The Canadian municipal landscape is changing. How municipalities adapt to change has a direct impact on rural Canada’s future success.
Across the country, communities are aging and traditional rural populations are in decline. People are migrating from rural to urban centres and older generations remaining in rural municipalities are looking to those municipalities to accommodate their needs.
Traditional economies and industries have shifted, while geographically isolated pockets of industrial development are on the rise.
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All this leaves municipalities under increasing pressure to be self-sustaining.
With the economic downturn, municipal viability and community sustainability have become hot-button issues.
There is a high level of dependency on provincial funding, shifting how small urban and rural municipalities may function in the future.
Dissolving a town into its surrounding rural municipality is an option, but raises issues about financial support, local services and political representation. Municipalities are increasingly concerned with both their long-term planning and that of their neighbours, as each interacts and influences the other on a fundamental level.
Many rural municipalities contain substantial residential populations that include farmland, unincorporated communities and rural residential subdivisions. They typically have at least one small urban sector within their boundaries.
Municipalities provide emergency services and planning, and receive funding through property and business taxes, borrowing, fines and fees for services such as policing, permitting, waste disposal and utility provision. Last but not least, they receive substantial funding from provincial and federal grant programs.
In this context, what makes a municipality viable? The Alberta Association of Municipal Districts and Counties defines municipal viability as the ability to deliver services and fulfill legislative obligations in a municipality’s current state. Community sustainability, on the other hand, is the strategy developed by a community as a whole – not just a municipality – to ensure its long-term success.
When Alberta’s provincial government prioritized municipal viability last spring, the AAMDC responded with Ensuring Alberta’s Future: a Framework for Municipal Viability through Community Sustainability. This framework includes recommendations such as a viability assessment for municipalities.
The association intends the framework to help rural and urban municipalities understand where challenges lie and work together to find a solution.
The proposed assessment would evaluate viability on suggested criteria like the ability to operate, ability to govern, provision of service, citizen involvement, financial stability and risk management.
If a municipality does not meet the basic viability standards, it could use the recommendations to explore long-term sustainability options in a larger community context.
Options include co-operation with neighbouring municipalities, community groups, ratepayers and other stakeholders.
Alberta is not the only province to seek ways to manage municipal changes. The Association of Manitoba Municipalities includes municipal viability in its Municipal Health Checklist, which defines viability as a municipality’s financial, administrative and political capacity.
In Saskatchewan, several organizations partnered to create a Guide to Voluntary Municipal Restructuring. This guide is meant to help municipal leaders address new opportunities and challenges by planning for change. It looks at population, tax base, finances, local interest, support and employment opportunities as signs of viability.
In 2004, the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities initiated its “Clearing the Path” program. It addressed impediments to economic development in rural Saskatchewan and prioritized economic development and infrastructure improvements.
Many municipalities have become increasingly dependent on federal and provincial grant proceeds to maintain their service levels. As municipal infrastructure ages, more dollars are needed for replacement and the pressure on provincial dollars increases.
Service levels, equitable property taxes and fairness to the surrounding community must all be considered when evaluating viability or considering alternatives.
Allowing communities a local voice in the solution finding may help them meet such long-term sustainability goals. Other options for municipalities to deal with viability issues are to create long-term inter-municipal strategic plans, outsource programs or enter into financial and/or service partnership agreements.
Most prairie provincial governments have identified municipal viability as a concern and have begun putting support systems in place. However, the economic climate is also leading them to download costs onto municipalities and cut much-needed provincial funding.
The federal government has made infrastructure dollars available through the Building Canada Fund and the Stimulus Funding Program. Often, though, the neediest municipalities cannot receive approval for their programs.
Many rural municipalities are at a crossroads. They cannot make their local taxpayers cover provincial and federal deficits, yet they need to improve declining revenue streams.
With this issue in mind, inter-municipal co-operation and planning comes to the forefront. Reducing costs by sharing infrastructure and administrative spending makes it essential for municipalities to work together.
With a co-operative approach, communities can be sustainable. And with support from provincial and federal governments to guide their opportunities, municipalities will continue to be viable, contributing members of Canadian society.
