N.B. community mergers back on agenda

New Brunswick's new local government minister says he'll take a serious look at amalgamations across the province, but that he won't force communities to merge.

Bruce Fitch says he's dusting off the 2008 Finn report, which recommended major reductions in the number of municipal and district governments in the province.

Author Jean-Guy Finn says New Brunswick's 421 governments should be reduced to between 50 and 55.

Fitch says he won't do that unless people in those communities vote in favour of it.

"Forced amalgamations, those are off the table," he said.

Fitch says reform is still needed and there's no point in studying it further because the 200-page Finn report already did that. He will consult with communities before suggesting that they vote on changes, and he believes some communities will say yes.

"There's some local districts, there's some communities that want to move forward," he said. "They want to put themselves in a better position for the future, because they realize that they're being constrained for various reasons."

Liberals shelved report

When Finn made his recommendations two years ago, he said it would help fix problems such as tiny villages that lack the tax base to pay for basic services.

But the Shawn Graham-led Liberals shelved the recommendations and said the $90-million cost of enacting the report's recommendations was too steep during an economic downturn.

Among Finn's proposed mergers was making the village of New Maryland part of Fredericton.

New Maryland Mayor Frank Dunn says that would not go over well.

"I don't think you could even use the expression 'over' because it would never get up high enough," he said.

New Brunswick has 101 incorporated municipalities, three rural communities, 267 local service districts and 50 additional taxing authorities that total 421 types of government, all for a dwindling population of fewer than 750,000 people.

Finn's plan would see that reduced to between 50 and 55 municipalities with a minimum of 4,000 residents each.

Finn argued in the run-up to the Sept. 27 election, which brought David Alward's Conservatives to power, that failure to reduce local government would hurt the availability and quality of essential local services in many areas of the province.

It would also jeopardize the province's future economic and social development, he said.

Finn's report was the first large-scale investigation into the way New Brunswick organizes its local services since the 1960s.