11. Municipal Government
taken from "Sourisford and Area From 1879"
The first settlers had many problems that they had to deal with on an
individual basis but they also had problems that had to be dealt with
by the population at large. One of the most important of these was the
establishment of some kind of municipal govern¬ment. As many of the
earlier settlers came from eastern Canada, mainly Ontario, it was only
natural that they were inclined towards setting up the munic¬ipal units
on a county basis as was done in Ontario.
The first administrative unit set up for south¬western Manitoba was the
Turtle Mountain Land District, provided for by Order-in-Council on
April 14,1880. Its authority extended from range 15W and included the
first five rows of townships north from the International boundary. It
was administered from the lands office at Old Deloraine, on 19-2-22.
When the Manitoba lands were under the juris¬diction of the federal
government as part of the North-West Territories, the formation of
municipal units was left to local initiative which only resulted in
four municipal units being set up. When the land in this area was
annexed to the province of Manitoba, the settlers in this area had no
say in the matter in either the framework or functions of the
munic¬ipalities they were to operate, as they came under the Manitoba
Municipal Act of 1880. This western part of the province was annexed to
the former small province in 1881 and by an act of the Manitoba
Legislature in May of 1881 chapter nine established Rural Municipality
No. 30 or Souris River, and chap¬ter 10, The Rural Municipality of
Turtle Mountain, No. 31. The Souris River municipality was to take in
the first six rows of townships in ranges 23 to 29 and Turtle Mountain
the first six rows of townships in ranges 17 to 22.
A second act was passed in 1881, in an attempt to institute in Manitoba
a system of county government for inter-municipal activities. This
divided the added south-western territories into two counties, Turtle
Mountain and Souris River. Until the population warranted separate
county administration, these two were to be grouped with Brandon and
Dennis count¬ies for county purposes, the whole to be known as Brandon
county. A third act placed this large county within The Western
Judicial District for judicial pur¬poses.
These large municipal governments proved to be too large for a warden
and six councillors to adminis¬ter directly, in an area that was just
developing and where communications were poor. An act of the
legislature passed in 1883 set up four municipalities within the county
of Turtle Mountain and four in the county of Souris River. The four in
Souris River were: Medora, Arthur, Inchiquin and Brenda. Each
municipality countained nine townships. Medora's boundaries were ranges
24, 25, 26, townships 1, 2, 3. Arthur's were ranges 27, 28, 29,
townships 1,2,3. Inchiquin's were ranges 27, 28, 29, townships 4, 5, 6,
and Brenda's ranges 24, 25, 26, townships 4, 5, 6. With the coming into
effect of this act, elections were held immediately in all the
municipalities except Inchiquin which never became organized. James
Downie was the first reeve elected under these boundaries for the
municipality of Arthur.
These frequent changes in municipal boundaries were an attempt to find
the size of municipal unit that would best serve the needs of a new
area with dif¬ferent needs for the populations of the different areas
included in the general Souris River area.
The nine township municipalities did not prove to be satisfactory at
this stage of the area's development. Consequently by an act of the
Legislature passed in 1890 the municipal boundaries were redrawn and
Arthur was enlarged to include ranges 26, 27, 28, 29. Townships one to
six inclusive. These were the boundaries of Arthur Municipality until
1905 when it was divided into the three municipalities of the pres¬ent,
Albert, Edward and Arthur. Arthur's boundaries are ranges 26 and 27
townships 1 to 4 inclusive.
The duties and responsibilities delegated to these early municipalities
by the provincial government included building and maintaining bridges,
roads, establishing and supporting school districts, collect¬ing
municipal and school taxes, and other duties such as weed control,
health inspection, relief and stray animals. In 1883 further powers
were granted to the municipalities, including, power to bonus
industries and railways by cash donations and by tax exemp¬tions for
any number of years. Councils could sub¬scribe for any number of shares
of stock in payment of any sum borrowed by an incorporated railway.
They could also endorse or guarantee the debentures of a railway
company, they could issue debentures for stipulated purposes, could
grant loans in aid of rail¬ways and issue debentures to provide them,
and could encourage local industries by granting bonuses or exemptions
from taxation. In a special section of the act the amount of assistance
to railways was limited to 25 cents an acre within a municipality
actually alienated from the crown. Arthur munic¬ipality never seems to
have become involved in rail¬way assistance but they did bonus a grist
mill and after trying for some years to finance expensive im¬provements
by special levies they resorted to issuing long term debentures for
public works.
The providing of municipal services in a newly settled area presented
many problems for the early councils because their area was more thinly
popu¬lated than the municipalities further east and was ated than the
municipalities further east and was more subject to crop failures due
to periodic droughts. This resulted in the municipality being called on
every few years to assist farmers in the purchase of seed grain and
fodder and, of course, in these dry years tax collections were greatly
reduced while the need for essential service such as schools and better
roads remained the same. These periodic crop failures from one cause or
another persisted through until the failures of 1930 to 1936 which were
the longest continuous stretch of crop failures experi¬enced to that
date or since. This was accompanied by a world wide depression when
there was almost com¬plete breakdown in markets for agricultural
products at a profitable price level. The livestock population of
Arthur as well as that of adjoining municipalities was decimated. Any
herds that survived had to be shipped out of the area for pasture and
winter feed. These conditions were beyond the financial capacity of the
affected municipalities to deal with so the senior provincial and
federal governments had to come to their assistance in providing relief
for most of the citizens and in providing seed and feed and tractor
fuel to sow limited amounts of crop in the hope of a more favorable
year and also the cost of freighting livestock and people to more
fortunate areas of the province. The senior governments because of the
prevailing depression and widespread unemployment were themselves hard
pressed to offer much assistance, but because they had greater
bor¬rowing power they were able to help the country and municipalities
to survive. As more favorable years returned, the municipalities in
south-western Man¬itoba including Arthur were faced with large debts
due to the Province making the necessary financial advances to the
municipalities to allow them to meet the extraordinary demands made on
them during this period. The situation of the farmers following these
years was serious. Much of the land was now either owned or controlled
by mortgage companies and most farmers were faced with rebuilding their
farm operations with very limited resources.
In view of these facts, and to allow for a more rapid recovery for this
area the Provincial Govern¬ment convened a cabinet meeting in Melita
attended by the affected municipalities to try and work out a course of
action that could speed the recovery of this section of Manitoba. As a
result of this meeting the Province agreed to cancel the debts of the
Munic¬ipalities to the Province for relief payments and ad¬vances for
seed and feed and other debts owed by the municipalities to the
province because of the con¬dition that prevailed from 1930 to 1936. At
the same time the federal Government established a reclama¬tion farm
north of Melita to experiment with cultural practices and grain
varieties and alternate crops suit¬able for the area, to minimize the
effects of drought in the future. Fortunately these conditions have not
been repeated to any degree to the present time.
With the return to better crops and economic conditions the
municipality was able to collect most of tax arrears and were able to
move ahead with other projects such as upgrading and improving the
whole municipal road system and gradually introducing new municipal
services for the residents.
The idea of creating a system of County govern¬ments for Manitoba has
not been realized to this time. This does not mean that there had not
been inter-municipal undertakings, but rather than rigid County
boundaries for participating in inter-munic¬ipal projects, the
municipalities seemed to prefer to enter into joint projects as best
suited the needs and convenience of their residents. Sometimes a
munic¬ipality would have a geographical division of their municipality
in hospital or other services districts. There have been attempts over
the years to introduce large municipalities but these have been
rejected by the municipalities.
At this time there is in effect in Arthur, agree¬ments with one or more
other municipalities for a Weed Control Board, Hospital District,
Senior Cit¬izens Home, Personal Care Home, Ambulance Ser-vice, Library
Service, Arena, Recreation Area, and Fire protection and Veterinary
Services.
Keeping in mind the sparse population compared to other agricultural
areas in the province of this area we enjoy a good level of municipal
services and institutions.
To carry on municipal government over the years has required
councillors to take time from their own farms or other occupations to
carry on the minicipal work. Arthur municipality has been well served
by the councillors chosen to represent it over the years. In the
earlier years there were annual elections for council so there were
frequent changes in personnel. The following is a list of councillors
for his area as accurate as possible from records still available. |
