Municipal amalgamation a waiting game

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This article was published 24/05/2013 (4624 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

SMALLER Manitoba municipalities are sitting and waiting as the NDP prepares to pass a bill prodding them to amalgamate.

The one instance the province held up as the spirit of amalgamation recently fell through due to local opposition.

“At this point, it looks like it’s dead,” RM of Lac du Bonnet Reeve Gus Wruck said Wednesday.

The RM wanted to explore amalgamation with the Town of Lac du Bonnet to streamline meetings, but a motion to get information on a possible merger was defeated at a recent meeting.

The Town of Gretna and RM of Rhineland have gone so far as agreeing to explore a possible union but are now sitting on the fence until Bill 33, the Municipal Modernization Act, is passed in the Manitoba legislature.

“We’re going to wait and see where it takes us,” Gretna Coun. Bernie Rempel said.

The only other communities leaning toward amalgamation are the Town of Roblin and the municipalities of Shell River and Hillsburg. The push for amalgamation came out of a recent public meeting in Roblin.

The province signalled in last year’s throne speech it wanted municipalities with fewer than 1,000 residents to amalgamate in an effort to reduce duplication and costs. Manitoba has 196 municipalities, 92 of which do not meet the province’s threshold of 1,000 people. A law setting 1,000 as the minimum population for a municipality has been in force since 1997, but it’s never been enforced until now.

Bill 33 would require smaller towns and rural municipalities to submit merger plans to the province by Dec. 1 that would take effect on Jan. 1, 2015.

The bill allows Local Government Minister Ron Lemieux to extend the deadline for submitting plans under special circumstances. The effective date of an amalgamation can be extended to July 1, 2019.

Bill 33 is currently wending its way through the house, with a public committee meeting to be scheduled before the end of the spring sitting on June 13. Forty-two people have signed up to speak on it as of Thursday.

Emerson Mayor Wayne Arseny said he’s waiting for Bill 33 to be passed to see how it will affect his border community in terms of its possible merger with the RMs of Franklin and Montcalm.

“We’re going to wait and see whether the guidelines are changed,” Arseny said.

He said the big fear is that local control will be weakened in a larger government district.

He said there will be little in savings. Elected representatives will need to be paid instead of serving as volunteers, as their workloads will increase in a larger municipality.

“I just don’t think you’ll find the people to do all of the work for free,” he said.

Wruck said regardless of what happens with Bill 33, amalgamations of smaller municipalities are a foregone conclusion because of rural depopulation.

“It’s really a sign of the times,” he said. “There’s got to be some rationalization.”

bruce.owen@freepress.mb.ca