute, and which year — not “local elections are coming.”
The first useful document is not a pamphlet. It is the province’s municipal affairs election page and the local nomination notice. Everything else is conversation.