Local Government Reform Minister Daniel Allain announcing sweeping municipal reforms
The New Brunswick government has announced municipal reform plans that would drastically reduce the number of local government entities in the province from 340 to 90, with a new total of 78 municipalities and 12 rural districts.
Under the plan, the Town of Sackville would merge with the Village of Dorchester and the surrounding local service districts, that include the communities of British Settlement, Westcock and Wood Point, to form one of the 78 municipalities with an estimated population of 8,352 and an estimated tax base of $869.8 million:
The reforms, announced today by Local Government Reform Minister Daniel Allain, would also merge Port Elgin with its surrounding areas:
The province is planning to expand the mandate of the 12 regional service commissions from their current role of collecting garbage and overseeing municipal land-use planning to co-ordinating economic development, tourism promotion, community development, regional transportation (community transit) and recreational infrastructure cost-sharing.
In addition, the regional service commissions would have a mandate to establish Public Safety Committees on policing and fire protection:
“We’re here for the next generation and this is why we’re moving today with this bold reform,” Allain said today during an online news conference.
He added that reform is badly needed since the province has changed so much since the major municipal reforms of the 1960s.
“Change is long overdue in our province,” Allain said referring to the 65-page government white paper he released today. He said the white paper outlines the changes that will be enshrined in provincial legislation the government plans to introduce next month.
Municipal elections
In combined municipalities such as Sackville and Dorchester, plans call for an election next November so that the new council could take office on January 1, 2023.
The province says it will appoint transition teams to come up with structuring the new councils and drawing ward boundaries as well as naming the new municipality. The teams will also oversee the hiring of a clerk and a chief administrative officer who would be in place by September 1, 2022.
On the thorny question of municipal tax increases, especially for LSD residents, Allain insisted people will pay only for the municipal services they receive.
He said the province is considering options such as reducing provincial property tax rates, revisiting the cost of roads that the province maintains in rural areas and giving municipalities more ways of raising revenues.
Mesheau responds
Mayor Shawn Mesheau
Sackville’s mayor said today’s provincial announcement that the town would be merged with the Village of Dorchester and surrounding local service districts came as something of a surprise.
“We anticipated some changes,” Shawn Mesheau told CHMA reporter Erica Butler in a telephone interview. “We probably weren’t aware of the aggressiveness in regards to those changes,” he added.
“Changes were anticipated, but maybe not to this extent.”
Mesheau said town staff are analyzing the provincial white paper so that council can be properly briefed on it before deciding what, if any steps, need to be taken.
In July, Mesheau sent a letter to Daniel Allain that firmly opposed merging Sackville with surrounding areas.
“Sackville does not feel amalgamation is a realistic solution,” the letter said, “and would object to any forced amalgamation.”
However, in his CHMA interview, the mayor seemed more conciliatory.
“We’re just pleased to see that the province is moving forward on the local governance reform,” he said.
“Like I said, it’s a very detailed document and it’s one that we’ll have to get a better understanding on.”
Mesheau said an expanded co-ordinating role for the Southeast Regional Service Commission, especially on economic development and tourism, is “a step in the right direction” and he suggested he’d be interested in running for mayor in a larger municipality if there’s another election next fall.
Politically risky
A professor at Mount Allison University, who specializes in municipal politics, says that if it does press ahead with municipal reform, the Higgs government risks short-term unpopularity and the likelihood of defeat in the next provincial election.
“I thought that this government would either make major changes in health care or they would make major changes in municipal government and not both,” Geoff Martin said today in a telephone interview.
“And, I think they chose municipal government, I’m assuming because there’s less allegiance to the current municipal system in New Brunswick,” he added.
“This is more than I expected,” Martin said. “It is a transformation on the scale of the Equal Opportunity Program and the changes in the mid 1960s.”
He said that as the Finn report on municipal reform showed in 2008, there’s a recognition, at least among elites in New Brunswick, that changes are needed.
“This is highly ambitious and politically possibly foolhardy for the government to be committed to this, but on the other hand, maybe with Mr. Higgs…maybe there’s something he wants to say, ‘Well, I made a political sacrifice, but it was for something that had to be done.'”
Without presuming any particular specialist’s knowledge of local/municipal politics, I wonder whether a couple of other explanations might be possible:
– The merger plan might actually represent a pivot by the Higgs government, since its health care plan seems to have morphed from the DOA attempt to close smaller facilities to the recently announced smoke-and-mirrors virtual service option. Having failed to save money with closures, and needing a big win *somewhere*, the PCs are going for regional consolidation, instead?
– The merger plan is actually some sort of stalking horse — or even, Trojan horse? — end-run attempt on consolidating rural/smaller healthcare operations? I don’t claim any evidence for this or exactly how the two projects might be related. Just wondering aloud.
All that said, now for the fun part! What will we call the new Sackville-Dorchester entity? Early entries:
Sackchester
Bagchester
Dorchville
Get yer entries in early! 🙂
“No doubt the universe is unfolding as it should” PE Trudeau quoting from Desiderata.
Sackville Parish goes back to the 1760s… interesting to see a merger for political purposes… whatever could they all be up to at this point in time…. I’m one of those people who does not trust government to do anything without an overarching agenda so this would imply they’re interested in growing their controls over rural Canadians. Does government ever actively work to shrink its control and management of human resources and lands? never.
If a community is named after the parish of Dorchester or the parish of Sackville then all communities within the parish when population warrants a merger should be named after that community. If a parish does not have a community named after it, then when population, industry and growth warrant amalgamation then name the new municipality as the parish name. It is not logical to expand a municipality’s reach and responsibility when population and industry does not favour growth with a lower tax ratio. We have seen from recent amalgamations it does not work if population density is low and having a lack of industry is a death sentence to a municipality by increasing it size. These other communities have higher tax rates making them the least favourable for growth without attracting new business. Westmorland county has 7 parishes, that can relate to 7 healthy cities ( Salisbury, Moncton, Shediac, Dorchester, Sackville, Westmorland and Botsford). Part of Toronto’s GTA did not include Mississauga until the population density and industry kept taxes similar. It is nonsense with no future prospect for growth to add a further burden of taxes on LSD’s and increase rates for those in municipalities to justify amalgamation. Amalgamation must make economic sense and as it seems the provincial government overlooked several cities that can be amalgamated. Municipalities and the public must challenge amalgamation especially when the economic science does not favour amalgamation. Welcome to the province of Dudville!