Communities that should definitely retain municipal status include all of the primary and secondary wholesale-retail centres and all of the complete shopping centres. All of these centres are strong, economically viable communities. In a restructured municipal system the FEAs and urban municipalities could be combined in a variety of ways. The smallest numbers, but economically strongest grouping, result from combining the 11 FEAs and the 17 centres in the top three tiers of the trade centre system in 1995 for a total of 28. Something like municipal councils would necessarily govern the FEAs with representatives from urban municipalities and rural areas within the FEA forming the membership.
Logic suggests that it is time to consider alternative structures.
Public opinion indicates that a majority of the public is prepared to entertain proposals. Defacto economic regions have emerged within the province. At the centre of each of these is a city or a large rural community. Currently, within these defacto functional economic areas, government is fragmented, taxes are collected on a micro-geographic basis and public expenditures are often poorly correlated with the location of major sources of tax revenue. Functional Economic Areas would be logical candidates for new administrative structures if a re-organization is contemplated.