Minister defends tight timeline for N.B. municipal overhaul

The minister in charge of New Brunswick municipal reform is defending the timeline and speed imposed on  local governments to completely overhaul their boundaries, election systems and services.

The deadline to finalize boundaries of the 90 new entities, down from 230, is Friday.

The municipal plan was released in November 2021, and the new entities are expected to get everything ready for elections of their new councillors by November 2022. 

Many communities and organizations, even the ones that favour the changes, have said this timeline is too tight and is causing stress on staff and residents. People in the Perth-Andover area and in the communities of Chipman and Minto are among those who've complained.

But Daniel Allain, the Progressive Conservative minister of local governance reform, said more time "can be a disadvantage in some cases." 

He said delaying the amalgamation could mean a collapse of services such as health care that are already stretched thin. 

"I know we have aggressive timelines set for this transition," he told Information Morning Moncton. "We want to be poised to make sure that we don't lose services, because that's why we're doing this."

He said with a staffing crisis in health care and "every industry," the province wants to make sure that the new municipalities are set up quickly to "find efficiencies and reduce duplication." 

"It's the only way to move sometimes," he said. "We've been asking for restructuring for a long time. It's time to do it."

The province previously said the plan is intended to reform how local services and infrastructure are shared, and rein  in the urban sprawl just outside the taxation reach of cities, towns and villages.

Taxes, service questions have to wait till 2023-24

The 161,000 people who now live in unincorporated local service districts likely won't know exactly what services will change or what taxes will look like until after the boundaries and elections are set in stone.

Allain said the new municipal reform plan is under a four-year rollout process. First, consultation, then setting up boundaries, followed by deciding the council makeup of the newly defined areas, then planning and taxation slated for 2023 and 2024.

He said Minister of Finance Ernie Steeves is going to have a comprehensive package on taxation this budget. 

"So just stay tuned," he said.

Not knowing exactly what the boundaries mean is causing anxiety for residents, who say they feel like they don't know what they're agreeing to.

Tracey Mullin, who lives on Briggs Cross Road, just north of Moncton, said she relies on well water and a septic tank and there are no streetlights on her street. To her, this is the price to pay for living in a rural area, and she is not interested in joining the city of Moncton.

Seven per cent of the Local Service District of Moncton, including Mullin's street, is slated to join the city under the province's plans. The rest of the Local Service District of Moncton will be part of two different LSD amalgamations. 

Mullin started a petition signed by more than 400 people to instead join an LSD entity instead of the city of Moncton.

"The services that Moncton has don't interest us," she told Information Morning Moncton earlier.

Allain said the province is still having meetings with three or four areas that are still not happy with the new boundaries or that need more clarity. He said he will be having meetings until the boundaries are finalized Friday.

"We've got pretty much, I would say, 95 per cent of all entities already set for that transition," he said.

"Change can be daunting and it's natural for people to have questions, concerns and we are working with these individuals."

Sackville resident Carol Cooke is organizing a protest in front of Sackville town hall because she's not happy with the planned council makeup of the new area her home will be part of.

She said the current plan is to have four councillors representing the Sackville area and four representing the LSD communities brought within the new boundary. To her, Sackville needs one more councillor.

"So much that goes on in our daily lives is affected by decisions made at the local level and, as you know, the provincial government is about to drastically change how we govern ourselves locally," she wrote in an email to the city.