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The Canadian Rural Revitalization Foundation (CRRF) Conference, “On the Bright Side: Rural Canada Works”,  co-sponsored by the Rural Development Institute (RDI) in Brandon, MB from October 14-16, was amongst the most refreshing experiences of my masters degree so far. I loved its positive focus! I am an optimist myself, and it was great to be in a space in which people spoke of things that did work, and shared the good news. I sometimes feel overwhelmed by the “bad stuff” happening in rural areas; in a way those are the challenges that brought me to the field in the first place because they are, by definition, challenging.  In this journal, I will be reflecting on interesting issues I learnt about at and outside the various sessions, on how they link to my past experience, research interests and course work and on some personal growth items. I will keep its tone informal and focus on breath rather than depth, in order to touch on the variety of thoughts and lessons learnt that are sinking in two weeks after the conference and after returning to the land of non-cowboys!

At the first keynote address, I liked to hear Tom Johnson’s views on economic development. It was interesting to superpose it with what I have learnt in Community Economic Development (CED) class with David Douglas. Being from an international development background and used to defining “development” holistically, I found it fascinating to hear Tom say that development is not rising population, employment, tax revenues or increasing property valued, but that it was “creative destruction”. This term holds opportunities for labelling actions with negative effects as being “developmental”. However, it is better than the classical definition of development in Canada; it is appalling to me that the term “development” is used in so many contexts to mean only housing development or subdivisions by private “developers”. 

Speaking of definitions, it is also interesting how one is never far away from the debate on what “rural” means. Ray Bollman talked to me about a definition that defines rural with two parameters: density and distance to density. Even though density directly involves population, I think this is the first definition (ironically, including Statistics Canada’s recommended definition) that I hear that speaks of density and not shear population. I am wondering then if a small town with a high density could be considered urban then? I haven’t explored that in depth, but it is surely an important question.

I was impressed by the Centre for Research and Innovation case study in Peace River, Alberta. This model, which is in its 11^th year, aims to build community capacity and economic vitality through collaboration and partnerships by encouraging and facilitating innovative businesses. The organization, which partners with Economic Development Alliances, Community Futures Development Corporations and various innovation networks, could be transferable to some of the work of the Midwestern Ontario Regional  Green Jobs Strategy for green business development. I found it encouraging that this case study was presented because I think risk-taking and creativity are important ingredients in rural revitalization.

Coming from an area in which over 25% of employment comes from the forest industry, I thought the session on the Forest Communities Program could be an important source of knowledge translation and transfer. The program will generate best practices in working with industry and community partners to transition away from dependency on primary resource extraction and in developing sustainable forest management knowledge, practices, tools and experiences. Their forthcoming guidebooks on Socio-Economic Aspects (asset-mapping), Climate Change Adaptation, Bioenergy, Environmental Goods and Services, Youth Engagement and Non-Forest Timber Products, could be read by Wayne’s research team on stewardship to look for potential intersections.

Also coming from an area who is trying to tap into tourism development, I thought that Doug Ramsey’s presentation on tourism planning was interesting. The part where he talked about how Manitoba wants to get into First Nations Planning as a completely untapped tourism market, while raising some red flags for me, seemed to hold some potential for community-based tourism development, a model much advocated for by Don Reid. I look forward to the First Nations Planning course next semester and explore the intersections of tourism, livelihoods and green jobs for Canadian First Nations.

I was thrilled to discover the CED resources put together by the Manitoba Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Initiatives in their CED Pathfinder CD. I couldn’t help but compare those with the REDDI documents at OMAFRA. I think there would be room for provincial Ministries to promote each other’s work, which in this case appears complimentary. For example, while both provinces do a First Impressions Community Exchange program, MAFRI uses photovoice in an original way, which I don’t believe OMAFRA does.

Attending the local food session, a hot topic in Guelph, was also informative. I had never heard the critique of local food in relation to fossil fuels and greenhouse gas emissions that says that local food can increase energy consumption if a small pick-up truck does a lot of small trips instead of having a large 18 wheeler drive across the country. I am not sure how valid that argument is, but it made the presentations on local food marketing and distribution models even more interesting! I have heard a few times that this is the area in which the most work is currently needed.

While local food is big in Guelph, studies on immigration are popular in Brandon. At CRRF, I thought of a new spin on the “migrant workers” issue. I am used to seeing it referred to as a local food issue, with migrant workers from Mexico and the Caribbean coming to work on large farms in Southern Ontario. On the other hand, the Immigration Symposium that preceded the CRRF conference touched on the issue of migrant workers in Northern Canada. For example, I found out that many Francophone taxi drivers from Montréal go up to Nunavut for three months each year, work long hours and never get integrated. Apparently many young professionals also choose the North for their first public service job because their career (in the South) can move more quickly that way. This was an eye-opener for me.

The presentation on amenities was a little bit puzzling. The way it sounds so apolitical makes me a little bit nervous. I am not sure why the word “amenities”, which seems to resemble other concepts such as “assets” and other frameworks such as “sustainable livelihoods” or “community capital”, is now a new federal buzzword. My critique of it, which also applies to other parts of the conference, is that although we are focusing on the “bright side”, we have to be careful to allow for feed-back and constructive criticism. Also, we need to ask ourselves: are we re-inventing the wheel when coming up with new concepts and frameworks, and is that the best use of an academic’s time? I, for myself, very much like the move of the Tri-Council in funding Community-University Research Alliances (CURAs), and am wondering what the place for big-picture frameworks are within those...

A hot topic in side conversations at CRRF was rural transportation. Tom Johnson told me he had done an extensive literature review and found very little on the topic, and that the urban and sub-urban literatures couldn’t transfer well. This surprised me greatly, given that the issue of transportation is the one that keeps coming up in my interviews with members of Eden Mills Going Carbon Neutral as the #1 challenge they are facing in balancing their carbon budget. I feel very uninformed about the topic and will surely want to have a few other conversations with my colleague Eric in first year who is studying it! I am wondering though if there is a specific reason why this topic never seems to be at the forefront. The first thing that comes to mind is cost; transportation infrastructure is pricy, and that rural areas do not have the population to make it viable. If only externalities of car dependency were internalized in those calculations, I am sure the picture would look very different! 

There was an interesting poster at the poster session by Christopher Fullerton from Brock University about planning in the Township of Southern Algonquin. His 4^th year geography students lead an action research project to do an Official Plan for the township. Chris talked to me about how the land use prescribed in Provincial Policy Statement were detrimental in Southern Algonquin because there are already a lot of protected areas and Crown Land, and so development isn’t really possible unless non-settled land are developed. This is another illustration of a North-South split within Canada. This conversation was very informative, not in the least because it was the first time I really understood the concept of Crown Land!

In terms of personal growth, I think one key realization is that, once again, a lot of the learning takes place outside the formal conference. I had the chance to randomly meet some really interesting, generous and fun people from the Rural and Cooperatives Secretariat (RCS) at the dessert table who invited me to share their meal. At dinner, I heard that the RCS really didn’t pull much weight in the federal machinery, and that there is a trend for generically trained project and program managers to run programs instead of people with a rural perspective. Staff were concerned that they weren’t consulted in the new move towards efficiency, competitiveness and amenities in Agriculture Canada. They also said that they were fighting barriers to transparency, and it was generally very hard to publish reports on the website. This makes me wonder how much of the research done in-house or by consultants, that nevertheless serves to inform national policy, is never made public. I am a proponent of open access as a basic democratic criterion and would like to see the day in which public access of research is made a requirement for accountability. This is especially important for many rural communities who can’t afford to pay for accessing, yet alone conducting their own research.

I also found out about the RCS Models program, which outlines 21 successful models of rural development and tests them by replicating each in three sites somewhere else in Canada. The program is underpinned by a community capacity building framework and undertook a participatory evaluation process. I was glad to see many Québec examples and a truly national overview of models that work. In addition, that dinner was the first time I heard about Agriculture Canada’s “Growing Forward” Policy Framework, and about Canada’s Rural Partnership. I was a little embarrassed that I didn’t know about any of this, but, in fairness, it made me think that it was odd that we hadn’t heard about it in RPD... I feel like critical federal policy and programs are rarely touched on in SEDRD, which is troublesome because I have been finding in my research so far that many policies and programs required for climate change and peak oil mitigation and adaptation, a carbon tax for example, cannot happen at the municipal level. Furthermore, in a context described as the most challenging advocacy context for “rural” in Ottawa in years, it is triply important for RPD students to know federal programs, since all of them except those in so-called priority areas (such as crime and budget deficit) will be severely cut in the effort of the Conservatives to eliminate $150 billion in 5 years.

This may illustrate one difference that I gather between the graduate programs at RDI and UoG. I remember having this conversation with my advisor about how our program’s coursework wasn’t designed for students interested in rural development in Canada; it was either rural planning in Canada or international rural development. Fortunately, being interested in rural development in Canada, I have found that there were plenty of opportunities for getting involved outside of formal course work on research projects that focus on that or think of planning, as Wayne would say, in its broadest sense, not limiting it to spatial and land use components. As the program evolves though, I would love to see more of such content integrated in our coursework in RPD, because it seems to me like a lot of the practice outside of the local government spheres is centered on revitalization and CED.

In terms of informal learning, the “Brandon by night” tour that my new friend Allister from RDI gave me was invaluable in planting some seeds of reflection on affordable housing in my mind. I saw a number of fascinating affordable housing projects that combine social justice, CED and energy efficiency. There were some really innovative things going on, such as the tenants from a project being hired to learn carpentry skills on site to renovate their building and an old warehouse being rehabilitated into a four story affordable and safe housing project, with tenants being able to literally move up from the basement (emergency housing) to the top floor (condos). Like in many situations, local leadership was pinnacle in making those things happen. This tour, alongside the November 3^rd field trip for Public Administration, re-iterates the importance of multi-disciplinarity in planning, and helps me pin point areas (such as design and real estate) which I want to learn more about.

On another line of thought, prior to coming to CRRF, I had learnt about the Rural and Small Town Division of Statistics Canada closing. At the presentation by Alessandro Alasia and Ray Bollman on how perceived “successful” communities compare to their peers, I came to grasp the importance of rural statistics at a whole new level. In fact, there were a few comments by prominent researchers such as Bob Annis and Bill Reimer that brought home the loss that those budget cuts, alongside the elimination of the long form survey, will have on rural research. Those are certainly not “bright” news.

Let’s now turn to social learning. In the trans-European bike tour I did two summers ago, my friend Philippe said something very simple, yet memorable, after we had crossed the Balkans, a region that some of us apprehended. He said “there are good people everywhere!” To that I would add “there are a lot of good people in rural development”! And it is such a small world! It’s really neat to bump into some of the same people like Brendan Reimer from the Canadian CED Network at every conference; and it’s always good to know that there are people working on similar issues in other parts of the country! I loved how two faculty from the International Comparative Rural Policy Studies (ICRPS) Summer Institute were the two keynotes speakers; it was great to see them again. I also got to see Raïmi, my old friend from the Canadian CED Network Emerging Leaders Committee, and we had a chance to discuss international rural development planning.

One funny thing about people though is how the type of attendance and overall vibe at different workshops varies. The local food workshop seemed to attract more relaxed, NGO-types, whereas the Regional Perspectives on Rural Development workshop was full of people in suits; all the government folks were there! While not surprising, it’s always humbling to grasp the array of different points of views and perspectives in the field. It is a privilege to be exposed to those different points of view.

I have been considering doing a PhD in Regional Development at the Université du Québec à Rimouski for some time now. I think regional science is an interesting discipline that seems to integrate planning and economic development with broad policy implications. The presentation on the regional economic development plan in PEI was a good example; while it is an economic development plan in theory, it talks a lot about social policy, which speaks to David Douglas’ theory that by focusing first on quality of life in a place, economic development can follow. The overall quantitative focus in regional science could equip me with another tool in a toolbox to affect widespread positive change in rural Québec. I look forward to the Regional Planning course in the summer to learn more about it.

There are great people in rural development, but, in my opinion, not enough young people. Demographics at the conference were worrisome. Thankfully RDI was able to fully sponsor 20 students to attend to the conference, which permitted to people in their 20s and early 30s to come. There were very few people in their 30s, 40s and 50s generally, with most people in their 60s. Just like the rural is not residual, which David Douglas touched upon in his opening remarks by saying that we “ought to be careful not to forget the rural in times of focusing on urban infrastructure”, rural development is not a vestige of the past and there is a important piece of succession work that seems to be missing in the current academic and practitioner landscape. After all, as Doug Dobrowolski, from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, said: “cities are Canada’s economic engines and rural Canada provides what fuels this engine”.

Young researchers really need to step up to the plate in the field! There really is room for us to do that. A lot of the presenters and volunteers were young, but I am not sure how represented they were in designing the conference, or how represented they are in the field generally. That would be an interesting empirical research question. Following the CCRF session on creating a national research network, in which each institution would work together to refer contracts to a matching center of expertise, my friend Allister had an idea for a “youth arm” of that network that would make available to the public the expertise of graduate students and young professionals. I think this would be a great and necessary complement to the work that established folks are already doing, through bringing in new areas of emphasis. For example, it is widely acknowledged that younger generations are usually brought up with a heightened environmental conscience. I have seen that practical, no non-sense, applied and creative emphasis on sustainability translate in the interests of many rural development students in Guelph and elsewhere.  To illustrate that overall generational variation (without generalizing either), “On the Bright Side” makes me think of innovation, transition and renewable energy. Yet, those topics were hardly touched upon in the conference. On the flip side, my other field of predilection, CED, was thoroughly represented. I’m thinking dialog to integrate both really has to happen, and CRRF would be a perfect platform for that.

Overall, this was one of the best conferences I have ever been to, on many levels, especially connecting with people. I thoroughly enjoyed debates on decentralization over a crokinole board, conversations about the potential of hemp production for rural development while walking back to my host’s house at 2am, and generally sharing thoughts and ideas over some fermented beverage. I felt at home, and that’s special. I think my favourite quote of the conference, "If you want to go fast go alone. If you want to go FAR go together!!" was operationalized in most workshops, which promoted a collective approach to decision-making. But being an event planning junkie I can’t help but think of a few ways it could be improved for next year.

At the ICRPS planning meeting, we discussed having the next conference, Norway 2011, focus on key questions instead of themes. I’m wondering then, what could the next CRRF questions be about? I won’t let my bias lead me in the direction of green energy policy, but I think that’s a worthwhile lens to consider. Anyone has any thoughts on this?

Finally, maybe the next conference could have more participatory workshops. Having key questions would be more engaging. A design charrette, open space session or world café would be fun and bring some interaction and diversity to the platform. Now those are some planning techniques that can be useful for rural development!

Thanks for reading! I propose a virtual toast to RDI and CRRF for a great, thought-provoking conference!

Credits for all pictures: Allister Cucksey

The program for the CRRF conference is  available at http://www2.brandonu.ca/organizations/rdi/crrf2010/Program.pdf and presentations at http://www2.brandonu.ca/organizations/rdi/crrf2010english-presentations.asp

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Rural_Prosperity_and_Optimism_.zip (8.67 MB)

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Dolan&Legere.pdf (79 KB)

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The Models program of the Rural and Cooperatives Secretariat, which outlines 21 successful models of rural development and tests them by replicating each in three sites somewhere else in Canada. The program is underpinned by a community capacity building framework and undertook a participatory evaluation process (attached).