Daniel Allain (Staff photo)
New Brunswick’s Minister of Local Governance Reform wants to see changes to a system that was created in the 1960s and desperately needs an upgrade.
Daniel Allain revealed details from a green paper Tuesday that focused on areas including New Brunswick’s current structure, regional collaboration and financing the local governance system.
“New Brunswickers have been asking for this for the past twenty years, so it is important that we have these discussions and we consult with New Brunswickers. Also, this has to move forward this fall because New Brunswickers have been asking for it.”
Allain says the province has far too many entities, which creates duplication while some areas of the province are having difficulty maintaining basic services.
He adds, currently, there are 104 local governments, 236 local service districts and 12 regional service commissions in the province.
But, more than 30 per cent of the population does not have elected representation on a local government.
Allain says, “The objective here is to make sure that we have a discussion with New Brunswickers. Throughout the summer we’ll have discussions with our committees and we’ll have a “What We Heard” paper come out. Also, we will work on the white paper in the fall.”
The four pillars outlined in the green paper that will guide the discussion are:
New Brunswick’s current structure;
regional collaboration;
land-use planning; and
financing the local governance system.
There are several opportunities presented under each pillar in the green paper.
A news release outlined more specifics for each pillar. On the topic of regional collaboration, one of the opportunities identified is strengthening the mandate of regional service commissions to provide additional services, such as tourism, economic development, adaptation to climate change, solid waste collection, and recreation.
Under land-use planning, the green paper identifies as an opportunity providing land-use planning tools that are flexible and able to address planning issues such as inclusionary zoning.
On the topic of financing the local governance system, one of the opportunities presented is lowering the provincial property taxes on non-owner occupied residential and non-residential properties, while providing additional rate flexibility to local governments for different classes of property.
Public engagement will be conducted virtually. A schedule of public meetings will be released in the coming weeks.
