Atlantic Canadian Politics Thread

[L'homard]

With the new minister of infrastructure and the new minister of ACOA both in our area, there could be some significant investments made in our area that haven't even been publicly discussed yet, over and above the prison and the DFO projects.
I'm not a huge fan of the current federal regime in general, but will readily admit they've been very good to Moncton, pumping huge dollars into projects like the vastly improved sewage treatment plant and the new bridge, to name only two examples.

[MonctonRad]

Infrastructure and ACOA is indeed a powerful combination........

[Taeolas]

Not sure where best to put it, so tossing it here for now.

New Brunswick to unveil plan to overhaul local governance

The goal is to chop about 250 local governments, bringing us down from around 350 to between 50-100 local governments.

It'll be interesting to see what gets amalgamated with what; and how much resistance to the plans will come up. I wonder if they'll try to squish Moncton together finally?

I'm also wondering what the 8th city is. By my count we only have 7:
* Moncton
* Saint John
* Freddy
* Bathurst
* Edmundston
* Miramichi
* Campbellton

Does Dieppe also count as a city?

I'm a little surprised at how few towns we have, but I guess it just highlights how big the urban/rural divide is in the province.

Ultimately I suspect the main focus will be on the 200+ Local Service Districts, and in pushing as many of them into towns and villages and cities as possible.

[MonctonRad]

Dieppe is already a city.

Any attempts to force amalgamation of Dieppe/Moncton/Riverview into a single political entity would provoke a civil war - quite literally.

Riverview will remain a town. It is the fifth largest municipality in the province (after Moncton, Saint John, Fredericton and Dieppe), but they have no desire to join the "big leagues." Part of this is to perpetuate the fantasy that Riverview is the ideal bucolic bedroom suburban community that it believes itself to be. The other reason is that as a town, it is not forced to provide bilingual services in the same manner as it would have to if it were an incorporated city.

[adamuptownsj]

I personally think they'll leave the 8 cities and most of the 26 towns alone- barring Sussex/Sussex Corner and similar situations. Campbellton could be amalgamated with its near neighbours perhaps, but I do not see too many city boundaries changing. It's the outlying areas.

Agree on metro Moncton.

Maybe Moncton Parish sees some changes. Riverview could expand in Albert County to include nearby developed areas. Shediac is the place to watch. The city has grown physically and likely will grow more.

~95 municipalities is still quite a lot: Let's say there's about 30 towns and cities that survive in their current forms. That's 65 new, broadly rural, municipalities.

What I'm interested in is what forms will exist: will all the reformed localities just by one type of municipality, or will differentiated forms of city/town/rural community continue exist? We'll likely see villages and the sui generis Regional Municipality vanish, along with LSDs of course.

[JHikka]

I've been personally wanting this to happen for over a decade - NB has far too many towns, village, etc. and far too many little town councils for a small number of people. It's beyond time for many of them to be consolidated and moved into a better regional and local structure.

Easy candidates for amalgamation are Moncton, Sussex, Shediac, Caraquet, and Campbellton-Dalhousie and for Fredericton to forcefully swallow New Maryland and/or Hanwell.

The dangerous thing about amalgamating is what happened in Ontario, where some cities became so geographically large that it's difficult to expand on their urban cores due to the suburban makeup of city councils. Both Ottawa and Toronto suffer from this. I think an easier goal would be to merge a lot of smaller villages and towns together into Rural Communities and then perhaps worry about larger centres further on. For many a lot of it can simply be smaller towns soaking up more rural area, such as a Sackville or St. Stephen.

[Taeolas]

The CBC article has been updated with more information from the ongoing press conference.

Saint John will not change.
Moncton will expand slightly, but Riverview and Dieppe stay the same.

Fredericton will get some adjacent outlying areas but no municipalities. So I'm not sure what this means exactly; I guess Lincoln, New Maryland and Hanwell won't change, but we nibble more of the northside areas.

Basically it's smushing together a bunch of the local LSDs and smaller communties into one.

From the updated article:

But a number of smaller municipalities will be fused together, along with some neighbouring local service districts, into larger entities. They include:

• Sackville and Dorchester
• Alma, Hillsborough and Riverside-Albert
• Blacks Harbour and St. George
• Cambridge Narrows and Gagetown
• Minto and Chipman
• Bath, Florenceville-Bristol and Centreville
• Grand Falls and Drummond
• Campbellton, Atholville and Tide Head

All the new entities will be in place in January 2023.

All told, the number of local entities will be cut from 340 to 90. There will be 78 municipalities and 12 rural districts. And the 12 rural districts will have an elected advisory board to communicate with the province.

Also these changes apparently will not need residential approval; something that prevented amalgamations in the past.

[ColSJ]

Originally Posted by Taeolas

The CBC article has been updated with more information from the ongoing press conference.

Saint John will not change.
Moncton will expand slightly, but Riverview and Dieppe stay the same.

Fredericton will get some adjacent outlying areas but no municipalities. So I'm not sure what this means exactly; I guess Lincoln, New Maryland and Hanwell won't change, but we nibble more of the northside areas.

Basically it's smushing together a bunch of the local LSDs and smaller communties into one.

From the updated article:


All told, the number of local entities will be cut from 340 to 90. There will be 78 municipalities and 12 rural districts. And the 12 rural districts will have an elected advisory board to communicate with the province.

Also these changes apparently will not need residential approval; something that prevented amalgamations in the past.

Correct me if I am wrong but it looks like Grand Bay- Westifled (a suburb of Saint John) will be expanding north up the Saint John River and into the Nerepis.

[Freddypop]

Update:

- No changes to the boundaries for Rothesay, Quispamsis or Saint John

- Moncton to gain a seven percent portion of the LSD of Moncton. No change to Riverview

- Dieppe adding a portion of the Moncton LSD and a portion of Scoudouc

-Fredericton adding 20 percent of the Kingsclear LSD, 50 percent of the Saint Marys LSD, 60 percent of Esty's Bridge, 35 percent of Douglas, and small parts of Lincoln, and Rusagonis-Waasis

- Restructuring to begin immediately and will become effective Jan 1, 2023. Elections or byelections to take place in November 2022.

- Regional Service Commissions to yield much more power. Previously only responsible for planning solid waste management, they will now add economic development, tourism promotion, and transportation planning plus Public Safety ie policing, fire protection, and emergency planning. Mayors will now sit on these commissions

[darkharbour]

Thank goodness SJ isn’t changing, it was far, far too big geographically already.

[pierremoncton]

https://www2.gnb.ca/content/dam/gnb/Corporate/Promo/localgovreform/docs/WhitePaper-EN-Web.pdf

[Taeolas]

Originally Posted by darkharbour

Thank goodness SJ isn’t changing, it was far, far too big geographically already.

On the other hand, it's disappointing that Freddy isn't being consolidated more. Lincoln, New Maryland and Hanwell should really be parts of the city and not standalone. Instead we get stuck nibbling at the edges that aren't blocked by those areas.

Oh well, we'll get this big reorganization done and we'll see how things grow from there.

[ColSJ]

Originally Posted by darkharbour

Thank goodness SJ isn’t changing, it was far, far too big geographically already.

Saint Johners were hoping for a reduction in size. The city boundaries go from the Foodland in Grand Bay to a minute or two past the Saint John airport on Route 111. IMO the outlining communities of Grand Bay and Rothesay should have been expanded into the city limits to absorb the sprawl.

Rothesay is quickly running out of room to build and it's my understanding the geology on the other side of the throughway wouldn't support development so that isn't an option. If Rothesay expanded towards Saint John and absorbed that awkwardly rural zone around Dury Cove and Rothesay Road between the two municipalities they could focus their efforts there. After all, let's be honest it wouldn't be in Saint John's interest to invest their attention and infrastructure in an area that is dominantly used by commuters from outlining areas. A big bonus of this area is there is a ton of undeveloped waterfront properties overlooking the Kennebacasis.

[JHikka]

• Sussex and Sussex Corner finally being merged. They really could have given it more area, though...that rural district having over $1B in estimated tax base is something.
  
• Really happy with the Acadian Peninula mergers.
  
• Cap-Pele being pushed into Beaubassin-Est is interesting.
  
• The entirety of Kingston Peninsula probably could be its own Entity.
  
• St. Andrews expanding makes sense.
  
• Fredericton Junction and Tracy probably could have been merged.
  
• Wish Fredericton got more area.

[MonctonianSentinel01]

Does this mean that the Moncton CMA will be losing Salisbury, Dorchester, and Hillsborough? Or does it mean that it will be gaining Riverside-Albert, Alma and Sackville?

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by MonctonianSentinel01

Does this mean that the Moncton CMA will be losing Salisbury, Dorchester, and Hillsborough? Or does it mean that it will be gaining Riverside-Albert, Alma and Sackville?

This does not affect the CMAs, or at least shouldn't for 2021. I guess it's TBD on how these new boundaries will effect census dissemination into the future.

[David_99]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Any attempts to force amalgamation of Dieppe/Moncton/Riverview into a single political entity would provoke a civil war - quite literally.

I was still hoping they would have taken this opportunity to Amalgamate us. Just rip that Band-Aid right off, for the greater good of everyone.

[adamuptownsj]

Originally Posted by ColSJ

Saint Johners were hoping for a reduction in size. The city boundaries go from the Foodland in Grand Bay to a minute or two past the Saint John airport on Route 111. IMO the outlining communities of Grand Bay and Rothesay should have been expanded into the city limits to absorb the sprawl.

Rothesay is quickly running out of room to build and it's my understanding the geology on the other side of the throughway wouldn't support development so that isn't an option. If Rothesay expanded towards Saint John and absorbed that awkwardly rural zone around Dury Cove and Rothesay Road between the two municipalities they could focus their efforts there. After all, let's be honest it wouldn't be in Saint John's interest to invest their attention and infrastructure in an area that is dominantly used by commuters from outlining areas. A big bonus of this area is there is a ton of undeveloped waterfront properties overlooking the Kennebacasis.

Oh man, they definitely weren't going to shrink us. I'm just glad they didn't tack on Musquash and Simonds parishes.

[Taeolas]

I suspect they figure they'll have enough of a fight from the rural folk to maintain their private fifedoms, so they left the bigger cities alone for the most part. Otherwise if they had tried to force merge communties into Freddy or SJ (or god forbid try to merge the Tri-Hub-City), the uproar from the combined rural and urban vote would probably be enough to kill the whole thing.

As is, it does seem that Freddy/SJ/Moncton are getting more overall control in general from this, with handling a lot more services/planning for the province as a whole.

[gehrhardt]

Salisbury is taking on quite a larger area as well. Up to Berry Mills and the Moncton boundary to the east, part of Albert County along the Petitcodiac to the Riverview boundary, and quite a ways north.

I'm surprised by a couple of things:

- Petitcodiac will not be grouped in with Salisbury. It's less than 1400 people and is geographically close. We already share some services too.

- The combined population of the new area is actually greater than Sussex. This surprised me most of all.