On November 1st, the Metropolis of Greater Winnipeg embarked on a new and visionary form of municipal administration when the first Metropolitan Council held its inaugural meeting and officially marked the start of metropolitan government here.

Greater Winnipeg, an urban area of some 460,000, is the third on the North American Continent to establish metropolitan government. The others are Greater Toronto where Metro started in 1953, and Dade County, Florida, where Metro was established by a vote of the people on July 20th, 1957.

Metro, plainly, is so new that it is only logical for people to ask what it really means -- and how it got started inWinnipeg.

Metro is simply a central authority established to operate a number of important public services which, hitherto, were the responsibility of the individual municipalities. The new Metro Council will have authority over such things as the major street system and the operation of transit buses -- the provision of water to the municipalities and the disposal of sewage and garbage collected by the local authorities. Metro will control all major parks, present and prospective -- that is to say, all parks over 15 acres in size. It will operate our civil defence, dyking and flood control; it will fight mosquitos and weeds, and it will strike a uniform assessment of allproperty in the metro area.

Finally, and in my opinion most important of all, Metro will be charged with the responsibility for all planning in the Greater Winnipeg area, including zoning by-laws, the issuing of building permits and the inspection of all buildings.

Metro covers all of 10 municipalities, most of six others, and small pieces of another three municipalities; a total of 19 local government areas, and 256 square miles of property. But the Metro Council also has planning authority in an additional zone extending five miles in all directions beyond the Metro boundary: so that its authority extends over roughly, 600 square miles of land.

Metropolitan government was established in Greater Winnipeg because it was recognized that the 19 municipalities could not continue to operate individually those services that are of an inter-municipal nature. For one thing, each local municipality was established to provide local services -- not to safeguard the interests of its neighbors. Because of this, and because it was extremely difficult for the municipalities to co-operate in the operating of metropolitan services, it has become increasingly difficult to provide services of a standard which the metropolitan area needed in order to progress in a sound, economic and efficient manner.

Metro in Greater Winnipeg was not a hasty, ill-conceived act of the Provincial Legislature. Rather, it was the culmination of seven years of intensive investigation, serious thought and provocative debate.

The Metropolitan concept was first proposed here in 1953 by a committee of provincial and municipal representatives who had assembled to study the economic and political structure of the Manitoba municipalities. Two years later, after much discussion, the Provincial Government appointed a five-member Investigating Commission to study all phases of local government in the urban area and to recommend any improvements it believed satisfactory.

The Investigating Commission was composed of the mayors of four Greater Winnipeg municipalities, and a chairman, Mr. J.L. Bodie (currently of Edmonton, Alberta) who was formerly a mayor of East Kildonan. After nearly four years of investigation, the Commission released a report which recommended the formation of a strong, central government, along with a proposal to reduce 16 municipalities to eight cities of more or less equal population, by a series of amalgamations. For example, the Commission suggested that West Kildonan should amalgamate with Old Kildonan and West St. Paul. East Kildonan would have joined with North Kildonan and East St. Paul. And so on.

There was some historical basis to this latter recommendation. Less than 100 years ago, the area which we currently know as Greater Winnipeg was divided into just four municipalities.These were the city of Winnipeg, a small central area with a population of about 2,000 and three surrounding municipalities of Assiniboia, Kildonan and St. Boniface.

These large municipalities began to break up when small segments of their population sought services which the remainder of the municipalities did not want or need.

Over a period of about 80 years, the municipalities divided and redivided until Assiniboia was chopped into seven part which, today, are known as Assiniboia, St. James, Brooklands, Rosser, Charleswood, Tuxedo, and a part of the present St. James.

Kildonan was divided into West, East, Old and North Kildonan.

St. Boniface split into St. Boniface, St. Vital and a part of Fort Garry. And Transcona merged from portions of the municipalities of Kildonan, St. Vital and Springfield.

Farther to the North, the historic municipality of St. Paul was divided into a part of Rosser, and the present municipalities of West and East St. Paul.

When the Greater Winnipeg Investigating Commission suggested amalgamation of 16 municipalities into eight, it was therefore simply trying to reverse a trend which began many years ago -- to go back to the larger units of administration which the Red River Settlement once knew.

The Commission's report in 1959 was followed by another series of public meetings, ending with a hearing called by the Provincial Government. After this final hearing, the Government announced that it was prepared to introduce a Bill establishing metropolitan government here. The Government's Bill, submitted at the 1960 session of the Legislature, was not quite as extensive in form as that recommended by the Investigating Commission, and it ignored the proposal to establish eight cities. The Bill went through three readings of the House, including a detailed hearing in Law Amendments Committee, and was approved almost unanimously. It received assent from the Lieutenant-Governor on March 26th of last year and is known as No.62.

The Metro system in Greater Winnipeg is similar, but not identical, to Metro currently operating in Greater Toronto.

The principal difference is that Toronto has a federated Metro Council. That is to say, the Councillors come from, and are also representatives of local councils. They are the mayors and reeves of 12 suburban townships, and 12 members of Toronto city, along with an appointed chairman.

In Greater Winnipeg, the Metro Councillors are elected directly by the people. Instead of representing one municipality, they represent portions of at least two municipalities-- and in one case five municipalities -- so that they are deemed to have a metropolitan, rather than a strictly municipal, viewpoint.

The need for metropolitan action has long been recognized in Greater Winnipeg. Indeed, local councils have been compelled, over the years, to create many inter-municipal boards and commissions to carry out functions which are metropolitan in character. Some of these agencies were the Greater Winnipeg Water and Sanitary District Boards, the Transit Commission, the Metropolitan Planning Commission, a dyking authority, the Greater Winnipeg Mosquito Abatement District, and so on.

As Metro take over these services, generally speaking their boards and commissions will go out of existance. Their administrative staffs will become Metro employees. With two exceptions, Metro is just taking over the work of all these scattered, overlapping and semi-independent boards and commissions. The exceptions are the establishment of a uniform Metro assessment, and the transferring of all principal street, bridges and subways to the Metro Council.

The Metro Statute provides for the establishment of a division of streets and transit, including control over all traffic on major streets, the erection of signals, and provision for parking. We are aware that this is the first urban area in North America to place all of the problems of transportation under one authority. Metro will be responsible for the planning and erection of bridges and it should be possible for the Metro Councillors to decide quickly and soundly on the need for such river crossings, and to provide them in a logical order of priority. Today, most bridges involve two or more municipalities and it has been difficult -- and in some cases impossible -- for the varying jurisdictions to agree on the need for the bridges, where to put them, and when to build them, and, also more important, how to share the cost.

Similarly, Metro should be able to reduce the perennial problem of water shortage in Greater Winnipeg. It will have responsibility for the distribution of water to the boundaries of each municipality -- in short, for the construction of all trunk water mains-- and for the storage of water to meet emergency requirements. In the past, the Water District had no authority of this nature; each municipality is responsible for distribution to its own area and for building reservoirs. And only the city Winnipeg has, in fact, constructed reservoirs. These things are at the root of Greater Winnipeg's recurring shortage of water every summer.

It is worth noting, too, that when Metro takes over water services, all citizens of Greater Winnipeg will have a voice in water decisions through their duly-elected Metro councillors. You will recall that the old Water District had only nine member municipalities. The other ten municipalities were just customers of the District, with no say in how water should be delivered or in rates to be charged.

The same is true of the Sanitary District, which had only ten members from among the 19 municipalities.

Another example may help underline the belief that Metro should be a more efficient operation. It will have complete authority over all planning in the Greater Winnipeg and the extended area. Thus, the Metro Council is in a position to develop a comprehensive Plan for the whole area, and this is one of the major functions to be undertaken by the Planning Division.

The old Metropolitan Planning Commission had no such authority. It was simply an advisory group, whose recommendations were sometimes ignored, reduced or aborted in the individual municipalities. It has been said, with great truth, that there were no lack of plans for Greater Winnipeg in the post-war era -- just a lack of implementation.

This is not said in criticism of the local municipalities. The prime responsibility of the local councils in any case was to protect the interest of their own populations -- not to think in terms of the greater benefit of the metro community as a whole.

There are many other examples of the sort of thing that Metro might be expected to do, provided it has the support and interest of Greater Winnipeg citizens. The provision of parks might serve as a final illustration. Thee are only three major parks in Greater Winnipeg today, all of them owned, maintained and operated by the City of Winnipeg at the expense of only Winnipeg taxpayers.

It is difficult for me to believe that the city of Winnipeg would be prepared to take on any more new parks in the metro area, since it is believed that, in justice, parks should be paid for by all citizens of the Metro area. Yet, the smaller municipalities clearly are not in a financial position to provide such open spaces by themselves. Without Metro to take on this responsibility, it is quite likely that Greater Winnipeg would fail to provide for this very important amenity -- and our growing populating would be without parks, in the face of realistic predictions that by 1980 we shall have over 800,000 people in the Metro area; nearly double our present population. Under the Metro statute, Metro Council will have the responsibility for the developing and maintenance of all major parks, paid for by all citizens of Greater Winnipeg and serving all citizens equally.

Elaborating on the planning functions we must accept the premise that all our so-called planning will be based on a sound and orderly growth of not one but all the municipalities comprised within the Metropolitan area. Generally, we must ensure that industry is located in the areas most suitable for that type of development and that residential areas are protected against infiltration by other community requirements. Of course, this involves many other considerations, such as street patterns, municipal services, parks and recreation facilities and others. When we speak of planning, we are in fact talking about the use of legislation and other means to ensure that all the pieces of our communities which I have mentioned not only fit together for that particular area but also fall into the overall development plan of all communities within the Metro area. One word that seems to crop up in all our discussions to date regarding planning activities, which again in my opinion will be one of the major Metro efforts, is co-operation.

Perhaps a brief explanation describing the planning powers of the Corporation and how these are to be assumed is called for here.

The administration and enforcement of zoning, building, plumbing and electrical regulations is part of the planning operation. In this way the same staff group will be responsible for preparing the plan, preparing the regulations and by-laws that will be designed to carry out the plan and finally will be responsible for the administration of these regulations and by-laws after they have been adopted.

In this way the people who are to enforce the regulations will takepart in their preparation and will understand the basis for them and onthe other hand the people whose job it is primarily to "plan" have no excuse for not being familiar with the problems of enforcement.

As I have mentioned the Corporation has now taken over the staff andthe responsibilities of the old Metropolitan Planning Commission. At the present time we are finishing up planning projects that werestarted before the first of the year and preparing for the two big tasks that we must undertake on or about the 1st of April.

The first of these is to administer the existing building and zoning regulations that have been set up by the cities and municipalities in Metropolitan Winnipeg. After the 1st of April it is proposed that the Metropolitan Council will become responsible for these.

The second big task will be to prepare a "Development Plan". The development plan will be a program or a blueprint -- call it what you like -- for the future development of the Metropolitan Area, and the act states that this plan is to have the following objectives:

Once the development plan has been prepared, a new set of metropolitan zoning and building regulations will be prepared based on the aims and objectives of the plan. By way of an example, the plan will deal with the future use of land and will serve as a basis for a Metropolitan Zoning By-law which is, of course, the legal instrument for carrying out a policy for the future development of land.

Possibly it is in order to define the two responsibilities involved in planning processes. Firstly, the professional planners are responsible to the elected planners for the advice that they give them and for ensuring that the advice is based upon fact and reasonable forecast and is free from any personal prejudice or bias. Secondly, the elected planners are responsible to the community for their planning decisions and the results that stem from them.

Many people probably would like to know what will be the ultimate effect of Metro. Will it take over more and more services, swallowing up municipal functions; will it create a demand for total amalgamation -- for One Big City?

We do not have the answers to these questions at the moment. Indeed, it is possible that the Provincial Government itself does not have them, and would prefer to await the judgment of time. The Metro Act provides for a Board of Review at the end of five years, and it may be that the Provincial Government will be content to wait until the review has been completed before striking out with more Metro services.

A lot may depend on what Metro itself is able to achieve in the next five years. If metropolitan government is efficient, economical and intelligent, the people of Greater Winnipeg presumably would be more enthusiastic about extending Metro's responsibilities. If not, of course, the sentiment of the people would hardly be to give Metro more to do.

This much is NOT in the realm of speculation. The Statute establishing Metropolitan government has provided for the election of a strong central and independent Council, and for an efficient and functional administration to serve it. Metro can be sound and business-like. It has the tools to do the job, and, given the support and interest of the people, it is bound to be a beneficial influence on the future progress of the 19 municipalities of Greater Winnipeg.