New Brunswick: United Or Divided?

The Canadian province of New Brunswick is divided into 89 local entities, consisting of 77 local governments and 12 rural districts. The province is divided into 236 Local Service Districts (LSDs), 104 municipalities, and 12 Regional Service Commissions. The municipalities include 8 cities, 61 villages, 26 towns, 8 rural communities, and 1 regional municipality.

New Brunswick's administrative divisions

New Brunswick, a Canadian province, is divided into smaller administrative divisions. Historically, the province was divided into counties and parishes, but these divisions were abolished in 1966. Today, New Brunswick is divided into 236 Local Service Districts (LSDs), 104 municipalities, and 12 Regional Service Commissions.

The 104 municipalities in New Brunswick include 8 cities, 61 villages, 26 towns, 8 rural communities, and 1 regional municipality. The Local Service Districts, on the other hand, are unincorporated areas that provide essential services such as fire protection, solid waste management, and street lighting.

The 12 Regional Service Commissions were introduced in 2012 and are responsible for regulating regional planning, solid waste disposal, and providing a forum for discussion on police and emergency services, climate change adaptation, and regional cultural facilities.

In addition to these divisions, New Brunswick is also divided into census divisions and subdivisions, population centres, and economic regions. The province's health care system is organised into two networks: Horizon Health Network and Vitalité Health Network.

Local Service Districts

The Canadian province of New Brunswick was divided into 236 Local Service Districts (LSDs) prior to governance reforms in 2023. LSDs are unincorporated units of local governance, and as of 2017, there were 237 of them. Services provided include fire protection, solid waste management, street lighting, and dog regulation. These services are paid for by property taxes.

LSDs may elect advisory committees and work with the Department of Local Government to recommend how to spend locally collected taxes.

On January 1, 2023, the local government of New Brunswick restructured the entities throughout the province, abolishing LSDs. The previous 340 entities were replaced by 77 local governments and 12 rural districts.

Municipalities

New Brunswick is divided into 104 municipalities, which include 8 cities, 61 villages, 26 towns, 8 rural communities, and 1 regional municipality. These municipalities cover 8.6% of the province's land mass but are home to 65.3% of its population.

The three major urban areas are in the south of the province: Greater Moncton, with a population of 157,717; Greater Saint John, with a population of 130,613; and Greater Fredericton, with a population of 108,610.

The municipalities of New Brunswick are administered by local governments, which can be a city, town, village, regional municipality, or rural community, mainly according to population. Cities generally provide more services than smaller entities, including certain transportation, environmental, security, and recreational and cultural services.

In 2023, the local government of New Brunswick restructured the entities throughout the province. The previous 340 entities were replaced by 77 local governments and 12 rural districts. This overhaul included reducing the number of local governments from 104 to 77, primarily by combining existing municipalities.

Regional Service Commissions

New Brunswick, a province of Canada, is divided into smaller pieces in a few different ways. Administratively, it is divided into 236 Local Service Districts (LSDs), 104 municipalities, and 12 Regional Service Commissions (RSCs).

RSCs are administrative entities that provide services on a regional level. They are not incorporated municipal entities and do not have direct taxation powers. The 12 RSCs in New Brunswick include:

• Northwest Regional Service Commission
• Restigouche Regional Service Commission
• Chaleur Regional Service Commission
• Acadian Peninsula Regional Service Commission
• Greater Miramichi Regional Service Commission
• Kent Regional Service Commission
• Southeast Regional Service Commission
• Kings Regional Service Commission
• Fundy Regional Service Commission
• Southwest New Brunswick Service Commission
• Capital Region Service Commission
• Western Valley Regional Service Commission

Each RSC is governed by a board consisting of all mayors within the RSC and the chair of the advisory board of the RSC's rural district.

The responsibilities of RSCs have expanded over time. Initially, they were responsible for regional planning, local planning in LSDs and participating local governments, solid waste management, policing collaboration, emergency measures planning, and facilitating cost-sharing agreements. In 2023, local governance reforms expanded their mandates to include economic development, community development, tourism promotion, regional transportation, cost-sharing on recreation infrastructure, and public safety committees.

Historical divisions

Historically, New Brunswick was divided into counties and parishes. In 1784, New Brunswick was partitioned from the Colony of Nova Scotia and divided into the counties of NB, which were then further divided into parishes. By the 1960s, the province was a patchwork of incorporated cities, towns, villages, local improvement districts, and local administrative commissions.

In 1785, Saint John became New Brunswick's first incorporated city. The following year, in 1786, the first session of the New Brunswick Legislative Assembly was held in Saint John, during which the MLAs passed the 'Act for the better ascertaining and confirming the Boundaries of Several Counties within this Province, and for subdividing them into Towns or Parishes'.

The county lines were strategically drawn to align with the watersheds, a logical decision considering that New Brunswick's settlements were developed along waterways. The counties could be divided into three groups: the Bay of Fundy, the Saint John River, and the North Shore.

In 1966, the county governments were abolished, and their councils were dissolved. This led to the centralization of many of their powers, with the introduction of the Equal Opportunity Program by Liberal premier Louis Robichaud. The program reformed municipal taxation and led to the elimination of county governments. In 1967, counties ceased to exist as government units, and nonmunicipal incorporated bodies were converted to villages. A new governance unit, the Local Service District (LSD), was created to administer local services like fire departments in some rural areas.

Today, counties and parishes continue to be used by Statistics Canada as an organizational unit and also serve as a sense of identity for many residents of the province.

Frequently asked questions