Local Service District
For NFLD, see Local Service District (Newfoundland and Labrador)
A local service district (LSD) is a unit of local governance in the Canadian province of New Brunswick; LSDs are defined by Regulation 84-168, the Local Service Districts Regulation - Municipalities Act. LSDs are unincorporated (not self-governed) areas making up the bulk of New Brunswick's geographic area, including about a third of the province's citizens.
Local Service Districts originated from the former civil parishes when, in the 1960s, a new local governance structure was introduced to replace county government. County councils were described as "out-dated" and dysfunctional. This was a consequence of the Ed Byrne Commission report recommendations and subsequent Equal Opportunity legislation introduced by Premier Louis Robichaud, intending to level the playing field between have and have-not regions of the Province. These reforms also saw a significant revamp of property assessments and taxation and so were characterized as sweeping social reforms. County municipalities were "abolished", 'un-incorporating' the parish districts and incorporating many of the larger communities they had contained. The Province undertook management of local service provision responsibilities in these unincorporated units, resulting in significant growth of the civil service.
As of September 1, 2015, there are 242 LSDs. There have been an additional seventy-three former LSDs, most of which were incorporated as, or absorbed by, municipalities. The number of concurrent LSDs peaked at 291 in 1991 and has been declining since 1995.
There are 138 Parish LSDs (plus ten former parish LSDs), which range from entire parishes, such as Cardwell, to areas left over after large numbers of LSDs have been separated, such as Shippegan. The parishes of Gagetown, Grand Manan, Hampstead have never had parish LSDs; Huskisson, while unstated in Regulation 84-168, is part of LSD the parish of Harcourt.
The remaining 104 LSDs (plus 62 former) vary in nature – three are school districts dating from the original creation of LSDs in 1966, one is an island, one a pair of islands, several are centralised communities like Elgin, most are decentralised communities or groups of communities (which can approach the size of parishes), and two resulted from mergers in 1996 (Chaleur) and 1999 (Allardville) that included three (two parish) and two (one parish) LSDs respectively.
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The number of LSDs is sometimes misstated, due to the existence of three units that can be confused with official LSDs: areas with increased or decreased services, Taxing Authorities, and Census Designated Places that are called Local Service Districts.
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