Right in the centre - Inevitable changes are coming

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Published on Thursday, November 21, 2024

By Ken Waddell

Neepawa Banner & Press

It’s been a few years now since the Manitoba NDP government of the day enforced amalgamation on municipalities. Their theory was that rural municipalities with less than 1000 residents needed to join forces to form a larger entity. The initiative was not met well by many affected municipalities for several reasons.

For starters, people don’t like being told what they have to do and then have it forced by legislation. Some municipalities saw that amalgamation had some advantages and went along somewhat willingly. Others fought it tooth and nail and are still bitter about the move to this day.

The NDP government wasn’t wrong, in that some municipalities and towns needed to amalgamate. The problem was that it was forced by law. Many people don’t know or understand that the province, by way of the Minister of Municipal Affairs, can set up or dissolve a municipality with the stroke of a pen. But just because they can do it, most ministers don’t and that’s wise.

But, as stated above, many towns and RMs should have amalgamated and many more should do so while they still have basic services.

It’s getting pretty tough to find councillors and reeves as it is also getting difficult to find Chief Administration Officers (CAOs) and and other skilled administrative people. That is in part because the rules and paper work involved in running a municipality or town has become onerous to say the least. Many municipalities are still declining in population and some are aging too so it’s difficult to provide the services, finance them and administer everything that people want and need in 2024.

I have seen some very unnecessary duplication of services across western Manitoba. Providing rural and urban water treatment and pipelines is a huge cost and the maintenance is pretty steep. 

There’s another factor that causes rural grief and that is the cost of road construction and maintenance. Most RMs can’t afford any more than two grader/snow plow units and I hear many complaints about road grading and snow clearing and the delays in service. In addition, as one reeve from a few years ago stated to me, the towns should just leave the RMs alone as all they to do  road gravelling and snow clearing. Well life has gotten a lot more complicated than that. Municipal governments now involves water and sewer as noted above as well as recreation services, health care, handi-van service and libraries.

Rural people want and need a higher level of service than many expected 30 years ago.

As a matter of full disclosure, I served twice as mayor of Neepawa and I will be the last one to say that I had all the answers. That said, we all need to look at better answers or our communities won’t survive. I can actually remember back 70 years and there are dozens of communities that used to be able to provide retail and educational services. Little towns used to have stores, an elevator or two, a school, skating  and a curling rink. Those dozens of communities are in many cases, simply gone or are inhabited by so few people there isn’t even a coffee shop.

A few years ago, somebody in Saskatchewan suggested that the largest 14 or 16 towns and cities should become hubs for the surrounding areas. Seeing as there are 296 RMs in Saskatchewan, the suggestion may have merit. Manitoba has 79.

I think that many more towns and RMs need to seriously look at amalgamating, but another attempt by government to force it would be ill-advised. I can guarantee that many towns will continue to dwindle, services will continue to disappear, farms will continue to get larger. Citizens will have to figure out how to make it work. Those areas that figure it out will survive and thrive. Those areas that don’t figure it out will not survive. It’s a definite problem, but it’s only being made worse when stubborn refusal to talk is the first answer.

Most people don’t want change and don’t want to pay more taxes. Unless, they allow for change, which means development, they will be driving a lot further for services. I guess it just depends on how far you want to drive.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this column are the writer’s personal views and are not to be taken as being the view of the newspaper staff.