The City of Gatineau, Que., is working with other municipalities hoping to convince the provincial government to allow cities to set their own rules for cannabis smoking in public places.

The Coalition Avenir Québec introduced legislation last month to raise the legal cannabis age from 18 to 21 and ban smoking in public spaces.

Mayor Maxime Pedneaud-Jobin said he's had discussions with Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante to ask the CAQ government for some flexibility.

Pedneaud-Jobin said both cities have a lot of people living in apartments and cities should be able to adapt to their own communities — especially, in his case, with Ontario right across the Ottawa River.

Papineau's CAQ MNA Mathieu Lacombe said the government wants to set common standards across the province for public health reasons.

He said having a patchwork of regulations wouldn't work for the province and the government wants consistency across Quebec.