Four of the six municipalities involved in a working group to explore the creation of a regional library have opted out.
As of late 2025, only Niverville and Steinbach were left standing. The RMs of Ste. Anne, Piney, and Ritchot, as well as the town of Ste. Anne, have all officially withdrawn from the initiative.
“There are a number of concerns regarding the current or future level of bilingual services that the new regional library may or may not be able to provide,” said CAO Shane Ray at a meeting of Ritchot’s council on December 2.
Council voted unanimously in favour of pursuing other alternatives, potentially through the Association of Bilingual Municipalities.
“I think it would be a better fit for regionalization,” said Councillor Janine Bodnarchuk. “We’d have a bit more control over the bilingual aspect of it.”
For Piney, the decision to withdraw revolved around the belief that a regional library, servicing many communities in the southeast, would not likely be located in Piney. With this understanding, residents would still have to drive a distance to take advantage of its services.
The town of Ste. Anne determined that, at this stage, it would be preferable to focus on improvements to their existing community library after the recent hire of a librarian.
Steinbach, still in the game, is expecting to make a decision about their continued participation at a January council meeting.
Niverville’s mayor, Myron Dyck, says that his council isn’t quite ready to give up on the idea just yet.
“Council is still interested and continues to gather information regarding a potential regional library,” says Mayor Dyck. “We believe in partnerships and will continue to explore if this potential regional library is a good partnership for our community.”
History of Working Group
The regional library conversation began in 2024 when leaders from around the southeast gathered at Steinbach’s city hall to hear a presentation by Meghan Hansen, a provincial library consultant.
“They reached out to all of the southeastern communities and everybody was there, [including] representatives from major libraries like Springfield and Jake Epp,” Niverville councillor Meghan Beasant told council in October 2024. “It was a large information session showing the benefits of regional libraries.”
The meeting’s objective, she said, was to provide generalized information on regional library collaborations. From there, a working group was formed to further pursue the idea.
Some of the benefits include access to provincial funding and the ability to provide a wider array of resources and services than a small community library could. Governance would be administered by a board consisting of members from each participating community and financial responsibility would be determined by population size.
The location of a brick-and-mortar library could pose issues in a region that extends from Piney to Ritchot, without question. According to Beasant, the idea of a mobile library had come up.
In the meantime, Niverville opened a humble version of a public library on October 27, 2025.
The micro-library is located in the Centennial Arena and runs on a “take one, leave one” model. Books are received by donation. A collection of volunteers oversee the space during open hours but, without a librarian, there is no formal signing out of books.
“When we want to do projects in this community, you kind of look at what the end goal is,” said Dyck at the library’s grand opening event. “And you ask yourself, ‘Can we do it all in one bite or do we need to do it in a series of bites and steps?’ When it comes to a library, we look at the cost of space and operating and putting goods and services into it and say, ‘That might be a few years away yet, but we can start today.’”
If the public in Niverville is interested in seeing a more formal library occur in town, Beasant says that it will begin with the formation of a library committee comprised of residents that operates at arm’s length of council, according to provincial library regulations.