Gone are the days of the “forced mergers” of the Quebec government… More than twenty years later, a growing number of cities are taking the initiative to merge in order to solve two problems that were absent in the past: inflation and above all, the labor shortage.
Last fall, the City of La Pocatière decided to fund a study on the relevance of merging with six of its neighbours: Saint-Onésime-d’Ixworth, Saint-Pacôme, Saint-Gabriel-Lalemant, Rivière-Ouelle, Saint-Denis-De La Bouteillerie and Sainte-Anne-de-la-Pocatière.
The idea came from the new mayor of La Pocatière, Vincent Bérubé. At the beginning of 2022, he went to meet his neighbors to consult them. “The goal is to be together to grow better,” he summarizes. He adds that the labor shortage means that municipalities are now “in competition” for the same employees.
The proposal is surprising, since during the 1990s, the city had difficulty living through the debate on a merger with Sainte-Anne-de-la-Pocatière, a project that was ultimately rejected. But Mayor Bérubé thinks the population has moved on. “It had been done emotionally for people, but now, in 2023, we are somewhere else. »
Lac-des-Aigles, another much smaller municipality in Bas-Saint-Laurent, has also taken steps to merge with its neighbor, Saint-Guy.
Lac-des-Aigles has 500 inhabitants; Saint-Guy, 76. For them, it’s a way to grow, but also to stop having interviews, explains the mayor of the first, Pierre Bossé.
“In five years, Saint-Guy has changed general manager three times and mayor three times. We, at the road level, always have to start over. For employees who drive trucks, there is a lot of work everywhere. And we don’t have the budget to pay them more than on the big ones runs »
Since the retirement of the road director eight years ago, Lac-Des-Aigles has been unable to replace him for good. “We are very small and we are not able to find the labor we need. »
Together, he hopes, they will be able to offer candidates a better salary. “The idea is to integrate all the resources and become a little more efficient. The two budgets together, we save 10% [du budget]. The file is now in the hands of the Municipal Commission, which must recommend whether or not the merger should be made to the ministry by July 15.
Wave of retirements
Small municipalities are not done fighting to recruit staff, if we are to believe certain data.
The general managers who manage the finances of the cities are on the way to becoming rare commodities, according to the president of their association, Sophie Antaya.
Between 2019 and 2022, 670 of them retired, i.e. more than half of all directors general (Quebec has about 1,100 municipalities). In addition, 340 others plan to do the same within five years, according to a survey conducted by the Association of Municipal Directors of Quebec (ADMQ).
“It’s major,” says M.me Antaya. Especially since the replacements stay for a shorter time. “In the past, general managers who arrived in a municipality stayed until the end of their career, which is no longer the case now. »
This issue is crucial according to the mayor of Lac-des-Aigles. “They have everything on their shoulders, but we can’t necessarily pay them the salary they deserve,” he said. In large municipalities, the dgs have technical assistants. Us, when we have two people in the office, it’s beautiful! »
And the mayors, them?
But what about mayors? Doesn’t the merger imply that one of the two spouses necessarily loses his job?
This is not always a problem, retorts the mayor of the new City of La Morandière-Rochebaucourt, in Abitibi-Témiscamingue, resulting from a merger that took effect on 1er last January.
Located fifty minutes by road north of Senneterre, the new municipality remained small, even after its union. Barely 336 people live there.
In the area, we have rather had difficulty in the past recruiting municipal councillors, notes Alain Trudel, who previously led the City of Rochebaucourt.
As for the other mayor, Alain Lemay, he had already planned to move for personal reasons when discussions on a possible merger began. “Automatically, we didn’t have to wonder who would be mayor,” says Mr. Trudel. “There were no obstacles. »
The merger, continues the elected official, has made it possible to “boost the sector” and improve certain services to citizens, such as road maintenance, because the management teams are more filled.
In his view, small municipalities should consider such mergers. “I encourage them to do it, because, if you will, there are economies of scale. And between administering a municipality of 200 and 400 people, these are the same issues. »
The option of partial mergers
But if there is a trend towards consolidation, not all cities go through with the process. Pohénégamook, for example, has just decided to merge its urban planning department with the city next door, Saint-Athanase.
“We do not hide the fact that many small municipalities do not have the means to pay a full-time person for these positions,” summarizes the mayor of Pohénégamook, Benoît Morin. “It’s hard to find. »
In addition, the government supports municipalities that do this, he explains. “The fact of merging makes it possible to seek out resources. »
Thus, the salary of their new director of urban planning is reimbursed at 80% by the government for five years, under an intermunicipal cooperation program of the Ministry of Municipal Affairs.
The mayor of La Pocatière does not rule out the scenario of a more partial merger either, explains its mayor. However, some services are already grouped with the surrounding towns, such as fire safety services with Saint-Roch-des-Aulnaies, in particular.
Talks towards a possible merger are also underway elsewhere in Bas-Saint-Laurent, between Trois-Pistoles and Notre-Dame-des-Neiges. Here too, the scarcity of labor weighed in the balance, according to the local newspaper Info Sunday.
Elsewhere in Quebec, two towns in the Eastern Townships — Courcelles and Saint-Évariste-de-Forsyth — have also submitted a draft file to the Municipal Commission.
The latter recommended last week to Minister Andrée Laforest to move forward. In a report, commissioner Alain R. Roy states that he observes that the labor shortage constitutes “a real problem that is important to the maintenance of quality municipal services at reasonable costs”.
He adds that he is also not “insensitive” to the argument that amalgamation promotes “better recruitment of candidates for municipal council positions, which militates in favor of a better and healthy municipal democracy”.
It is up to the minister to give the green light or not to the merger by decree. In case of doubt, it can also suggest modifications to the proposed merger or even order the holding of a referendum.