Regional Service Commission

A Regional Service Commission is an administrative in the province of New Brunswick, Canada. As the name implies, an RSC administers services on a regional level.[1]

Regional Service Commissions are not incorporated municipal entities and lack direct taxation powers.

Functions

RSCs are required to provide regional planning, local planning in local service districts and participating municipalities and quasimunicipalities, solid waste management, policing collaboration, emergency measures planning, and facilitating cost-sharing agreements between member governance units.[2]

History

Before the creation of RSCs, regional planning and waste management were managed by two systems of planning commissions and solid waste commissions; these sets of commissions divided the province in different ways.

Finn Report

The concept of a regional administrative body that replaced existing regional commissions in a unified body was proposed by the Finn Report[3] in 2008 as part of a sweeping reform of the province's local governance bodies. Twelve Regional Service Districts would administer services in 53 municipalities with boundaries based on communities of interest rather than existing municipal and LSD boundaries.

The Graham government shelved the Finn Report shortly after it was released, citing the high cost of implementing the recommendations.

Creation

Regional Service Commissions were created by the Alward government in 2012, taking effect on 1 January 2013. The initial boards consisted of mayors of the member municipalities and rural communities and local service district representatives appointed by the provincial government.

Instead of using the RSD boundaries proposed by Finn, the Alward government based RSC boundaries on existing governance units. The period between announcement and implementation allowed for municipalities and LSDs to request transfer to another RSC; Belledune, Saint-Quentin, and Hampton all took advantage of this policy to successfully lobby for a change in which RSC they would belong to.

Board

Each RSC is governed by a board consisting of all mayors within the RSC and a number of LSD chairs based on a formula combining population and tax base, to a minimum of four and a maximum of ten LSD members; deputy mayors and two LSD chairs serve as alternates. LSD representatives and alternates are chosen by a meeting of all LSD chairs in the RSC; in theory, the Minister of Environment and Local Government may appoint LSD representatives if there are not sufficient chairs to fill the board positions but this has not happened in practice.

Language

The Official Languages Act[4] applies to all RSCs with a 20% linguistic minority, a city, or a municipality with a 20% linguist minority; in practice this means that all but one RSC requires English services.

List of RSCs

The twelve RSCs, in the order of their original numbering,[lower-alpha 1] are:

Notes
  1. The RSCs were originally numbered 1-12.

References
  1. "Structure of the new Regional Service Commissions". Government of New Brunswick. Retrieved 20 July 2020.
  2. "Mandated Services". Government of New Brunswick. Retrieved 20 July 2020.
  3. Finn, Jean-Guy (November 2008). "Building Stronger Local Governments and Regions: An Action Plan for the Future of Local Governance in New Brunswi" (PDF). Government of New Brunswick. Retrieved 20 July 2020.
  4. "Chapter O-0.5 - Official Languages Act". Government of New Brunswick. Retrieved 20 July 2020.
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