Capital Region Vision
The regional power is with us

By Janice Sawka

On April 10 and 11, 2008, officials from and 15 municipalities surrounding Winnipeg came together to do something unprecedented. To think and act as one functional unit despite their divisions and responsibilities.

 The workshop, Learning to Think and Act Like a Region,was hosted by the University of Montana Public Policy Research Institute. While this event is doubtlessly rife with possibilities, it’s also equally loaded with questions:

 Why are they just now learning to act like a region? There has always been the capital city – Winnipeg – and there have always been municipalities around it. Hasn’t there always been interaction? Why is there now, suddenly a need to ”learn”?

 Isn’t this rather another group coming together, not necessarily under a banner of ”brothers in arms”, but more under a battle cry of “strength in numbers.” What will it benefit the municipalities, the city and the province, if anything?

 And what’s a Montana-based consulting group doing up here anyway?

 There are four people at the eye of the storm: Workshop co-chairs Steve Strang  and Ross Thompson, mayors of St. Clements and Stonewall respectively, Daile Unruh, executive consultant for the mayors and reeves of the Capital Region and major workshop organizer, and Rodney Burns, Reeve of Macdonald Municipality.
 

Question: Why Now?
 “Two reasons,” says Unruh. “First, regional cooperation is a growing issue. There was always the feeling (on the part of the city) that municipalities were unable to put aside individual issues to look at a bigger picture. Now there is enough trust to realize they have the skills, willingness and capacity to do so, and can set aside individual interests for the sake of a greater long-term return.”

 Unruh says there is a realization from a number of different quarters that you can’t create everything yourself, and duplicating infrastructure isn’t good stewardship. The provincial government has started to see that this is good for the provincial coffers.
 Unruh says the province’s responsibility is to manage taxpayers’ dollars, and regional cooperation is one way to do it.

 “When I started on council 19 years ago, you never spoke to the mayor of Winnipeg,” says Burns.  “The city was the city, and we were the outsiders. The first mayor we could really approach was Susan Thompson, then Glen Murray, and now, definitely Sam Katz, who is inclined to work with the surrounding municipalities.

 “There was, and still is, the perception that if municipalities expand, it’s at the expense of the city. That has been proven false, which is what we’ve been preaching for years. Urban people tend to forget that rural residents support Winnipeg – we go there often,” says Burns.

 Mayor Thompson of Stonewall says the collaboration is right for the times.
“This is long overdue,” says Thompson. “I still meet people who don’t know where Stonewall is. Without a regional awareness, you can’t have a common vision. Winnipeg and the municipalities have never before looked at one vision. Joint visioning leads to common goals and invents the future.”

 Strang says, “As we sit in 2008, constituents expect a lot from their mayors, reeves and councils.”According to Strang, elected officials are expected to be lawyers, engineers and be financially responsible while fixing inadequate roads and water and sewer services.

 In addition, environmental concerns must be addressed while doing so. So, mayors, reeves and councillors have to find better ways to be efficient by pooling resources and avoiding duplication of services.

 Question two: Is this new coalition a “power desk” to compete with other municipal and provincial economic development groups, boards and interests?

 “Yes it is,” says Thompson emphatically. “Regional collaboration makes the best use of dollars, and the best use of taxpayer dollars is essential. Municipalities don’t have the (financial) luxury to go it alone. This workshop will hopefully form a strategic and effective influential group. That means teamwork between the municipalities themselves, and the municipalities and the city. We [the municipalities] don’t see this as us and them. We hope to develop a vision for the Capital Region as a whole,” says Thompson.

 Says Unruh: “We’ve adamantly stated ‘we are not another level of government or a regulatory body.’ Each rural municipality has its own unique identity. We wish to focus on commonalities.” The new arrangement is expected to foster marketing opportunities, economic development and shared services, without stomping on individual identities.

 The mayors and reeves of the Capital Region as a group, was an idea originated by the City of Winnipeg in 1991. It allowed each municipality to govern itself under an agreement with the city, rather than having to go through panels with both the city and province. The City of Winnipeg initiated it to shake hands and be friends.
 Strang says, “this coalition isn’t a ”power group.” “Each RM has its own identity and development plan. This approach allows a regional framework. We’re looking for a plan which allows us to be respectful of each other. For me, what’s important to the city is important to us, and what’s important to us should be important to the city. We’re not in competition. We should have one identity - the Capital Region.”
 Rodney Burns of Macdonald says:“Brandon and Portage cooperate with their surrounding municipalities. Why can’t we? We’re not trying to impede economic development. We’re another vehicle.”

Question three: Why Montana?
 Unruh says: “’Round about 2003, the mayors and reeves of the Capital Region were made aware of a group called Envision Sustainability Tools out of Vancouver. They’d developed a software program for scenario planning with an eye on sustainability and environmental management, called MetroQuest. The software starts conversations: ‘What legacy do you want your community to leave?’ It allows you to program in your current patterns of growth, planned road construction, population, financial picture and so forth, and then projects what the community will look like, as a result of those decisions, in 40 years.”

 By changing individual aspects of current scenarios, users are offered a vision of future impact, and the environmental footprint that those changes could leave.
 Envision was hired as a consultant in 2005 to speak with various municipal officials, councillors, stakeholders, including the Winnipeg and Manitoba chambers of commerce, and CEOs. It was a lengthy sign-off process, with the objective being to gain an accurate picture of the region. It was a challenge for Envision as well: This was the first time its software was being tailored to an entire region rather than a single municipality. The process took about two years.

 Strang picks up the story: “When we attended the June 2007 Federation of Canadian Municipalities conference, we got to hear success stories from other cities. We heard about the Montana Public Policy Research Institute from the cities of Calgary and Edmonton, who had each separately used them, very successfully.
 They were invited to come up to Manitoba to conduct interviews, and we also linked them via teleconference with the Vancouver group. The result was a situation analysis to work on – a kind of a crystal ball for development,” says Strang.
 The Montana Institute has partnerships with similar organizations like the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and the Consensus Building Institute in Washington. The organizations’ mandates are to teach governments and citizens to work together on regional planning and land use issues.

 Montana brought representatives from three successful projects in Denver, Minneapolis and Nashville to speak in Winnipeg. 

 Strang has an anecdote for how municipalities work:
St. Clements used to provide fire service to the RM of Alexander and to the Grand Beach Park, which is under provincial jurisdiction, from a little, outdated fire hall located on the border between the two RMs. Then they partnered with Alexanderto build a state of the art fire hall. Because St. Clements had a good relationship with the Alexander council, the finest fire hall in Manitoba could be built by applying to the province for funding as a provincial service provider.
 The three worked together to build something bigger, better and grander than three small separate facilities that make the region more attractive as a whole.

 Working together within the Capital Region makes for a stronger voice to approach the federal and provincial government for funding.

 Says Burns: “We represent about 75 per cent of Manitoba’s population. This would allow us to more effectively share services.”

 For example, the RM of Macdonald has a water plant producing potable water. The municipality extends to Brady Road, which is the far west end of Winnipeg’s boundary. It’s costly to send water from the area around Sanford to Brady Road. Macdonald wanted to buy some water and sewer services from the city to service its outer area. As a united voice, the councils approached the provincial and federal governments for funding to expand the city’s water-treatment capacity.
 “Better than a duplication of services,” says Burns.

 Thompson says such win-win projects give people confidence. He says the best way to break down barriers is to come up with solutions between municipalities and the city and other municipalities.

 In another possible joint project,Stonewall and Rockwood are interested in turning an abandoned lot, the site of a former Petro-Canada station, on the corner of Highways 7 and 67, into a park and ride location for carpoolers.
 An adjacent park, with site beautification and garbage pickup, is also envisioned. Petro-Canada has now expressed interest in leasing the site and being involved with the development plan.

 Thompson says the oil company wouldn’t have gotten involved if Stonewall and Rockwood hadn’t been working together.

 “This encourages interactive thinking, and reminds people that when they come to the table, they’re not just there as a political representative for their municipality; they’re representing the Capital Region.”

 A regional vision framework is well underway, according to Unruh.
 “A major project the municipalities are working on is a collective directory of assets,” says Unruh. “This could certainly be available and of use to city groups such as Destination Winnipeg or Travel Manitoba. It could be used to boost tourism or offer suitable options to businesses looking to move into the province, who may be interested in locating outside a capital city.”