Bilingual municipalities share concerns with minister

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This article was published 11/02/2025 (408 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Association of Manitoba Bilingual Municipalities hosted the minister for municipal and northern affairs on Jan. 30 where they shared issues that are important to them and their constituents, ranging from public safety to personal care homes to Manitoba Hydro.

Justin Johnson, CEO of AMBM, said the Southeast is growing at an unprecedented rate and with that growth comes opportunities and challenges surrounding wastewater, housing, availability of essential services in health care, and transportation to name a few.

“Our objective is to ensure that the province is well aware of our members’ issues and challenges. And if the AMBM is able to bring together both the municipal and provincial representatives together to discuss and tackle the issues and challenges ahead of us, that’s a win for us,” he said.

There are 15 members in the AMBM, which was formally created in 1989.

Mayor of Tache Armand Poirier felt Minister Simard was very receptive to the municipalities’ concerns.

“I feel that he was very receptive and in fact once we were finished, he paraphrased everything that we had discussed and he gave us a 100 percent assurance that – of course he can’t promise that he’s going to give us everything – but he will bring the concerns to the applicable ministers.”

Infrastructure remains a shared priority for municipalities, whether it’s about new developments to address affordable housing shortages or constructing new schools and recreational facilities.

Improving wastewater treatment systems was another topic. Large-scale projects are being discussed to modernize these systems and increase the development potential of the municipalities. One of these systems is the construction of the $190 million Red Seine Rat Wastewater Co-operative facility, which is currently in the RFP stage.

Land use planning was also at the heart of the discussions. Some municipalities are concerned that they may not be attractive due to factors such as lack of rural connectivity, difficulty accessing flexible funding that understands rural realities, or administrative burdens that can slow down the progress of certain projects.

Health services are also an ongoing issue in rural areas. The Ste Anne Hospital is seeking regional designation to operate at full capacity and serve residents of several surrounding rural municipalities.

“We have a hospital that is in an area that is well located to serve the needs of bilingual French and English population in the surrounding municipalities,” said Poirier.

Outside of regionalizing Ste Anne Hospital, other issues that Poirier brought to the minister were improving the response time of the RCMP in Tache by using the detachment based in Oakbank instead of the one in St Pierre-Jolys, thus shaving off 30 minutes, and concerns with Plan 20-50’s transparency, a better response to the public hearing held in 2023 in Ile des Chenes about the plan, and having access to the plan in both official languages.

For new member, the RM of Piney, their issues stemmed around having a municipal liaison with Manitoba Hydro in order to simplify project coordination and service delivery; excessive regulatory constraints by the provincial community planning office; cellular connectivity in rural areas of the Southeast; and the building of the Timberline Community Housing project, which is a 20-bed assisted living facility for seniors to age in place.

“Without provincial funds I don’t know if this (Timberline) project can move ahead that’s the thing. It’s a benefit to the area. It creates jobs. Brings investment to the local economy,” said David Beaudry, deputy reeve for the RM of Piney.

There is no assisted living centre in the RM of Piney although there is a 15-room senior living centre in Sprague. The care home has been in the works for the past 25 to 30 years.

“They do have the land for the Timberline housing project and all the groundwork has been done, it’s trying to get some funding (to build it),” said Beaudry.

“We’ve been fairly responsive to the diverse needs of the municipalities and we’ll continue to do events like the one at the AMBM to get a broad indication of the requests that they have,” said Simard.

The minister pointed to a number of initiatives the government has already taken to help municipalities such as committing two percent to operational funding year over year; the One Manitoba Growth fund which is $62.5 million over five years of unconditional funding to municipalities distributed on a per capita basis for municipalities to address their local priorities; and an increase in funding for the Manitoba water services board.

“I think this sort of exercise is important,” said Johnson. “The minister has clearly demonstrated that he’s willing and open to understanding what our issues are and having that door open to ensure that we can strengthen our partnership, and also see our communities grow and be promoted. I think that’s a positive and there’s a positive in those kinds of relationships moving forward.”