Feature Article July 8, 2004
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Is there a future for rural communities in Ontario?
by Jeff Green
A report prepared for the provincial government has led to speculation about whether the province will cease to provide supports for what the report defines as small, rural, and remote communities.
Investing in People: Creating a Human Capital Society for Ontario was prepared by a panel on the role of government established under the Conservative government under Mike Harris in 2002, but the report was actually presented to the Liberal government under Dalton McGuinty.
While the reports main focuses are governance, healthcare, education, and urban renewal, a short, one-page section called Small, Rural and Remote Communities, has made some in rural Ontario nervous about where government policy may be headed.
This fear has been exacerbated by Lawrence Solomon, a columnist with the National Post newspaper, and a proponent of what he calls the urban renaissance, who has published three columns in support of the idea of a provincial pull back from supporting rural Ontario.
In concluding one of the columns, entitled Rural Phase Out, he lauded the report for saying the following: Ontario will have to face difficult trade-offs in a number of areas, including support for economically unsustainable rural and remote communities and spiraling health care costs which threaten to crowd out many other areas of needed government expenditure.
In its recommendations, the report says the government should ensure that core services are offered for those choosing to live in at-risk communities, but it should phase out rural economic development programs, such as the provision of subsidies and tax incentives to businesses.
The report also recommends that the province play a role in providing young people and workers with regional labour market information, and should consider providing appropriate transitional arrangements, such as those aimed at retraining for those willing to pursue opportunities beyond their home communities.
The discussion of rural communities in the Investing in People report is based upon a background report called Small, Rural, and Remote Communities: The Anatomy of Risk by Enid Slack, Larry Bourne and Meric Gertler. Enid Slack is a consultant in Toronto, and Bourne and Gertler are faculty members at the University of Toronto.
The report devotes much of its 39 pages to Northern Ontario, but it does say that many communities in Southern and Eastern Ontario face many of the same challenges as communities in the North.
When contacted, Larry Bourne described rural remote as communities that are located more than 100 kms away from metropolitan centers. Although the report listed only Ottawa as a metropolitan center in eastern Ontario, Bourne said on the phone that Kingston would qualify.
The message of the report is that smaller and more specialized communities are at greater risk from economic downturns. Lack of diversity can be a handicap. This is particularly true of remote communities, which are roughly an hours commute from a large labour market.
Bourne says the reality of population decreases in rural Ontario must be acknowledged and planned for. He is concerned about attempts to foster population growth because they are unrealistic.
To me a realistic report would be to state the challenge, and respond to it.
He is also less than enthusiastic about the potential for rural broadband internet access to lead to economic or population growth in rural Canada.
The reality is that technology has led to more concentration of people rather than less. Broadband internet access, in itself, will not make an undesirable place to live desirable, Bourne said.
He said, however, that broadband access will have an impact on the delivery of services to remote areas, and will have an economic impact in making desirable locations, with waterfront locations, more desirable.
Northern Ontario and Eastern OntarioThe report on small rural and remote communities and the articles by the Urban Renaissance advocate Lawrence Solomon both focused their attention on Northern Ontario, where there has been funding provided by both the provincial and federal governments for economic development in past years.
By contrast, eastern Ontario rates barely a mention, and in the past has not received any dedicated funding. Ironically, just last month the Federal Government has decided to allocate $10 million for infrastructure funding in eastern Ontario under what is called the FedNor program which is devoted to federal funding for northern Ontario.
By the definition of rural remote as those communities located one hour or more from a major metropolitan center, the rural portion of eastern Ontario is basically in the Land OLakes region and to the north to Algonquin Park and west to the Bancroft area.
It could be argued that this region is an example of the impact of such a policy as is envisioned by the report. It has meant the elimination of villages, an aging population, and a perpetually weak economy.
The positive aspects of the report on small rural and remote communities lies in the recognition that smaller rural municipalities can not pay for the cost of delivering downloaded services because they have no industrial or commercial base and an overtaxed residential sector. For that reason the report calls on the province to return to its traditional role of providing funding for social services, and for roads and bridges.
While it would be a mistake to overstate the impact of studies commissioned by provincial governments and the musings of a rogue columnist (Solomon also wrote about how rural Canadians are overweight and depressed, as opposed to active urbanites running from meeting to meeting), it is important to monitor the thinking of the political and economic classes.
As is so often the case, the thinking about what is needed in rural Ontario and rural Canada is being done by people who live and work in urban settings.
