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The often controversial topic of amalgamation has come up at Moncton City Council.
Councillors met for a Committee of the Whole meeting on Monday to consider what feedback the City of Moncton wants to provide to the provincial government about municipal reform.
The idea of amalgamation was discussed not only for this region but also what it might look like for areas surrounding Fredericton and Saint John.
Moncton mayor Dawn Arnold says in terms of elected representation, the tri-communities actually have as many councillors as Canada’s largest city.
“Think about Toronto with 2.7 million people and they have 25 municipal councillors. So 108,000 people have one representative.”
Arnold says if the same scenario was applied here, only seven elected representatives would serve the tri-communities.
Arnold says she wants the city to be a serious economic entity and shared services is already common.
“I mean we are already amalgamated… Moncton, Riverview and Dieppe share very expensive things already whether it is waste, water, public transportation and our police.”
Speaking in French, newly elected councillor-at-large Monique LeBlanc described amalgamation as a “hot potato” several times and she wondered how anglophones and francophones might be affected by it.
The Higgs government introduced a green paper on municipal reform in April and since then has been holding public consultations.
New Brunswick has 104 local governments and 236 local service districts.
By comparison, Nova Scotia has only 50 municipalities.
The province is seeking feedback from Moncton on municipal reform by Wednesday and city staff will be finalizing some points in a letter to government before the deadline.
