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Municipalities Amalgamate in
Manitoba: Moving towards
Rural Regions
WILLIAM ASHTON, WAYNE KELLY &
RAY BOLLMAN
1
I. INTRODUCTION
iven a chance to update and strengthen municipalities, how
would you start the process? Recently, the Manitoba government
initiated amalgamations to re-structure rural municipalities. This
government initiative began with a broad landscape-view rather than
identifying specific forced amalgamations. In the November 2011 Throne
speech, 92 rural municipalities were publically identified as needing re-
structuring. After a century of virtually no change in rural municipal
boundaries and decades of rural out-migration, these municipalities found
themselves below the legislated 1,000 minimum population threshold.
This paper begins by setting the context with a brief overview of the
changing nature of local government restructuring across Canada with
particular attention to municipal amalgamation and rural areas. A
chronology of the Manitoba amalgamation is assembled to understand the
sequence of interactions between the government and municipalities,
which in turn provides context for the restructuring process. The method
of the empirical analysis is presented featuring the sub-national use of
Statistics Canada’s self-contained labour areas (SLA) algorithm as applied
to Manitoba. The findings compare potential rural municipalities with on-
1
William (Bill) Ashton is Director of the Rural Development Institute at Brandon
University, where he is also a faculty member.
Wayne Kelly is the Project Coordinator for Brandon University's Rural Policy
Learning Commons SSHRC project as well as a PhD Student in Political Science and
Sociology at National University of Ireland, Galway.
Ray Bollman is presently a Research Affiliate with the Rural Development Institute,
Brandon University, having retired from Statistics Canada in 2011.
G
124 MANITOBA LAW JOURNAL | VOLUME 38 NUMBER 2
the-ground results of the 2014 amalgamation. This paper concludes by
reviewing the new rural municipal make-up in Manitoba and the resulting
opportunities and challenges.
II. CHANGING NATURE OF MUNICIPAL AMALGAMATIONS
The evolution of local government in Canada is typified as a history of
intense re-structuring interventions by provincial governments, often
driven by and adjusting for urban growth (Bish 2001). Restructuring of
municipalities has happened regularly in Canada over the last 50 years
(Hodge and Robinson 2001). One common type of municipal
restructuring involves rural municipalities becoming part of an urban
region. Major urban centres, such as Calgary and Edmonton in Western
Canada; Toronto, Ottawa and Waterloo in Ontario; and Montreal and
Quebec City in Quebec have a history of expansion by amalgamating
adjacent rural municipalities (Alcinli 2014). Too often the adjacent rural
lands have been claimed for future urban use.
Outside of urban areas, amalgamation has tended to focus on
regionalization. Cross-jurisdictional examination reveals that several
provinces have systematically restructured rural areas into regions.
Quebec’s creation of regional development pacts that overlaid rural
municipalities is one example (Province of Quebec 2011), while New
Brunswick’s proposed municipal consolidation in 2008 provides another
(Finn 2008; Slegtenhorst 2008). The most recent example and the focus of
this paper is Manitoba’s initiative to restructure municipal governments,
specifically targeting any rural municipality with a population of less than
1,000 people. Many provinces face similar challenges in their rural areas
with sparse population, larger geographies and an over-abundance of
municipal governments (Martin et al 2008). It has been noted that the
majority of Canada’s non-urban municipalities have small populations
with limited capacity (Commonwealth Local Government Forum 2009).
Such circumstances point to the need to promote the long view where
amalgamation is a necessary step, but insufficient for success. What is
needed are deliberate actions both locally and provincially to bring about
stronger municipalities, not as a one-time silver bullet solution but mutual
investment over years, likely generations.
The intent of local restructuring should be to strengthen such
jurisdictions and ensure a positive growth and development trajectory
Moving Towards Rural Regions 125
within that geography (Douglas 2005). Despite the examples of annexation
and regional restructuring in rural areas, and the collective issue of low
population density, large geographies and low capacity facing rural areas in
Canada’s provinces, there appears to be no common approach or
standards for what constitutes a strong municipality or what is required
for effective development trajectory.
The prospect of strengthening a rural region is a difficult one since no
single definition or practice seems to exist, at least in Manitoba.
Nevertheless, some measure is needed to clarify if the SLAs are robust
local units, in terms of capacity or viability. Hence a working definition of
‘strengthen’ was needed. Strengthening a rural region can focus on
establishing start-up levels of population and tax assessment to create a
significant enough base deemed necessary to deliver services to citizens
and / or the capacity to fund economic development initiatives. Both
population and tax assessment were key factors in the New Brunswick
analysis that lead to proposing a restructuring process (Finn 2008).
Another approach, like the Association of Manitoba Municipalities’
(2011) Healthy Municipality Checklist, focuses on growth as a
representation of strength, assessing the general population or economic
trends within that municipality to determine whether these indicators are
improving or declining.
While this paper examines recent municipal re-structuring activities in
Manitoba, much like a case in point, it leaves it to others to focus on the
political, scientific, and economic issues, as well as on the broader social,
cultural, and identity aspects and manifestations resulting from municipal
amalgamations. In addition, others will be able to examine the
restructuring of rural areas based on efficiencies or growth patterns.
Rather, the primary focus of this paper is to examine rural restructuring
based on daily travel activities of residents along with minimum levels of
population and tax assessment. Such rural patterns illustrate the extent to
which existing municipal boundaries reflect the boundary demarcated by
the living and working patterns of residents.
Our focus leaves open additional studies to examine the veracity of
the various claims for proceeding with municipal amalgamation. Financial
and taxation are frequently reported in news media as a pressing concern,
especially a concern for those who have been financially thrifty with low
debts and infrastructure capacity in anticipation of growth. Such
municipalities can fear their neighbouring municipal cousins that may
126 MANITOBA LAW JOURNAL | VOLUME 38 NUMBER 2
have lacked such fiscal prudence and see amalgamation as a ‘free ride’ with
those that can afford it (Hinnerich 2009). Others, including Kushner and
Siegel (2005a), have found limited change in levels of satisfaction among
residents with municipal services before and after amalgamation. In
answering the question are services delivered more efficiently after
municipal amalgamation, Kushner and Siegel (2005b) reported the
predicted saving from consolidation did not materialize, but nor were
there significant cost increases. This suggests amalgamation is likely cost
neutral. Certainly, Reese and Cox (2007) and Zimmerbauer and Paasi
(2013) found that notions of identity continue to reflect earlier
configurations in rural and urban areas, even years after amalgamation.
Their findings suggest that even with a merged municipal organizational
structure, local identities persevere and are not easily altered to reflect the
newly minted amalgamated municipal boundaries. From an economic
development view, Pemberton and Goodwin (2010) report that re-
structuring creates opportunities for new strategies, including those aimed
at delivering economic regeneration, in conjunction with existing and new
partners. They call for more research on processes and activities when re-
scaling or re-drawing boundaries of rural jurisdictions (Pemberton and
Goodwin 2010). These many other aspects of amalgamation are beyond
the purpose of this paper.
III. CHRONOLOGY OF MANITOBA’S MUNICIPAL
AMALGAMATION
A chronology of Manitoba’s recent amalgamation provides context for
the initiative and identifies the intensity and speed with which this
restructuring occurred. This chronology was based on the briefs
submitted to the Court of Queen’s Bench by the Association of Manitoba
Municipalities and the Government of Manitoba
2
regarding this
amalgamation initiative.
Municipal amalgamations are complicated undertakings and could
easily require multiple years. The chronology of amalgamation activities
for the Manitoba initiative depicts an intense two-year period of 2012-
2
The Association of Manitoba Municipalities, The Rural Municipality of Harrison,
The Town of Plum Coulee, The Town of Emerson, The Rural Municipality of
Grandview, and The Town of Gilbert Plains v The Government of Manitoba and
Minister of Municipal Development, (2013) MBQB CI 13-01-86864.
Moving Towards Rural Regions 127
2014 (Table 1). This is followed by multiple years of implementation and
consolidation to 2019. While some could see this as quick or even rushed,
such an intense two-year period of policy implementation can be seen as
comparable in relation to different policy initiatives in other provinces. A
recent examination of public policies for natural resources found that two
years was also common in British Columbia, Ontario, and New Brunswick
(Ashton 2010).
The legislation in Manitoba pre-2012 allowed for voluntary
amalgamations and indeed since 1997 five amalgamations occurred.
Following the November 2012 Throne Speech, the government
announced the amalgamation initiative to specify that each incorporated
rural municipality or incorporated town must have at least 1,000 people –
the legislative minimum required to establish a municipality. The
government also announced it would approve a new Municipal
Modernization Act. This new law introduced a more expedited process
replacing the time consuming Municipal Board review and decision
making process under the existing Municipal Act. This new legislation
required municipalities with less than 1,000 people to amalgamate.
Throughout much of the two-year period, the Minister of Local
Government communicated with municipal officials about the progress
and requirements of this initiative, while department staff interacted with
municipal CAOs (Chief Administrative Officers). In addition to the
frequent communications with municipalities, the government also helped
facilitate the process by providing resources for municipal and civil use,
such as a guide, timelines, templates, public forums, field consultants, and
sample resolutions. No doubt for some, this Manitoba amalgamation
initiative became more complicated as the activities of establishing a new
municipality is stretched over at least three years, to 2015 and likely
beyond. Table 1 outlines the specific steps that occurred throughout the
amalgamation initiative, beginning in 1997.
128 MANITOBA LAW JOURNAL | VOLUME 38 NUMBER 2
Table 1: Chronology of municipal amalgamation activities by the
Manitoba Government
3
January 1997-2012: Earlier
voluntary amalgamations
Five voluntary amalgamations using Municipal Act:
Shellmouth & Boulton, 1998; Brokenhead & Garson,
2002; Gimli & Gimli, 2002; Killarney & Turtle
Mountain, 2006; Shoal Lake & Shoal Lake, 2010.
19 November 2012:
Announcing rural
amalgamation
Initiative announced in Throne Speech that ninety-two
municipalities below a minimum of 1,000 population
were in scope for amalgamation.
27 November 2012:
Minister reinforces
amalgamation initiative
Minister of Local Government states intention to work
toward amalgamation at the Association of Manitoba
Municipalities (AMM) Conference.
11 December 2012:
Minister`s letter to
municipalities
Minister’s letter elaborates on amalgamation process by
stating the goal that the final process was to be
completed before the municipal elections in October
2014; the expedited amalgamation process would be
developed in consultation with AMM (Association of
Manitoba Municipalities); resources will assist
municipalities; an amalgamation plan involving
neighbouring municipality(ies) will be required; and
municipalities were asked to indicate by January 2013
the names of the partnering municipalities in the
anticipated amalgamation.
On 19 December 2012, the Minister wrote to the
northern municipalities to indicate that they were not
subject to this initiative.
15 January 2013: Letter to
municipal CAOs
Deputy Minister`s letter identifies resources to be
provided by the Department to municipalities to
facilitate discussion with partner municipalities,
including: amalgamation guide and template for
amalgamation plan; regional information seminars for
municipalities; field consultants for hands-on assistance;
a website for up-dates; and staff to support the process.
31 January 2013 and 1
February 2013: Ministers`
letter to municipalities
Provides `Guide to municipal amalgamation:
Developing your amalgamation plan’ which included
important dates, template amalgamation plan,
amalgamation tax indicator worksheet, sample public
notice, and sample resolution.
3
The Association of Manitoba Municipalities, The Rural Municipality of Harrison,
The Town of Plum Coulee, The Town of Emerson, The Rural Municipality of
Grandview, and The Town of Gilbert Plains v The Government of Manitoba and
Minister of Municipal Development, (2013) MBQB CI 13-01-86864.
Moving Towards Rural Regions 129
6-15 February 2013:
Regional seminars
Seven seminars in towns across southern Manitoba were
held by staff using a presentation to reinforce key dates
namely: March 31, 2013 to name amalgamation
partners and 1 December 2013 to submit amalgamation
plan.
31 March 2013: Reminder
to confirm amalgamation
partners
On 13 March 2013 Minister updates municipalities on
the process and request municipalities pass resolution
committing to their amalgamation.
Department releases the SLA report by Brandon
University’s Rural Development Institute.
31 March 2013 municipalities submit amalgamation
plans to Minister.
The Economic and Society Standing Committee of
Manitoba Legislature holds meetings to hear from those
affects by the amalgamation initiative.
25 April 2013: Brandon
University’s Rural
Development Institute
Reports available
At the end of April 2013 RDI made two research
reports regard Manitoba’s amalgamation initiative
public. These two reports focused on the identification
of self-contained labour areas and the determination of
indicators and metrics for a “strong” rural municipality
in Manitoba. These reports were developed to provide
insight and recommendations for municipalities and the
province of Manitoba in the amalgamation initiative.
1 May 2013: Expedited
amalgamation process in
legislation
First reading of the Municipal Amalgamation Act tabled
and the Minister updated mayors and reeves by letter.
13 September 2013: New
Act passed
The Municipal Modernization Act comes into force. 27
September 2013 Minister writes mayors and reeves
regarding new legislation and importance of 1
December 2013 to receive amalgamation plans. New act
reiterates the requirement of municipalities with less
than 1000 residents to amalgamate but specifically
exempts three resort communities from amalgamation
given their seasonal populations – Village of Dunnottar,
RM of Victoria Beach, and Town of Winnipeg Beach.
Act also clarifies municipalities have duty of cooperation
31 December 2013: Submit
amalgamation plans
Municipalities submit amalgamation plans to Minister.
2014: Critical dates
31 March 2014 Judge decides AMM court challenge is
unfounded.
May to June 2014 the mayors and reeves and candidates
for councillors established for newly amalgamated
municipalities for fall municipal election.
22 October 2014 Municipal election.
130 MANITOBA LAW JOURNAL | VOLUME 38 NUMBER 2
1 January 2015 is the legislated target date for all
amalgamations, and the Minister can extend effective
date of amalgamation up to 1 January 2019 in the event
of special circumstances (e.g., floods).
The timeline in Manitoba for the restructuring initiative created
challenging and intense planning expectations for municipal governments.
To help local governments navigate the action-oriented timeline, the
provincial government provided several resources during restructuring.
The province’s guide to municipal amalgamation made an otherwise
complicated process more understandable. It was available early and
provided a longer view along with more details for preparing a municipal
amalgamation plan. The guide identified three stages for local decisions.
The immediate stage outlined decisions related to completing and
submitting such a plan, as well as getting the new municipality
functioning. Such details included the new municipal name, council size
and structure, location of the municipal office, and which by-laws will
apply if there is a conflict between one or more of the partners. A second
stage of local decisions, which were needed before the 1 January 2015,
include decisions such as naming the CAO, timing of the first council
meeting, and agreeing on the assets of the former municipalities and their
use (e.g. financial reserves and equipment). The third stage of decisions
would occur after January 2015 and after the new municipality has
functioned for a period of time, and include decisions about staffing,
municipal facilities and most bylaws. Although the guide made clear what
needed to change locally, the changes locally were for many councils and
long standing municipal staff very difficult, very emotional, claimed Mayor
Eileen Clarke, Gladstone, Manitoba (Personal communications).
In addition to the guide, the provincial government also
commissioned research that identified possible guidelines for
municipalities. This research focused on the adaption of Self-Contained
Labour Areas and created the basis for this paper. The next section
provides a methodological overview of the research conducted before
comparing the research’s recommendations with the actual amalgamations
that took place in Manitoba.
Moving Towards Rural Regions 131
IV. METHODS
The research conducted focused on two distinct but complimentary
areas to provide guidelines for municipalities as they progressed through
the amalgamation initiative. The first area examined existing economic
relationships between municipalities and to identify potential geographic
boundaries for those municipalities that were restructuring. The intent
was to identify and describe existing economic connections between rural
municipalities within a geographic area. By making them available in
2013, these economic connections were intended to provide guidelines for
municipalities as they determined potential amalgamation partners. The
process for identifying and describing these economic connections and the
resulting regions are described in the Self-Contained Labour Areas section
below.
The second research area aimed to suggest possible characteristics of
strong municipalities, again to indicate to amalgamating municipalities
how many partners to involve. This research examined and applied several
approaches before suggesting a set of indicators reflecting what might
constitute ‘strength’ at the municipal level. This area of research is
knowingly fraught with difficulty, so we offer a rationale for indicators as a
way to facilitate a discussion with the intention to inform amalgamation
discussion and decisions and provide insight into why these thresholds
create potentially stronger municipalities. As indicated previously, two
approaches commonly define strong municipalities, focusing on either the
capacity to undertake development efforts and services or emphasizing
trends of growth demographically and economically (Ashton, Bollman and
Kelly 2013b). Capacity-based measurements focus on the size of
population and tax assessment while growth measurements focus on
positive trends in population growth, debt and taxable assessment. The
Strong Municipalities section below discusses which indicators were
selected and why, the creation of metrics for those measurements, and the
results of applying these indicators within a Manitoba context. Intuitively,
most students of provincial-local relations understand that there are
varying degrees of local capacity across provinces, yet this discussion
remains pertinent and more needed.
132 MANITOBA LAW JOURNAL | VOLUME 38 NUMBER 2
A. Self-Contained Labour Areas
One way to define rural regions is through the identification of
commuting patterns among communities. The relationship between where
people live and work and their transportation between these places is a
core indicator that defines a functional economic region. The boundaries
of these commuting patterns delineate a functional area, meaning that
very few people living in that area commute outside of it, with the majority
of residents living and working within the functional area’s boundary.
Regions, or more specifically, functional economic regions, should be
the focus for ‘local’ economic development. If a job is created in the
region or if a project is successful, everyone in the region will benefit
because anyone in the region (and very few outside the region) is able to
access the job. Similarly, unsuccessful projects will generate ripple effects
across the region. In other words, sub-provincial economic development
initiatives only make sense if the initiative is targeted or applied to a
functional economic area.
Munro, Alasia and Bollman (2011) delineated Self-contained Labour
Areas (SLAs) as one way to delineate a functional economic area. The
main purpose of this paper is to present this approach as a basis for
informing Manitoba’s municipal initiative, a process that involved
adapting SLAs as potential new municipal boundaries in rural areas. SLAs
are the result of an algorithm that calculated the reciprocal commuting
flow between two Census Sub-divisions
4
(CSDs). The CSDs with the
highest reciprocal commuting flows are grouped together. These
calculations and groupings are repeated for the new groups of CSDs
creating an iterative and step-based approach that is completed when a
self-containment threshold is met for that grouping. Munro, Alasia and
Bollman (2011) define self-containment as “the degree to which the
workers living in ‘A’ are also working in ‘A’” (pg. 8). The authors also note
that this self-containment threshold is based on a sliding scale based on
population, ranging from seventy-five percent in larger areas with
populations over 25,000 to ninety-percent in smaller areas with
populations below 1,000 (Munro, Alasia and Bollman 2011). After all of
4
Census sub-division (CSD) is the general term for incorporated municipalities or
incorporated towns or cities (as determined by provincial / territorial legislation) or
areas treated as municipal equivalents for statistical purposes (e.g., Indian reserves,
Indian settlements and unorganized territories).
Moving Towards Rural Regions 133
the CSDs across the country were grouped using this process, the final
result for Canada was 349 Self-Contained Labour Areas.
Of the more than 300 SLAs defined by Statistics Canada, twenty-seven
were located in Manitoba with nine of these being located in the northern
portion of the province or consisting of Indian Reserves. The
amalgamation initiative that began in 2012 focused on the southern
portion of the province with eighteen SLAs falling within that area. As
Figure 1 illustrates, the geographic size of these SLAs vary substantially.
Figure 1: Self-Contained Labour Areas in Southern Manitoba (Ashton,
Bollman and Kelly 2013a)
In addition to diverse geographies, the eighteen SLAs varied in
population from 833 for a small SLA in the south-western part of the
province to over 800,000 for the SLA including Winnipeg. Table 2
outlines the varying levels of population across the eighteen SLAs in
southern Manitoba.
134 MANITOBA LAW JOURNAL | VOLUME 38 NUMBER 2
Table 2: Population in Southern Manitoba Self-Contained Labour Areas
(Ashton, Bollman and Kelly 2013a)
SLAs
Population
(2006)
Winnipeg
825,303
Brandon
72,400
Winkler-Morden-Altona
51,633
Portage la Prairie
26,048
Dauphin
18,910
Esterhazy-Moosomin-Langenburg (a
SK SLA that crosses into MB)
15,168
Killarney-Boissevain
13,034
Swan River
10,621
Virden
9,858
Siglunes to St. Laurent
7,504
Treherne-Sommerset
5,989
Melita-Deloraine
4,232
Russell
3,873
Roblin
3,802
Strathclair-Shoal Lake
2,887
Miniota-Hamiota
2,750
Hartney
833
Three SLAs in southwestern Manitoba were too large to serve as
potential regions, since they had more than 10 municipalities in each.
Practically speaking, this number of municipalities made it highly unlikely
all would agree to amalgamate. In addition, the majority of municipalities
in each of these SLAs were smaller than the 1,000-population threshold,
indicating that there was going to be substantial amalgamation activity
within these SLAs. In Brandon SLA, 14 out of the 26 municipalities had a
population below 1,000. Similarly, 11 out of the 14 municipalities in
Killarney-Boissevain and 10 out of the 14 municipalities in Dauphin SLA
were below the population threshold as well. To create more manageable
potential regions, it was necessary for the researchers to propose sub-SLAs
in the Brandon, Dauphin and Killarney-Boissevain areas.
Moving Towards Rural Regions 135
In the Brandon SLA, the larger number of municipalities enabled us
to use multiple approaches for creating sub-SLAs, which allowed for
comparison and better understanding of how municipalities might group
together into sub-regions. The first approach utilized was the town-centric
approach that had been applied for both Killarney-Boissevain and
Dauphin SLAs. This approach limited the number of municipalities in a
sub-SLA to five and was centred on towns in the region, grouping up to
four other adjacent municipalities with the largest commuter flows to that
town. This approach resulted in nine sub-SLAs in the Brandon SLA.
The second approach implemented in the Brandon sub-regional SLA
grouping was an amended version of the SLA process itself. In this
approach, the limit of five municipalities was used as a criteria to
determine when to stop the SLA grouping process. For the municipalities
that comprise the Brandon SLA, the reciprocal commuting grouping
halted after two steps and resulted in thirteen sub-SLAs being identified.
When comparing the two approaches to sub-SLAs in Brandon many
of the groupings were identical. The town centric method created larger
sub-regions with 26 municipalities organized into 9 town-centric sub-
regions while the abbreviated SLA process organized those 26
municipalities into 13 sub-regions. The abbreviated SLA process also had
several sub-regions that were not town-centric and fewer municipalities in
the main Brandon sub-region. Determining which method was more
appropriate for creating sub-SLAs would depend on the criteria and
desired outcomes of the exercise. In the Brandon SLA case, the
abbreviated SLA process adhered to the SLA methodology but resulted in
a more disjointed group of sub-regions while the town-centric process
resulted in cleaner sub-groups but focused only on commuting to the town
centres and not a reciprocal relationship.
For the SLAs of Dauphin and Killarney, both of which were
comprised of 14 municipalities, only one method was available for
creating sub-regions. This limitation was due to the 5 municipalities sub-
SLA maximum being surpassed in the first step of SLA grouping in both
instances. As a result, the town-centric method was used for creating sub-
SLAs in these regions. These smaller regions grouped the municipalities
together based on the largest number of commuters to the towns in those
SLAs with an imposed limit of 5 municipalities per sub-SLA. This town
centric approach resulted in 6 sub-SLAs within the SLA of Killarney-
Boissevain and 4 sub-SLAs within the SLA of Dauphin.
136 MANITOBA LAW JOURNAL | VOLUME 38 NUMBER 2
Determining potentially new rural regions resulted from calculations
based on the SLAs for Manitoba. This required adjusting Statistics
Canada’s algorithm of reciprocal commuting flows between two or more
Census Sub-divisions (Munro, Alasia and Bollman 2011). Since this was
the first time this calculation was used at the sub-national or provincial
level, Statistics Canada confirmed the approach that included identifying
two rural CSD with high levels of commuter traffic, which was a proxy for
rural labour areas. Other CSDs were sequentially added until the
reciprocal home-work pattern delineated a rural region (Ashton, Bollman
and Kelly 2013a). CSDs with low population levels, northern or remote
CSDs, and Indian Reserves were also omitted. These were also exempted
from the new legislation, The Municipal Modernization Act, along with
rural resort communities. As a result of beginning in rural areas, this
clustering method minimizes urban bias, and favours current travel
patterns of rural residents. While this analysis was initiated with rural
municipalities with less than 1000 population, eventually all
municipalities outside the metro-Winnipeg area were included. In total
this calculation included 94 municipalities with less than a 1000
population in 2011, consisting of 52 rural municipalities, 24 towns, and
18 villages. The potential rural regions were then compared with those
that resulted from the provincial amalgamation initiative, specifically in
terms of numbers of new municipalities and population levels.
One key limitation to this research was that only reciprocal travel
patterns were examined, and not other considerations such as fiscal
capacity expressed as assessment base, or assessing the impact of co-
terminous municipal boundaries with such others as education or high
school districts, health services, and economic development and planning
regions. Other considerations could also include alternative variables
(Freshwater et al 2014) such as defining the functional region in terms of
economic well-being as measured by income levels, GDP, unemployment
rates, and levels of productivity. These can all be considered in any
subsequent research efforts to enhance the SLA findings. A second
limitation is associated with examining provincial activities and not all the
other stakeholders such as municipalities, related unions, policing services,
and the many business sector associations like the chambers of commerce.
While the documents reviewed in this paper (i.e., court submitted
documents) did not include all communication materials, such as media
releases and interviews, what was documented in the chronology
Moving Towards Rural Regions 137
represents a reasonably wide variety of activities over the two-year period.
These limitations can be addressed in subsequent research.
B. Strong Municipalities
The change initiated by the Municipal Amalgamation Initiative
provided an opportunity to increase the strength of rural municipalities
and ensure that there is greater capacity in rural regions to contribute to
the economic development of the province as a whole. In addition to
using SLAs to identify potential rural restructuring boundaries in
southern Manitoba, research was also conducted into the alternative ways
of defining a “strong” municipality. Determining potential geographic
boundaries only made sense with a better understanding of what factors
are indicative of strong rural municipalities. The determination of a strong
municipality is a complex one, however, knowing there are multiple
concepts emerging of what strength means. To develop a set of indicators
that could capture the different elements of strong municipalities eight
indicators were identified that focused on two main concepts: ‘(1) the size
or capacity of a jurisdiction to service its population, and make
development investments and (2) whether the population and or economy
in the jurisdiction is on a trajectory of growth’ (Ashton, Bollman and Kelly
2013b, pg 1).
To propose indicators of a strong municipality, first, existing working
definitions of strong municipalities were examined with an emphasis on
population size, financial characteristics and commuting patterns. When
looking across Canada, three main sources for indicators were identified:
Finn’s (2008) report on Building Stronger Local Governments and
Regions in New Brunswick; the Association of Manitoba Municipalities’
(AMMs) (2013) Municipal Health Checklist and the concept of
Functional Economic Areas (FEAs) (Stabler and Olfert 2002).
Examination of these approaches to strong municipalities reaffirmed that
rural regions are complex and evolving, thus multiple indicators are
needed to define strength, ideally consisting of both snapshot and change
over time indicators in order to provide a more comprehensive
understanding. Additionally, it was clear after reviewing these approaches
that at this time there was no absolute set of indicators that would be
agreed upon to provide a universal definition of strength. As such this
concept remains elusive and may be appear contradictory to local self-
determination.
138 MANITOBA LAW JOURNAL | VOLUME 38 NUMBER 2
Each of these approaches to strong municipalities provided important
direction to propose a set of indicators. Finn’s (2008) report on rural
restructuring in New Brunswick identified a set of capacity baseline
indicators for both population and tax assessment while the AMM’s
(2013) checklist identified growth and debt levels as key indicators. Finally
the FEAs (Stabler and Olfert 2002) reinforced the importance of the
commuting relationship and the geographic boundaries represented by the
SLAs and sub-SLAs.
The resulting eight indicators represent a synthesis of the various
approaches where people and a growth trajectory are critical for a
municipality’s future. The indicators incorporate capacity and growth
indicators, while also including several indicators for important financial
context, since municipalities have obligations to fund services too. With
the goal of a modest set of indicators to address current and future
trajectory, the capacity concept was captured with two baseline indicators
while the growth concept was represented in three demographic and one
financial indicator. The capacity indicators focus on the population and
tax assessment levels of the jurisdiction to establish baseline strengths in
size. The three demographic growth indicators include population change
per year, growth of female population age twenty to thirty-nine per year
and growth of senior population eighty years and older per year. These
demographic indicators were accompanied by a financial growth indicator
as well that focused on the tax assessment change per year. The final two
indicators focus on financial context for municipalities and include debt
per capita and percent debt change per year. The list and their context are
provided in Table 3. This list is neither comprehensive nor exhaustive,
but rather a working set that is useful for this preliminary analysis.
Moving Towards Rural Regions 139
Table 3: Strong Municipality Indicators (Ashton, Bollman and Kelly
2013b)
Indicator Type
Indicator
Baseline Capacity Indicators
Population
Tax Assessment
Growth Indicators
Population Change per year
Growth of Female Population age 20-39 per year
Growth of Senior Population age 80 years and older
per year
Tax Assessment Change per year
Contextual Indicators
Debt per capita
Percentage debt change per year
After suggesting the indicators for describing strong municipalities,
metrics were needed. To develop these metrics and to conduct an initial
test of the indicators, four different groupings of municipalities were
established and examined along with the metrics from New Brunswick’s
baseline indicators. These four sets of municipal groupings were identified
from four alternative ways of identifying a strong municipality. Within
each group, we reviewed the values for each indicator. Recognizing that
each grouping may include ‘weaker’ or outlier municipalities depending
upon one’s perspective of what ‘strength’ means, the first quartile has been
selected as a threshold within each grouping (i.e. the point where seventy-
five percent of the municipalities are above this level). The resulting
analysis identified the indicator values for the top seventy-five percent of
‘strong’ municipalities in each grouping.
The groupings themselves consisted of thirty rural Manitoba
municipalities, organized based on field experience and analysis. The four
groups consisted of two sets of strong municipalities which were identified
based on field experience with one group of five ‘strong’ municipalities
being determined by Manitoba local government staff and the additional
group of five ‘strong’ municipalities determined by the research team. The
third group consisted of the top ten ‘healthy’ municipalities in rural
Manitoba as defined by the Association of Manitoba Municipalities’
(2013) healthy checklist. The final grouping of ten municipalities is based
on administrative efficiency (based on the lowest cost of municipal
administration per capita) to provide additional insight for the capacity
and growth concepts of strong municipalities.
140 MANITOBA LAW JOURNAL | VOLUME 38 NUMBER 2
When examined, these four groupings of strong municipalities
provided a range of values for each indicator and reinforced the diverse
ways in which “strong” municipalities can be defined. In fact, only three
municipalities appeared on more than one of the lists of strong
municipalities, meaning that very few communities were viewed as strong
in both capacity and growth. Table 4 is taken from the project report on
developing strong indicators and reveals the benefits and challenges of
each approach. The New Brunswick approach to strong rural
municipalities was also examined. While it was not applied to a group of
rural municipalities in Manitoba, the report states that the recommended
threshold for strong municipalities is a minimum of 4,000 in population
and $200 million in taxable assessment. The conclusions from the analysis
of the New Brunswick thresholds in relation to Manitoba’s rural
municipalities are provided in the table as well.
Table 4: Assessment of different approaches (Ashton, Bollman and Kelly
2013b)
Approaches
Positive Aspects
Negative Aspects
Initial 5
municipalities (as
suggested by staff
with Manitoba
Local Government)
Provides a baseline
threshold that is
sufficient in capacity.
The communities are
also geographically
representative of rural
Manitoba.
Not all of the municipalities
are growing with two out of
five declining in all off the
population growth
indicators. The regional
representation results in
other stronger municipalities
being excluded as examples.
Additional 5
municipalities (as
suggested by the
research team)
It identifies growing
communities that are
over the 1,000
amalgamation threshold
and provides a
geographic
representation of rural
Manitoba
It does not ensure sufficient
capacity amongst its strong
municipalities as only three
of the five are growing but
less than 1,700 in population
and $60 million in tax
assessment. The regional
representation results in
some stronger municipalities
being excluded as examples.
Moving Towards Rural Regions 141
Top 10
municipalities (as
suggested by
AMM’s Healthy
Checklist)
It identifies growing
communities that are
positively changing on
the population and
financial dimensions.
It does not ensure sufficient
capacity amongst its strong
municipalities and in fact six
out of the ten0 do not even
meet the 1,000 population
limit being discussed for
amalgamation.
Top 10
Administrative
Efficiency (i.e.
lowest municipal
administrative cost
per capita)
Provides a clear
connection between
administrative efficiency
and size. It also creates a
baseline threshold with
sufficient capacity
It is the largest proposed
population threshold. It
defines strong municipalities
solely on the costs of
government per capita.
New Brunswick
Provides simple baseline
threshold that creates
sufficient capacity
The proposed thresholds are
too high for rural Manitoba
and are not based on rural
Manitoba communities.
The above analysis indicates a wide variation across the groups, which
adds more confusion than clarity to defining a working set of indicators of
a strong municipality. As a result, the research team examined the group
of municipalities as a whole. The twenty-seven municipalities (as indicated
above, three municipalities were present in more than one grouping
resulting in twenty-seven different municipalities in total) were analyzed as
a group. To account for outliers in this large group, the research team’s
next step was to identify the median values for each indicator. These
median values serve as metrics for Manitoba’s strong rural municipalities
in four of the indicators. The metrics for the remaining four indicators
were based on being a positive or negative value depending on that
indicator. Table 5, taken from the project’s report, identifies the metric for
each indicator as well as providing a description for additional context.
142 MANITOBA LAW JOURNAL | VOLUME 38 NUMBER 2
Table 5: Indicators and Metrics for Strong Rural Municipalities
(Ashton, Bollman and Kelly 2013b)
Indicator
Type
Indicators
Metric
Description
Baseline
Population
>3,000
3,000 is the baseline population level to
ensure sufficient demographic capacity for
strong municipalities.
Tax
Assessment
>$130
million
$130 million is the baseline tax assessment
level to ensure sufficient financial capacity
for strong municipalities.
Growth
Population
Change per
year
> 0%
Positive population change over time is
indicative of a long-term growing
municipality
Growth of
female
population
age 20 to 39
per year
> 0%
Positive growth of female population over
time is indicative of the potential for
positive natural growth via birth rates
within a municipality.
Growth of
Senior’s
population 80
years and
older per year
< 0%
Negative values indicate a declining
number of seniors over 80 years old over
time, reducing the dependent population
within a municipality.
Tax
Assessment
Change per
year
> 0%
Positive values indicate a growing
assessment base on which to draw
financially.
Contextual
Debt per
capita
< $531
Municipalities with debt levels lower than
$531 per resident are identified as having a
favourable debt level below the typical debt
level for a strong municipality.
Debt change
per year
< 7%
Municipalities with debt change per year
levels lower than 7% are identified as
having a favourable debt change per year
below the typical debt change per year for a
strong municipality.
Moving Towards Rural Regions 143
As table 5 illustrates, the strong municipality indicators and metrics
suggest that a minimum population of 3,000 and $130 million in tax
assessment provide a theoretical capacity as a strong municipality in rural
Manitoba. These two baseline indicators help inform the minimum size to
target for the restructured municipalities. Additionally, municipalities
should have positive growth in tax assessment levels and population. To
support growth, specifically population growth, the restructured
municipalities are those with a positive growth of women between twenty
to thirty-nine years old. Likewise these strong municipalities will also have
a declining portion of people over the age of eighty years old. These
growth indicators provide important long-term insights into municipalities
and their demographic and financial trends. Along with the contextual
indicators, these characteristics will be essential for future longitudinal
research to determine whether the restructured municipalities are
growing. Finally the contextual indicators establish that metrics for debt
levels under $531 per capita and growing at less than seven percent per
year are ideal for strong municipalities in Manitoba as well.
V. FINDINGS & DISCUSSIONS
The findings report on the SLAs in comparison with the actual
amalgamation results (as of August 2014) with discussions following the
findings.
A. SLA and amalgamation results
In early 2013, the Rural Development Institute completed a SLA
analysis on rural municipalities, largely in southern Manitoba. After
northern communities and municipalities around the Winnipeg region
which were all over the 1,000 population threshold and First Nation
Indian Reserves were omitted, the study indicated the potential of 38
amalgamated municipalities, where population levels of the proposed
amalgamated jurisdictions varied from about 1,000 to over 72,400 people.
As indicated, among them were three large SLAs, which were re-analyzed
and re-configured into several different smaller potential municipalities.
The large SLAs were Brandon with 9 sub-SLAs, Killarney-Boissevain with
6 sub-SLAs, and Dauphin with 4 sub-SLAs. When compared to actual
numbers of newly amalgamated municipalities, by July 2014, local efforts
along with provincial intervention had resulted in amalgamating 107
144 MANITOBA LAW JOURNAL | VOLUME 38 NUMBER 2
municipalities into 47 new municipalities (Davidson 2014). Figures 2 and
3 provide before and after maps of rural municipalities in Manitoba.
Figure 2: Pre 2014 amalgamation map of Southern Manitoba
Municipalities
5
5
Source: this map is taken from the Association of Manitoba Municipalities District
Map pre 2014
Moving Towards Rural Regions 145
Figure 3: Post 2014 Amalgamation map of Southern Manitoba
Municipalities
6
Comparing the new municipality boundaries with the SLA and sub-
SLA boundaries it was determined that two of the new amalgamated
municipalities matched exactly with the SLA analysis while four matched
exactly with the sub-SLA boundaries. Another 20 new municipalities
formed from a sub-set of potential SLAs, meaning the SLA was subdivided
into several new municipalities while 10 new municipalities formed from a
sub-set of potential sub-SLAs. Finally, 11 new municipalities were formed
by combining CSDs from two different SLAs or sub-SLAs. In terms of the
types of municipalities that were amalgamated, 36 were new municipalities
that combined rural municipalities with a nearby urban centre (i.e., village,
town), and 11 resulted from joining two or three rural municipalities.
6
Source: this map is taken from the Association of Manitoba Municipalities Distract
Map post 2014
146 MANITOBA LAW JOURNAL | VOLUME 38 NUMBER 2
Table 6: New municipalities’ alignment with SLA boundaries
Newly Amalgamated Municipalities
Amalgamated municipalities matched the delineated
SLAs or sub-SLAs
6
Amalgamated municipalities were entirely within a SLA
or sub-SLA
30
Amalgamated municipalities crossed SLA or sub-SLA
boundaries
11
All amalgamated municipalities
47
When compared to the strong municipality thresholds, three of the 47
new municipalities have at least 3,000 population and $130 million tax
assessment. Table 7 provides a breakdown of the population and tax
assessment sizes for the 47 new municipalities. The findings indicate most
of the new municipalities are substantially below the thresholds as well
with 26 falling below $100 million in tax assessment and 29 falling below
2,000 in population. Figure 4 illustrates how the 47 new municipalities
are grouped when comparing population and tax assessment sizes.
Table 7: New municipalities by population size and by size of taxable
assessment (Statistics Canada 2011)
Population
(2011)
Size of taxable assessment (2013)
Less than $100
million
$100 to $129
million
$130 million
and over
All new
municipalities
Number of newly amalgamated municipalities
Less than
1,000
4
1
5
1,000 to 1,999
19
4
1
24
2,000 to 2,999
3
5
4
12
3,000 and over
3
3
6
All new
municipalities
26
13
8
47
Moving Towards Rural Regions 147
Figure 4: Manitoba's 47 newly amalgamated municipalities showing
population size and taxable assessment (Statistics Canada 2011)
VI. DISCUSSION
Why did this initiative result in 47 new municipalities, while there
were 38 potential new municipalities suggested from the SLA analysis?
Several factors may have contributed to this outcome. First, the majority of
new municipalities were formed within the potential municipalities
described by the SLAs. This may be explained where municipal councils
partnering to form new amalgamated municipalities enlarged their
municipality’s geographic footprint to only their immediate neighbours
with the aim of reach the minimum of 1000 population. Once a ‘legal’
population threshold was reached, so ended the territorial re-definition of
the amalgamation initiative. To achieve these ‘neighbouring’ partnerships
was no small task, as editorials in both daily and weekly newspapers told of
the many local challenges. Second, and equally important, there is little
evidence the government framed this amalgamation initiative within a
broad rural regional discussion or aspiration. Government materials
$0
$50
$100
$150
$200
$250
$300
$350
$400
- 1,000 2,000 3,000 4,000 5,000 6,000 7,000
Each dot is one of the 47 newly
amalgamated municipalities
Taxable assessment
in 2013 ($million)
Population (in 2011)
The red lines show the suggested
thresholds to be a 'strong' muncipality.
148 MANITOBA LAW JOURNAL | VOLUME 38 NUMBER 2
stressed forming partnerships with adjacent municipalities, with some
indication that size mattered regarding economic development, for
example. As a result, and more by default than with the intention of
strengthening local units, most (thirty-six) of the new amalgamated
municipalities were somewhat consistent with the SLA analysis. Eleven of
the new municipalities combined two different SLAs. Crossing such
boundaries suggests new municipal partnership decisions were likely based
on something other than the pattern of where many residents live and
work
7
. Such might be the case where the community had historic ties and
these figured more highly in the final partnership decision – hence a pull
factor. Conversely, the partnership might be explained where one
municipality did not want to team up with one of their neighbours, thus
there was a push factor away from the one suggested in the SLA analysis.
These push factors may be about long standing competition and revelries,
divergent municipal governance policies and practices, and personnel
animosities between individual leaders. Such push factors can limit
partnerships and thwart even modest cooperation efforts, while limiting
and preventing regional collaborations and cost savings among
municipalities.
Did stronger municipalities result from this amalgamation initiative?
Most of the restructured municipalities (42 of 47) met the provincial
government’s minimum population threshold of 1,000 and all of the
amalgamated municipalities increased their size and population. As many
as 36 of 47 of the newly amalgamated municipalities were 1000 to 2999
population, thus exceeding the 1000 population minimum while falling
short of the suggested minimum of 3000 people. Similarly, all of the
amalgamated municipalities increased their taxable assessment. However,
with such low population levels, the jury is out on whether the growth
trajectory of these small but new municipalities has changed substantively.
As it has been argued in New Brunswick (Finn 2008) and indeed for this
Manitoba initiative (Ashton, Bollman and Kelly 2013b) the basic criteria
for a strong municipality would have at least 3,000 people and a $130
million in taxable assessment. Such a higher minimum was not established
7
We acknowledge that, in some cases, the reciprocal commuting flows represented a
small share of employment in the receiving and / or the sending municipality and in
such cases, the assignment of a given municipality to a given SLA was a) based on the
observed commuting flows; but b) the commuting flows may have been due to a small
number of commuters.
Moving Towards Rural Regions 149
in the new Modernization Act and this can be seen as a policy
shortcoming. Only three of the 47 municipalities met both thresholds for
a strong municipality. In contrast, this initiative could claim a modest
success with having six new municipalities over 3,000 people and eight
new municipalities over $130 million in taxable assessment. Keeping the
population minimum low meant many municipalities had to make
territorial adjustments with their immediate neighbours. While the
initiative increased stress on municipalities, it started as a modest request
and ended up being achievable (to date). As such, the case in Manitoba is
an example of just how much the NDP government wanted to test their
social contract with the rural electorate. It also sets the stage for further
boundary changes, leaving open the discussion of both the role of
functional economic rural regions and how local governments evolve, at
least territorially.
In addition, this government initiative can be criticized for allowing
four municipalities to remain with less than 1,000 people. Upon closer
examination, all four took action and amalgamated with their
neighbouring village. One, the Rural Municipality of Ellice-Archie,
amalgamated two rural municipalities and one village, and still their
population count was only 971. While these municipalities were
‘exceptions’ with a population of less than 1,000, they did, nevertheless,
fulfill the spirit of this amalgamation intuitive, if not the letter of the law.
VII. CONCLUSION
Municipal amalgamations are typically top-down initiatives by the
provincial government and, on face value, this one certainly seems to
conform. This initiative, however, also included bottom-up initiatives,
such as local governments deciding on which other municipalities they
would partner with. For some, this initiative happened quickly and the
process, if not the partners, was ‘imposed’. By the spring of 2015, local
municipalities were largely over the major requirements of re-structuring
municipality boundaries. They are now facing more changes as they
rationalize staff complements, merge their various debts, and normalize
their related by-laws and land use plans. These efforts get the
municipalities back to a new normal, much like the old normal, just with
bigger territories and a slightly larger number of citizens. But more is
150 MANITOBA LAW JOURNAL | VOLUME 38 NUMBER 2
needed to turn this initiative into a more progressive journey of local and
regional development.
From this research, ‘rural region’ is the new rural based on an
economic development perspective, with larger jurisdictions more
effectively encompassing the relationship between where people work and
live as well as providing more capacity in terms of population and tax
assessment. The number of rural municipalities in southern Manitoba has
been more than halved with 107 of the municipalities in this region being
amalgamated into 47 municipalities, resulting in an increase in the
geography and population of all those restructured municipalities.
However questions remain, including: did this initiative and the resulting
change result in stronger rural municipalities in which they are better
equipped to economically develop and function as a rural region? If SLA
boundaries and thresholds of population (minimum of 3000 people) and
tax assessment ($130 million) are used, where do the newly amalgamated
municipalities rest?
When comparing the new municipalities with the functional
economic regions defined by SLAs, only six new municipalities have
concurrent boundaries as SLA. The remaining forty-one municipalities do
not fully capture the commuting relationship identified in their region.
Similarly, most of the new municipalities do not meet the recommended
thresholds for a strong municipality in rural Manitoba. As noted above,
only three of the new municipalities exceed both the population and tax
assessment thresholds for a strong municipality while another eight new
municipalities exceed one of the thresholds.
The amalgamation initiative can be seen as a necessary step to move
towards a regional focus, but most of the new municipalities need to
‘enlarge’ to take full advantage of the opportunity to establish economic-
based regions. Enlarging can be formal in terms of further municipal
amalgamation, or enlarging can be achieved informally with inter-
municipal agreements and cooperation. Either way, the province and the
municipalities will need to decide if they want to build on the momentum
of this initiative and continue towards economic regionalization or if the
new status quo of slightly larger municipalities is an end in itself. What is
clear is that the province’s amalgamation initiative has started a new
chapter in rural Manitoba and it will be important to continue researching
the impacts and outcomes of this change. The SLAs and the minimum
Moving Towards Rural Regions 151
number of indicators of a strong municipality provide two approaches that
can help with that research and evolution of local government over time.
152 MANITOBA LAW JOURNAL | VOLUME 38 NUMBER 2
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