52 years after Unicity, a new Metro Winnipeg planning adventure winds up out of bounds

Half a century after Winnipeg merged with its neighbours, the city is once again trying to figure out how to co-operate with the municipalities outside its borders.

That's not going to get easier after the events of the past few days.

Winnipeg merged with 11 adjacent cities, towns and rural municipalities in 1972, in a move that was supposed to eliminate conflict between Manitoba's capital and fast-growing bedroom communities

Before that amalgamation, known as Unicity, municipal governance in the Winnipeg area was messy. The city and its neighbours competed for provincial funding, bickered over shared responsibilities, and went off in 12 different directions when it came to taxation and service delivery.

On top of that, a separate level of government called Metro Winnipeg was responsible for the busiest roads, the most popular parks, and the largest sewer pipes and water mains.

Unicity did away with all of this, foreshadowing municipal amalgamations elsewhere in Canada. Today, Vancouver is pretty much the only major Canadian city that has not undergone some form of similar merger.

Amalgamation did not, of course, solve Winnipeg's problems. Fifty-two years later, the city is wrestling anew with the challenge of maintaining water and sewer systems and major roads that are also used by residents of nearby municipalities.

Those jurisdictions, meanwhile, are also trying to figure out how to manage their own growth — or lack of it — with more limited development expertise, as well as part-time politicians. 

Under Brian Pallister, Manitoba's former Progressive Conservative government decided on a solution to this heterogenous hodgepodge. In 2019, the then premier effectively brought back something akin to Metro Winnipeg, which the Ed Schreyer NDP dissolved in the 1970s.

Now, the revamped Winnipeg Metropolitan Region has a board of its own, powers of its own and a proposed regional planning framework.

It also appears to be dead in the water.

Municipalities can opt out: Kinew

On Tuesday, Premier Wab Kinew announced municipalities will soon have the option of opting out of the Winnipeg Metro Region. This sudden move took place after no fewer than five of those municipalities expressed some degree of opposition to the regional plan, known as Plan 20-50.

Some, like the City of Selkirk, didn't want to be part of the Metro Region in the first place. Others, like the Town of Niverville, wanted the province to change Plan 20-50 or scrap it altogether.

Almost all have fielded angry calls from residents upset by aspects of the plan that do not exist but nonetheless have circulated on social media.

This situation led Chris Ewen, the mayor of Ritchot, to write Kinew and Municipal Relations Minister Ian Bushie, complaining Winnipeg Metropolitan Region administrators have made things even worse.

Fearing for the integrity of a public hearing process, they fuelled the fire by telling Metro Region board members not to talk about Fight Club — or rather, Plan 20-50, according to Ewen's letter, posted on his Facebook page.

"More than ever, it is now critical to answer the questions of community members when a change that will affect over a million people is about to happen," Ewen said in the letter.

"I watched a handful of municipalities send statements to the public, without working collaboratively with the rest of the WMR [Winnipeg Metropolitan Region] municipalities, creating an even stronger divide between Manitobans."

Ewen asked Kinew and Bushie to revisit Plan 20-50. They obliged, declaring membership in the Winnipeg Metropolitan Region will soon be voluntary.

Unintended consequences

The premier and his minister say the Metro Region can continue with a depleted membership. A look at a map suggests this is unlikely.

If the Rural Municipality of Headingley, a Plan 20-50 opponent, leaves the Metro Region, it would make orphans out of both St. François Xavier and Cartier.

If St. Andrews opts out of Plan 20-50, why would Dunnotar remain? Why would Niverville, if Ritchot leaves?

Nonetheless, Kinew and Bushie maintain regional co-ordination between Winnipeg and its neighbours can proceed among whoever decides to remain in the lame-duck club.

"We want co-operation between municipalities. So when we give them the opportunity to opt out, I mean, there's still a plan that we want to be able to co-ordinate going forward," Bushie said.

"What that looks like will be up to the municipalities who will partake."

This laissez-faire attitude has left some developers aghast. Several told CBC News the NDP government has unwittingly imperilled efforts to protect agricultural land outside Winnipeg from residential encroachment and to build housing for seniors in exurban communities, among other unintended consequences.

On Thursday, Kinew was asked whether it makes more sense to simply expand Winnipeg's borders again, this time perhaps to swallow up sections of Springfield, Rosser, Macdonald, and both St. Pauls.

"Well, that's going much further than actually any of this conversation talks about," he said.

Given the way Kinew has chosen to drape himself in the affectations of populism — the NDP leader calls his pending Metro Region legislation a "freedom bill" — the mere mention of annexation is bound to prove vexatious.