Disappointment and relief as N.B. tweaks some municipal boundaries
Communities that opposed amalgamation upset as requests for changes passed over
The province issued a list Tuesday afternoon with dozens of changes.
Many move portions or whole local service districts from one local entity to another, while other more substantive changes include the creation of a new community from multiple LSDs in Kings County, north of Sussex.
Several communities that had voiced opposition to forced amalgamations with neighbouring centres did not see their requests reflected in the adjustments.
"I was - and the council was - very much disappointed," Lac Baker Mayor Roseline Pelletier said in an interview.
Minto mayor Erica Barnett and Chipman mayor Keith West have said the merger of their two villages doesn't make sense. (CBC)
The community of 750 in the province's northwest will become part of Haut-Madawaska in January 2023. It had sought status quo to retain local control.
"We were confident that we proved with data that we were well off, we didn't need government money … we thought we had good arguments to make the government change its mind about amalgamating us with the other community."
There was also disappointment in Minto and Chipman, which opposed the province's plan to merge the central New Brunswick villages.
Mayor Erica Barnett in a letter to residents posted on Facebook said she had been excited about local governance reform when it was announced.
"I trusted the process, I believed that government would listen to local leaders and take the input we provided," Barnett wrote.
"Clearly that has not been the case. This has made council completely lose trust and faith in the process and in our government."
The
province approved a request to merge the Village of Saint-Louis-de-Kent
with the Town of Richibucto as well as several local service districts
to form one new community. (Guy LeBlanc/Radio-Canada)
Meanwhile in Kent County, a proposal to merge communities the province initially planned to keep separate was approved.
The pitch called for merging the Town of Richibucto, Village of Saint-Louis-de-Kent, as well as the local service districts of Saint-Ignace, Aldouane, Saint-Charles and most of the LSD of Saint-Louis-de-Kent.
Saint-Louis-de-Kent Mayor Danielle Dugas welcomed the approval of the request.
"The old scenario was that we remained two small municipalities among all the rest of the large municipalities, so for us, it was just natural to ask to join together," Dugas told Radio-Canada. "We are nonetheless a community with common interests, people go to Richibucto, come to Saint-Louis, we share schools, sports and our infrastructure."
Sackville and Dorchester had opposed the forced amalgamation of the communities. Both wrote to Daniel Allain, minister of local governance reform, calling for more time and a reconsideration of the plan.
Sackville Mayor Shawn Mesheau said in an interview both communities still have many unanswered questions about how the merger will work. He said the town wasn't flatly opposed to expansion of its borders.
"The biggest concern was the feeling of being pushed into this, it being a forced amalgamation," Mesheau said.
In Lac Baker, the village is planning a community meeting Dec. 28 to hear from residents about what their next steps should be.
Mayor
Roseline Pelletier doesn't want Lac Baker to be turned into an
industrial village through its forced merger with Haut-Madawaska. (Bernard LeBel/Radio-Canada)
The mayor, Pelletier, said about 80 per cent of residents had already signed a petition opposing the amalgamation but that was seemingly ignored by the province.
The village falls below a viability threshold of 4,000 people and a $200 million tax base the government used for stand-alone municipalities.
But Pelletier said there are other small communities like Fredericton Junction and Tracy left alone, making her question whether it was a political decision.
"We don't understand the decision. We feel that we have exactly what we need here — a government that would make local decisions on local issues. I would like government to understand how important it is to have that."
Allain, in a news release about the changes the province accepted, said the government "made adjustments to some proposed restructuring plans if they are consistent with the guiding principles of the reform."
A bill to enact much of the province's sweeping local governance reform passed in the legislature last week and received royal assent. New community boundaries are expected to be in place by January 2023.
the baby boomer Generation. History will judge them as this is what happened here.
Sweeping municipal reform bill sails through, will become law Friday
Bill paves the way to reduce 340 local government entities to fewer than 100
The Progressive Conservative majority passed the reform package on third reading. Opposition parties didn't even demand a roll call vote to drag out the moment and force each MLA to record their vote individually.
A few members called out "no" votes but the process was perfunctory, given the bill's importance.
Passage of the legislation paves the way for the province to reduce 340 local government entities to just 78 municipalities and 12 rural districts.
It will also give new powers to regional service commissions to co-ordinate the delivery of programs between communities to avoid overlap and waste.
The reform is intended to address chronic local government problems that have built up for years, including the sharing and funding of local services and infrastructure, and the growth of urban sprawl just outside the taxation reach of cities, towns and villages.
The bill will become law Friday, when Lt.-Gov. Brenda Murphy grants royal assent to it and other pieces of legislation.
It gives the government a major policy win on an issue that three previous premiers have seen as too politically risky to tackle.
"A great majority of New Brunswickers are happy," Local Government Reform Minister Daniel Allain told reporters. "A great number of New Brunswickers have been advocating for change with municipal reform."
Daniel
Allain, New Brunswick's minister of local governance reform, said
there’s still a lot of work to do, including reaching decisions on
alternate merger proposals from some communities. (CBC)
Still a lot of work to do, minister says
Allain said there's still a lot of work to do. He'll soon decide on alternate merger proposals from some communities.
But he said the small number of proposals, from about 10 out of 104 existing municipalities and around 20 out of 236 locate service districts, show that the reforms have been mostly accepted.
Opposition parties had demanded more time to debate the bill and a longer period for local communities to respond to the changes, but they didn't put up a major fight.
"We're not against the change, don't get me wrong," said Liberal Leader Roger Melanson. "But there are a lot of unknowns.
"What New Brunswickers want to know right now is not a matter of being for and against. It's getting more information to get a better understanding of what they really want to accomplish."
People's Alliance Leader Kris Austin said he wanted an extension of the deadline for municipalities to propose alternatives to what was laid out in Allain's Nov. 18 report.
Thursday was the deadline for submissions, and Allain is expected to finalize the makeup and boundaries of the 90 new local entities within days.
"I'm just hoping before then that the minister will reconsider and look at alternate options," said Austin, who said he wasn't completely opposed to the reforms either.
But Allain said that after months of meetings it was time to make decisions.
"We consulted all year. We have to move ahead."
Jean-Guy
Finn, who delivered a detailed report on municipal reform in 2008, said
Thursday that voluntary reform was never going to work. ((CBC))
Past governments avoided major changes
The last time a government looked at major reform was 2008, when retired civil servant Jean-Guy Finn delivered a detailed report to the Liberal government of premier Shawn Graham.
Graham promptly shelved the report.
His successors, Progressive Conservative David Alward and Liberal Brian Gallant, made some stabs at minor reforms but avoided major changes.
All of them adhered to the idea that any municipal mergers required approval of local residents in plebiscites, an obstacle the Higgs government is eliminating.
Finn said Thursday that voluntary reform was never going to work.
"That's been the difficulty in the last 12 years," he said. "Every time they tried to restructure, they tried to do it on a voluntary basis and it didn't work."
"For one reason or another, this government decided that they would proceed and lead the process."
Finn said he wasn't surprised that there was less controversy than expected.
"I was always under the impression that if the government of the day was to do the necessary explanation and articulation of what needed it to be done, it would be widely accepted, because the evidence and the data supporting this is so obvious."
Allain said that while Finn's report was shelved 13 years ago, it got municipalities and their associations talking about reform, paving the way for their support of his plan now.
Boundaries to be finalized by Jan. 1
The white paper released last month included a list of new municipal entities to be created by the mergers, based on a threshold that a community must have 4,000 people and a $200 million tax base to be considered viable.
He said he'll use that, and a municipality's dependence on unconditional grants from the province, to make decisions about the alternate proposals he's received.
"The white paper is not a bible, it's a road map," he said.
Allain said he looks favourably at discussions in Richibucto, Saint-Louis-de-Kent and nearby local service districts to go beyond his report and merge into a single entity rather than two.
He also said local service districts around Nackawic, Woodstock and Hartland are looking at joining those municipalities.
"It's spectacular to see what's happening," he said.
With boundaries finalized by Jan. 1, the next step will be starting the transition to the new entities.
Their names will be chosen by July 1 and the province will help them draft newly merged budgets by Sept. 30, which will be followed by elections in some entities in November.
"There's still a lot of work to do," Allain said.
Melanson said big questions remain to be resolved after 2022, including changes to the property tax system.
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https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/local-governance-reform-mergers-sought-1.6287116
Kent County communities ask province to go further with local government mergers
Decision on request by Richibucto, Saint-Louis-de-Kent and nearby local service districts expected this week
"We want to go further in and make it work," Eric Tremblay, president of the Saint-Ignace local service district, said in an interview about a proposal submitted to the province.
The proposal calls for the merging of the Town of Richibucto, Village of Saint-Louis-de-Kent, as well as the local service districts of Saint-Ignace, Aldouane, Saint-Charles. It would also include most of the LSD of Saint-Louis-de-Kent.
Under the province's white paper outlining its local governance reform plans, the areas were going to be two separate communities anchored around the town and the village.
It's an example of tweaks to the province's sweeping overhaul sought ahead of the pending passage of legislation to implement those changes.
We know it's not sustainable to be everybody in their own little corner. If everybody can work together, it'll be a lot better than all working in little sections.- Danielle Dugas, mayor of Saint-Louis-de-Kent
Community leaders sent a letter to Minister Daniel Allain asking to be combined and are waiting for a formal decision that could come by the end of the week.
"I think we knew we kind of knew this was coming and we were getting ready for it," Danielle Dugas, mayor of Saint-Louis-de-Kent, said in an interview about community mergers.
"And we know it's not sustainable to be everybody in their own little corner. If everybody can work together, it'll be a lot better than all working in little sections."
Eric
Tremblay, president of the Saint-Ignace local service district advisory
committee, says they want to work together and have a seat at the table
when decisions about local issues are being made. (Submitted/Eric Tremblay)
Tremblay said they want to have a seat at the table to make decisions rather than standing at the side and watching decisions be made for them. He said the region already works well together.
"Co-operation, it's embedded in our way of life here in Kent County," he said. "We are Francophone communities, Anglophone communities, Mi'kmaw communities, and we've been living together for well over 250 years, 300 years. It's not always rosy, we have our differences, but we're used to cooperating and helping each other."
The request offers a contrast to other parts of the province that are resistant to the changes the province has announced.
Some communities the province plans to amalgamate have spoken out against the plans, including Minto and Chipman, and Sackville about its merger with Dorchester. LSDs have voiced concerns about insufficient consultation held mainly through online meetings.
Tremblay said he can understand that some communities believe the changes don't meet their needs and may feel their voices weren't heard.
He said one community offers advantages in terms of planning community infrastructure, tourism promotion and business development and attraction.
He said they will need to be "vigilant" on the financing for new entities.
"I hope they will not repeat some errors that were done in the past where they amalgamated some communities without financing and new regulations, and financial tools to make it work," he said.
Dugas said with a larger tax base and population, the merged communities would hold more sway in dealing with the province.
As well, there are already community assets like a pool in her community, used mainly by people who live outside the village, but paid for by the village.
"This way, the whole region would pay, so it would be more equal for everybody," Dugas said.
Tremblay said there are other examples, like paying for arenas used regionally, that mean a merger makes sense.
Richibucto's mayor declined an interview before the province announces its decision on their proposal.
In an emailed statement attributed to the minister, the province said it is reviewing proposals and will announce decisions on those requests by the end of the week.
Daniel
Allain, New Brunswick's minister of local governance reform, has
indicated he's open to considering some tweaks to proposed municipal
boundaries. (CBC)
Allain has said he's open to some tweaks based on feedback from communities.
A spokesperson for the department didn't answer a question about how many requests for changes have been received so far.
Legislation to implement aspects of the reform plan is expected to receive third and final reading this week before the legislature breaks for the holidays.
A timeline released by the province indicates new community boundaries would be in place by January 2023.
White Head Island might make sense to leave alone. They have their own fire department and are only connected by ferry. Miscou, on the other hand, was even part of a merger proposal with the various LSDs and villages of Lamèque Island a few years back yet it's somehow being left out of Lamèque's merger.
We the people.
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