[Moncton] Dieppe Developments

[DTBourque]

@JHikka

No doubt that people in Dieppe (and Riverview) use some of Moncton's services (and vice-versa). Amalgamation is one solution that would help create fairness there. I am not particularly opposed to amalgamation personally. My point was that language isn't the best explanation for why the cities haven't been amalgamated yet - my arguments aren't intended as being for or against amalgamation.

More Francophones are currently living in Moncton than in Dieppe. Francophone ties to Moncton are at least as strong as they are to Dieppe because of the people who live there and the institutions that are there - even if Francophones are a minority in Moncton.

(Btw, I'm assuming that Moncton's Anglophones would be fine with amalgamation because there is already a significant Francophone minority in Moncton and the Moncton CMA, and because the larger city benefits in obvious ways from amalgamation.)

Can't talk about it was a figure of speech, not an argument to be taken literally. Saint John was a counterexample to the idea the Moncton hadn't amalgamated with Dieppe because of language - because SJ and its suburbs haven't amalgamated either and they are all Anglophone. My point is that amalgamation has been a bumpy road in NB. Even with SJ suffering with so many of its service users not being part of its tax base, amalgamation isn't really on the horizon there either.

Tracadie-Sheila and Sussex are amalgamations in rural areas. The challenges those kinds of amalgamations try to overcome are not the same in kind as those between cities. So, I don't think we can point to those and compare them directly with SJ or Moncton.

Appendage is a matter of perspective. I've argued that Dieppe is self-sufficient and distinct enough, and in ways other than language, that it doesn't have to define itself in terms of Moncton.