Christopher Brown’s Post

Chris, you always have excellent insight to municipal issues.

It is clear we need fewer in Alberta. I doubt there will be any attempt to do the right thing and create fewer. It would require leadership that is void in this Province currently. Plus the fact the Premier will proceed, against the wishes of Albertans and municipal leaders, to bring forward political parties at the municipal level means nothing positive will happen. On a related note there is a blueprint to follow in Alberta that should be followed. Strathcona County is a very successful specialized municipality. 8 hamlets of varying sizes within it. Rural as well. Requires an anchor assessment base to make it work. I can see the possibility for several more in Alberta.

There are ways to move municipalities in this direction - and it doesn’t have to start at the governance level. (It needs to be led through governance, but the work starts through administration.) Create administrative efficiencies and systems (financial, HR, procurement). Focus on intermunicipal planning. And then intentionally build governance processes that allow communities to support and promote what makes them unique. Just like cities have aldermen/women, create regional councils that bring the best and brightest of our leaders together to advocate for their communities and their regions. Allow them to structure themselves as they see fit. Partisanship is NOT what is needed.

I am driving down the highway (more correctly riding along down the highway) so my back of the napkin analysis of Alberta’s municipal governance is something like this based on 2021 Stats Can data. Alberta has 334 municipalities with 4,262,635 citizens. Of those, 3,023,641 live in 19 cities. The remaining 1,238,994 citizens are governed by 315 municipal governments. Interesting that that number is not far off Saskatchewan and Manitoba’s population numbers. So 29% of Albertans live outside a city. Lots to dig in to here including the hollowing out of rural communities and depopulation. Given that this issue was raised at RMA, it seems more about how rural Albertans are governed and receive municipal services. Minister McIvor (not his first rodeo) likely understands the historic attachments to land and identity wrapped into these discussions. It’s not an easy discussion for many rural leaders trying to do their best for their citizens.

A while ago, I did some rudimentary analysis about average populations of municipalities in various provinces and territories. SK was at one end of that list, and I think NS might have been at the other. NS has fewer than 50 municipalities for a population that is roughly the same as SK. That's literally an order of magnitude difference. As you noted, in the last decade, the Gov. of MB pushed the issue of amalgamation for reasons of sustainability; and for the most part, the idea was probably a good one, though some small municipalities were grandfathered and didn't have to amalgamate. In AB, there are lots of villages and towns that are provided with grants from their surrounding rural municipalities. This is done in part to make the smaller communities artificially viable so they (and their infrastructure deficits) don't involuntarily land in the lap of the rural municipality. This topic pits viability and sustainability against political desire. Which one comes out on top requires, thoughtfulness, courage, and vision. In my mind, AB and SK have far too many municipalities.

As a recently ‘Receiving municipality” it’s very tough and expensive… costs and liability are transferred to the receiving muni… infrastructure deficits ands debt are 2 bigs issues. Dissolved municipalities can and do feel the losss of identity and local control. Even though, often their municipal tax rates go down significantly.

As you may recall from the doc I sent you about the presentation I made at the symposium in which the city of Grande Prairie and the surrounding county were discussing (and with which they agreed not to proceed) several years ago, I don't believe that any small urban muni in AB has ever tried to re-incorporate once absorbed. Things like villages having their own fire departments is insane, in my opinion. Interesting case studies may be taken from the City of Miramichi, which was forced to amalgamate two town and several villages (1995), and more recently New Brunswick's forced amalgamation across the board, wherein some 330 municipalities were forced to Ed to rationalize into something like 90+. Sounds good on paper, but there's a lot of unhappiness in it because the financial infrastructure has not yet been handled. Some interesting stories there for you, Christopher.

This doesn’t surprise me a this has been spoken about for many years, however it will have to be done properly with research, due diligence and respect for all…as my friend Janice said, partisanship should not be part of these discussions 😊 it will also require time with the right people 😎