Atlantic Canadian Politics Thread

[MonctonRad]

Shediac was a big winner in this municipal reform package:

Town of Shediac will inherit:
– Local service district of Shediac Cape
– Local service district of Scoudouc Road
– Local service district of Pointe-du-Chêne
– Portion of the local service district of Scoudouc (95%)

The new town population will be 9,441.

It will be interesting to see how this affects the Moncton CMA boundaries. On the one hand, Scoudouc is currently part of the Moncton CMA, and it's inclusion in Shediac might tip commuting patterns sufficiently that all of Shediac will be incorporated into the Moncton CMA the next time around.

Alternatively, if the Shediac commuting watershed is not altered sufficiently enough for inclusion, then the Moncton CMA might actually lose a couple of thousand people.

It will be interesting to see if the Moncton CMA is +9,000 or -2,000 by the time of the 2026 census.

[MonctonianSentinel01]

I believe that we will be losing Salisbury and Dorchester as well. Although Salisbury might stay in depending on commuting patterns. It might mean that we gain on the Salisbury side of things. Also I believe that entity 32 we will probably still keep. Thoughts?

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by MonctonianSentinel01

I believe that we will be losing Salisbury and Dorchester as well. Although Salisbury might stay in depending on commuting patterns. It might mean that we gain on the Salisbury side of things. Also I believe that entity 32 we will probably still keep. Thoughts?

The Moncton CMA extends deeply into western Albert County as it is (as far as Elgin), so I don't think we will be losing Salisbury, especially since Petitcodiac is staying independent. Salisbury is firmly within Moncton's commuter watershed.

Dorchester, like Sackville was never part of the Moncton CMA. Memramcook is, but Dorchester isn't.

CMAs are based on commuting patterns, and both Sackville and Dorchester have strong local employers limiting inter-regional commuting patterns (Dorchester Penitentiary and Mount Allison University).

[MonctonianSentinel01]

Dorchester is part of the Moncton CMA.
https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recen...Facts-cma-eng.cfm?LANG=Eng&GK=CMA&GC=305
Edit: Here is the 2016 version.
https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recen...a-eng.cfm?LANG=Eng&GK=CMA&GC=305&TOPIC=1

[MonctonRad]

Sorry, my mistake.

I would agree with you then. The Moncton CMA is definitely at risk of losing Dorchester as an entity then. This would be 1,167 souls as per the last census.

I imagine the influence of Sackville is too large to allow the reverse situation and push Sackville into the Moncton CMA.

[Freddypop]

The mayor of Fredericton says that the changes will add 5500+ to the city population. Also of note is that YFC will now be part of the city which adds the largest property to the tax base from Lincoln. Most of the remainder of Lincoln is now part of Oromocto

[MonctonianSentinel01]

@MonctonRad upon further review I think that we we'll keep Salisbury and the area above Moncton. Also I believe there is now an extremely good chance that Shediac will come into the fold. Hillsborough will be lost but I believe that we will eventually gain it back and that will also bring with it Alma and Riverside-Albert. Dorchester is more than likely probably gone for good.
@Freddypop that is great news! Glad that Freddy is profiting from this.

[darkharbour]

Originally Posted by MonctonianSentinel01

@MonctonRad upon further review I think that we we'll keep Salisbury and the area above Moncton. Also I believe there is now an extremely good chance that Shediac will come into the fold. Hillsborough will be lost but I believe that we will eventually gain it back and that will also bring with it Alma and Riverside-Albert. Dorchester is more than likely probably gone for good.
@Freddypop that is great news! Glad that Freddy is profiting from this.

All these CMA boundaries are a little wonky, there are statistical rationales, but they still rely on commuting patterns which are pretty loose these days. For example my first reaction is that you including Alma seems like a bit of a stretch since it's almost 1h 15m from Moncton, which would be like including St. Andrew's and St. Stephen to Saint John's CMA. But then again I know a lot of people that commute from the Biological Station to SJ, so again maybe we need to rethink our definitions.

[MonctonianSentinel01]

Originally Posted by darkharbour

All these CMA boundaries are a little wonky, there are statistical rationales, but they still rely on commuting patterns which are pretty loose these days. For example my first reaction is that you including Alma seems like a bit of a stretch since it's almost 1h 15m from Moncton, which would be like including St. Andrew's and St. Stephen to Saint John's CMA. But then again I know a lot of people that commute from the Biological Station to SJ, so again maybe we need to rethink our definitions.

It depends on where the population is if the majority of the population is on the Hillsborough side close to Riverview and there is 50% of the entire area of population that commutes to Moncton for work and that would bring it in regardless to how far it is away from Moncton. You have to look at the entity labeled 42. I doubt that Statscan will rethink it's definitions just because of lil old Moncton, or for N.B., but there are regional municipalities that are even worse across the nation.

[mylesmalley]

I think overall I like the proposal. At a glance there are some decisions I find a bit odd though.

Just in the South East, for example:

- Why bother leaving two mostly empty unincorporated areas east and south of Memramcook? Why not just add them to one of the adjacent municipalities?

- Some municipalities as described are huge, but others it seems like they went out of their way to not expand. Without getting into the arguments about why the whole place wasn't merged into Moncton, why didn't Riverview get Lower Coverdale or Hillsborough? As it stands, it will be one of the smallest in the province.

- Why is Salisbury now responsible for more territory than Moncton? But Peticodiac is unchanged and surrounded by equally rural unincorporated areas?

- Why does Entity 32 exist at all? Why not split it between Shediac, Moncton and Salisbury?

[MonctonRad]

Good questions. I especially like your idea of extending Riverview down the Petitcodiac up to and including Hillsborough. If I was to guess as to a reason why the government did what it did, I suspect they wanted to give a population boost to the new municipality, since by far the majority of the people live in Hillsborough and environs, and not in Riverside-Albert or Alma. The new municipality needed this tax base to make a go of it.

[adamuptownsj]

The odd spots to me are...

MegaNorton and MiniSussex. The former is waaaaay too large and the latter really small. What percentage of the RSC8 rural district population is within ten minutes of Sussex?

Hampton. Rothesay Parish (French Village) should have been added to Rothesay or Saint John instead of Hampton. The Kingston Peninsula should all be in either a new entity or the rural district.

The little L of rural district in the middle of Gloucester is odd.

I can't imagine St Andrews will be overjoyed about adding Bayside and Chamcook.

[MonctonRad]

Question:

Now that the era of unincorporated LSDs is coming to an end, what does this mean in the future regarding the possibility of municipal annexations?

In the past, it was relatively easy for a municipality to petition the provincial government to allow for expansion of a municipal boundary (if necessary) to allow for urban growth. Now that the cities will all be bounded by other municipalities, has this era come to an end???

[PEI highway guy]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Question:

Now that the era of unincorporated LSDs is coming to an end, what does this mean in the future regarding the possibility of municipal annexations?

In the past, it was relatively easy for a municipality to petition the provincial government to allow for expansion of a municipal boundary (if necessary) to allow for urban growth. Now that the cities will all be bounded by other municipalities, has this era come to an end???

I was surprised Dalhousie was not lumped in with Campbellton, Atholville and Tide Head..

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by PEI highway guy

I was surprised Dalhousie was not lumped in with Campbellton, Atholville and Tide Head..

Didn't Atholville just go through the process of expanding its boundaries shortly before COVID? Or did I imagine that?

[MonctonianSentinel01]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Question:

Now that the era of unincorporated LSDs is coming to an end, what does this mean in the future regarding the possibility of municipal annexations?

In the past, it was relatively easy for a municipality to petition the provincial government to allow for expansion of a municipal boundary (if necessary) to allow for urban growth. Now that the cities will all be bounded by other municipalities, has this era come to an end???

I would think that there would have to be an amalgamation of 2 or more entities combining together.

Also a note of interest. It was said in the CBC article that local government mergers will not need to be voted on by the population but need only be approved by a new provincial commission. To me that sounds like they are opening a lot of doors for future changes as well.

[Smevo]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Question:

Now that the era of unincorporated LSDs is coming to an end, what does this mean in the future regarding the possibility of municipal annexations?

In the past, it was relatively easy for a municipality to petition the provincial government to allow for expansion of a municipal boundary (if necessary) to allow for urban growth. Now that the cities will all be bounded by other municipalities, has this era come to an end???

I do expect it will be much harder, but not impossible as they didn't go with the mega-merger (full county) model that NS did in the 90s. I suspect some of the land in the Rural Districts would still be up for grabs for neighbouring urban municipalities, but it all hinges on how the new municipal entities are seen in the province's eyes, and what they see as more important - allowing Local Government Entities room to grow or protecting the Rural District's tax base. I'm assuming annexation of land from other Local Government Entities wouldn't be possible, with only amalgamation as an option for incorporating these areas into the larger town/city.

[theshark]

Originally Posted by JHikka

Didn't Atholville just go through the process of expanding its boundaries shortly before COVID? Or did I imagine that?

Yap, They just did the whole process.

[Nashe]

Fredericton to replace Saint John as N.B.'s second-largest city under municipal reform

These boundary changes are really shaking things up.

[JHikka]

Fredericton adding a bunch of rural LSDs to its population base is great but I don't really think there's much argument about what the larger 'city' is between the two...

These sorts of number-measuring contests are great clickbait for CBC, though.