Canadian Rural Partnership
Rural Dialogue



Ontario Regional Rural Conference 2001

Towards a Common
Shared Rural Agenda in Ontario
North Bay, Ontario - August 26-28 2001

1. Develop a common shared rural agenda by identifying strategies for building upon and sustaining key rural assets.
2. Explore the possibility of establishing regional rural networks.

Rural assets are those popularly recognized attributes of rural areas that are considered to be essential for the maintenance of livelihoods, both rural and urban, and are vital to the sustainability of the economy, society and the environment in rural Canada.

• Built (infrastructure)
• Social
• Economic
• Natural
• Services

1. Health
2. Water
3. Agriculture and the Family Farm
4. Education and Training
5. Sense of Community
6. Economy and Jobs
7. Telecommunications

• talents and skills of people;
• associations and networks of relationships;
• institutions and professional entities (schools, hospitals, libraries, government);
• physical assets (land, natural resources, property, buildings, equipment);
• economic assets; and
• local business assets.

1. Strategies could bolster the resources related to an asset (i.e. improving the existing infrastructure or educating the workforce).
2. Strategies could also be directed at diminishing the threat in order to sustain the asset (i.e. controlling pollution).
3. Strategies could pay more attention or do something positive to sustain the asset directly (i.e. developing government regulation).

1. Partnerships/Networking
2. Local Community Empowerment
3. Education and Awareness
4. Regulations, Policies and Programs

• apply "Assets Thinking" to local projects/organizations/research;
• encourage improved, inclusive community involvement;
• continue to network to share information;
• develop online networking and communications resources;
• increase awareness of rural assets;
• encourage partnerships; and
• develop upcoming events and programs.

• Promote recruitment and retention of health care workers.
• Enhance access to health care, health services and health programs.
• Support health promotion.
• Improve community health planning.
• Coordinate health resources at all levels.
• Create a unified voice for rural health.

• Improve education and awareness.
• Develop a long-term strategic plan.
• Ensure conservation and stewardship.
• Provide government incentives and increase enforcement of regulations.
• Support community mobilization for water conservation.

• Develop a clear, concise, consistent food policy.
• Support agricultural occupational training.
• Increase community partnerships.
• Create a single voice.
• Improve public awareness.
• Implement appropriate marketing and regulations to support diversity in agriculture.
• Promote agriculture through education.
• Improve access to capital.

• Encourage learning communities to be focused on the learner.
• Ensure equitable learning opportunities.
• Learn about community partnership and public cooperation.
• Develop strategies for addressing rural distances.
• Provide and build relevant rural learning materials.
• Ensure economic relevance.
• Provide strategic funding.

• Support diversity and value individual and community.
• Improve rural communication and advocacy.
• Empower rural and remote Canadians to increase sense of community.
• Utilize people resources to build a sense of community.

• Utilize partnership approach.
• Encourage leaders to think strategically and take initiative.
• Promote marketing and communication of rural assets.
• Provide new funding mechanisms.
• Support regional development.
• Focus on maximizing resources and services in rural areas.

• Expand high capacity telecommunication infrastructure that is reliable and affordable.
• Enhance rural communities' capacity to become "smart communities".

• Promote agri-tourism projects that integrate the asset-based approach.
• Start a listserv to keep in touch across the region.
• Plan a bilingual water festival in May 2002.
• Organize a large "assets-based" approach workshop with hundreds of participants from different sectors.
• Share resources through our networks.

• Teach the "assets-based" approach to family, friends, community, women's group, schools, language committees, etc.
• Continue regional Rural Dialogue sessions.

• Work with the Community Futures Development Corporations (CFDC) network to identify and build the assets through the "assets-based" approach.
• Launch a newsletter (Web, print) to celebrate success stories in rural Ontario and provide a calendar of events for rural stakeholders and the media using www.rural.gc.ca.
• Establish virtual resource centre by and for women entrepreneurs.
• Improve health recruitment and retention initiatives.

• Form networks around telecommunications.
• Develop a sourcebook to help rural communities improve their efforts to retain and recruit health professionals.
• Think outside the box and form new partnerships.
• Provide links between community development officers.
• Increase dialogue with farmers to develop a "Made in Canada" food policy.
• Expand on regional asset approach.

• Develop grassroots Community Economic Development Corporation (CEDC) that is cross-regional, cross-provincial, cross-linguistic, cross-turf, and bolster its efforts using assets-based analysis.
• Connect tourism practitioners.
• Connect dairy goat producers.
• Promote the beef industry.
• Increase awareness of national water strategies and provide local education on water as a broad area asset.

• Follow up with municipal water initiatives (Ontario Small Town and Rural (OSTAR) Initiative) by encouraging the asset mapping process to address local water concerns.
• Encourage more community participation with CFDC boards.
• Develop a community portal.
• Write to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunication Commission (CRTC) regarding telecommunications.
• Encourage community-based partnership development in the private sector.
• Help support partnerships between First Nations and surrounding communities.

• Conduct research on assets.
• Encourage youth representation on local boards and advertise positions as "youth positions".
• Create a Media "Good News" Task Force.
• Develop guidance office resources on agri-food careers.
• Support mentorship programs.
• Improve the promotion of youth employment subsidies.

• strengthen economic diversification in rural Canada through more targeted assistance;
• work with provincial and territorial governments to examine and test new ways to provide Canadians with access to health care at a reasonable cost;
• work with provincial and territorial governments to examine and test new ways to provide education at a reasonable cost; and
• foster strategic partnerships within communities, between communities and among governments to facilitate rural community development.

1. Partnerships/Networking
2. Local Community Empowerment
3. Education and Awareness
4. Regulations, Policies and Programs

The Ontario Regional Rural Conference 2001 is an initiative of the Rural Secretariat of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and Rural Team-Ontario.

The Conference would not have been possible without the generous funding provided by the Federal Economic Development Initiative for Northern Ontario. We sincerely appreciate their generosity.

Our thanks go to the local coordinators and the local steering committee members of the Rural Dialogue sessions for bringing together a diverse group of participants from those sessions to this Conference.

Rural citizens talking about rural assets is a positive way to approach sustaining rural Canada. Agreeing on the rural assets of greatest importance, identifying threatened resources, and discussing common actions and strategies to help sustain the asset base is a process that creates solidarity. It brings people together and creates a "common cause."

More than 300 people participated in the dialogue sessions. Of those, 296 people completed the participant data form. The distribution of the participants in (self-recorded) categories can be seen below:

THE RURAL ASSETS PROFILE FOR ONTARIO

A profile of key assets was derived from the opinions of 296 people who attended the Rural Dialogue sessions across the province. The top six assets identified were: health; water; agriculture and family farm; education and training; sense of community; and economy and jobs. (See Diagram I.)

There is a high level of overall consistency in people's choice of the top six assets in rural Ontario.

Additional assets identified by the participants were: clean air; rural roads; telecommunications; and land. These second-tier assets are more specific than the top six (e.g. land and telecommunications assets are more specific than sense of community or health assets). In addition, all six of the top assets are highly interconnected and could be aggregated further to form a short and very general list of broad assets. Overall, there are 23 assets for which at least ten people voted at the dialogues.

DEMOGRAPHIC VARIATIONS IN ASSET MAPPING

ˇ Gender

Although there were more female than male participants at the Rural Dialogue sessions (56% and 44%, respectively), there was very little difference in their asset profiles. The top five assets are exactly the same size and order of importance for both men and women. Health was at the top of the list for more than 60 per cent of the women and over 50 per cent of the men, indicating it is important to both genders. Proportionally, only slightly more women valued health as an asset than did men.

In terms of other key assets, there is very little difference between the genders until the second-order assets are reached, that is, those ranked sixth and lower. For example, rural roads are a high priority for men (sixth), while land is sixth for women and not in the top ten for men.

ˇ Francophone Participants

The majority of the Francophone participants attended the Rural Dialogue session in Alfred. It is interesting to note that the structure of the Francophone asset profile is different from all the other asset profiles in the province as well as from the overall Ontario profile. Both water and agriculture supersede health in the Francophone asset ranking, while human resources appears as the fourth most important asset. This asset (human resources) does not appear in the top six assets of any other regional asset profile. Sense of community, while fifth overall in Ontario, was eleventh in the Francophone ranking.

ˇ Farm Families

The farm and agricultural community was well represented at all the Rural Dialogue sessions and constituted one-third of all the participants. It is not surprising, therefore, that agriculture and family farm was high on the list of key assets. Interestingly, a wide variety of participants from the non-farm sector also voted for agriculture as a key asset. However, farm-based participants put agriculture on par with health. While agriculture was ranked below water in the overall profile, all the other assets that farm families voted on are similar to the overall Ontario profile.

Rural, non-farm residents (i.e. those living in the countryside, but not on farms), voted consistently for the same list of assets across all sessions, with water and health by far the most important. A similar pattern of ranking emerged in the town residents category, where health and water gained twice as many votes as the other top assets.

In general, the location of participants (farm, rural non-farm and town) made very little difference to the ranking pattern of the key rural assets in Ontario.

ˇ The Elderly, Low-Income Persons and People with Disabilities

The asset ranking of these groups was also consistent with the general profile of provincial rural assets. As expected, health came at the top of the list for the elderly and those with disabilities, with water a close second. The pattern of assets for low-income people was the same, when it might have been expected that social assets would be more important to this group. It is clear that older, low-income and disabled people consider health and education as the support mechanisms that make rural living possible for them.

ˇ Aboriginal People

The ten Aboriginal people who attended four of the Rural Dialogue sessions did project a slightly different pattern of asset ranking than the overall Ontario profile. The Aboriginal profile includes water and clean air as the top two assets, with education, jobs and health following. After these first five assets, the Aboriginal participants chose a wide variety of assets, reflecting a greater range of values than the provincial group as a whole.

ˇ Ontario Regional Profiles

The small differences across the regions of Ontario are illustrated on Diagram II. The Rural Dialogue sessions held in the north produced more variations than the dialogue sessions held in the south, but the variations were in the order and sequences of key assets rather than in nature of assets (shown in white). Telecommunications is a northern priority, seen as an asset in the making.

TASK OF THE DISCUSSION GROUPS

Seven discussion groups were formed, each with a task to examine one asset. The assets that the discussion groups examined were:

• Health
• Water
• Agriculture and the Family Farm
• Education and Training
• Sense of Community
• Economy and Jobs
• Telecommunications

With the help of the notes from the regional dialogue sessions and through discussion, the groups developed clearer definitions of each asset. Groups were also encouraged to provide diagrams to aid in development of the definition of the asset.

Conference participants reviewed the key resources that could help sustain specific rural assets evident in the regional dialogue notes, and identified the top five resources that appear across the province or could be used at a provincial level.

Conference participants reviewed the key threats that were evident in the regional dialogue notes and identified the top five threats that appear across the province or could be addressed at the provincial level.

Strategies are the directions that government and local citizens could move towards to build on the resources, deal with the threats and sustain the assets.

Participants were encouraged to identify strategies that would allow them to build upon what currently exists or is being done (resources) in order to recommend new and bold ways of moving forward. This was an exercise in "connecting the dots". Strategies that were identified during the regional dialogue sessions were reviewed by the discussion group and then clustered into similar themes. The clustered themes were named and then evaluated by the group. Clear strategy statements were developed, along with actions; key players were sometimes identified.

1. HEALTH

Working Group's Definition of Health

"The state of complete physical, social and mental well-being; not merely the absence of disease or infirmities. It is not only a goal but a resource; individual health, and community health are inextricably linked."*

Resources That Support Health as an Asset

1. Rural people who:
• Often have great ideas, but unfortunately do not always express them
• Know their neighbours
• Can pass along information
2. Support groups and volunteers
3. District health councils
4. Tele-health
5. Health care providers
6. Health care programs/agencies/facilities/organizations

Threats to Health as an Asset

1. Lack of health care providers and training facilities in rural areas
2. Lack of timely access to specialized services (e.g. MRIs)
3. Demographic trends (e.g. ageing, low population density, youth leaving communities, etc.)
4. Lack of coordination and cooperation among organizations sharing information
5. Lack of education/awareness of preventive health and difficulty in accessing information
6. Increased cost of living (people cannot afford or access basic services)
7. Lack of healthy lifestyle choices and attitudes
8. Discrepancy in access (e.g. differences in accessing health care information and holistic care information)
9. Lack of access to funding and inability to meet eligibility requirements

Strategies and Actions to Sustain Health

2. WATER

Working Group's Definition of Water

"Water is an essential life-giving, natural and renewable, public resource that provides many physical, social, economic and spiritual benefits. Accordingly, water is deserving of our individual and collective respectful use and conservation."

Resources That Support Water as an Asset

1. Technology to improve quality, safety and usage
2. Private and public infrastructure in the community
3. Natural renewal of water
4. Individual respect
5. Collective governance, including legislative framework
6. Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) and Environment NGOs (ENGOs)

Threats to Water as an Asset

1. Pollution
2. Poor practices
3. Overuse
4. Lack of accountability and clarity in water management
5. Inadequate ecosystem health (decline of a natural state leading to a diminished capacity to regenerate)
6. Lack of individual responsibility

Strategies and Actions to Sustain Water

3. AGRICULTURE AND THE FAMILY FARM

Working Group's Definition of Agriculture and the Family Farm

"Agriculture is based on the community-focussed family farm that acts as an environmental steward while being a viable, diverse and sustainable business that has significant economic impact."

Resources That Support Agriculture and the Family Farm as an Asset

1. Highly-qualified farm people
2. Quality assurance regulations
3. Physical resources and environment (such as land and buildings)
4. Networking and farm organizations
5. Community infrastructure
6. Globalization

Threats to Agriculture and the Family Farm as an Asset

1. Globalization (where the focus shifts from agricultural issues to political ones)
2. Cuts to the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA) have affected research and development
3. Agricultural sector is a political minority
4. Legislative changes in agriculture lack funding to help farmers adapt
5. Ageing community infrastructure (e.g. hospitals, roads, schools)
6. Ageing workforce

Strategies and Actions to Sustain Agriculture and the Family Farm

4. EDUCATION AND TRAINING

Definition of Education and Training

1. Capacity to learn
2. Facilitated and non-facilitated learning
3. Equality of access to a baseline of opportunities

Facilitated learning was understood to mean schools, education and training institutions. Non-facilitated learning included unplanned education (e.g. as people learning from each other) and self-directed learning (e.g. libraries and the Internet).

The working group saw Education and Training as a light bulb with facilitated and non-facilitated training at the bottom. In the middle was the capacity to develop skills, knowledge and attitudes. With input, this capacity would develop into life-long education, which was at the top.

Resources That Support Education and Training as an Asset

The working group identified the currently available or required resources for each of the three definitions of education and training.

1. Community aspects of education and learning
2. Libraries
3. Provincial school system
4. Personal willingness
5. Information and communication

1. Public and private institutions that provide curriculum-based education and training (e.g. schools, collages, universities, private trainers, etc.)
2. Institutions and organizations that provide resources that support self-directed learning (e.g. libraries, the Internet, churches and family)
3. Social interactions
4. Government and other funding that supports learning (such as Human Resources Development Canada (HRDC), foundations and the Ontario Trillium Foundation)
5. People's passion for learning
6. Promise of on-line opportunities

1. Internet service and potential for high-speed broadband
2. School system
3. Community programs and organizations
4. Volunteers and volunteer centres
5. Sense of community, strength in the community and family resources

Threats to Education and Training as an Asset

The working group identified threats for each of the three definitions of education and training.

1. Inadequate sources of funding for schools and programs
2. Low self-esteem
3. Inaccessible distance education
4. Prohibitive cost of education and training
5. Competitive school systems (e.g. English- and French-language schools)

1. Bureaucracy and political in-fighting in the educational system prevents it from focusing on its mandate - education
2. Diminishing resources and sustainability of the current educational system
3. Focusing on "bureaucracy" rather than the "learner"
4. People's tendency to rely on the system rather than take responsibility for their own learning and development
5. Poor technological infrastructure and lack of critical mass
6. More threats than resources

1. Lack of support for the educational system from provincial government
2. Competition in school system
3. Tension between the private and public system
4. A decreasing overall population, accompanied by a proportional increase in the elderly, could result in education stagnating as resources are devoted to programs that will be used by an ageing population (e.g. health care)

Strategies and Actions to Sustain Education and Training

5. SENSE OF COMMUNITY

Working Group's Definition of Sense of Community

"The warmth one gets from being part of a community. It is a community quilt that is stitched together with many resources, assets and diverse groups. Parts of the quilt are caring, helping hands, people, rural/farm/non-farm lifestyles, nature, transportation, time and energy."

A description of sense of community as a community quilt was felt to be symbolic of the asset definition. The quilt (below) includes: a heart, for the warmth that the community feels; hands, which are helping each other; a light bulb, which represents the energy within communities. A key would represent how it all fits together, while the stitching (that is performed by the community) holds it all together. There are a lot of resources that go into making the quilt and, at the same time, it creates a sense of community, including: passion, creativity, thriving, animation, caring, new blood and roots, and people.

Resources That Support Sense of Community as an Asset

1. Passion
2. Creativity
3. Thriving - energy of a community
4. Animation
5. Caring
6. People - heritage, culture, history and customs
7. New blood - people to renew the community and bring in new ideas and skills

Threats to Sense of Community as an Asset

1. Volunteer burn-out
2. Lack of transportation
3. Lack of funds
4. Lack of awareness
5. Apathy
6. Amalgamations

Strategies and Actions to Sustain Sense of Community

6. ECONOMY AND JOBS

Working Group's Definition of Jobs

• Jobs are more than positions-they means different things to different people
• Job creation/diversification versus human development
• Jobs can have many meanings that cross over into other topics (e.g. sense of community, education and training)
• Jobs are the result of all the characteristics of a community that make it attractive to investment/industry (For example, Honda chose to locate its car assembly plant in Alliston due to the amenities available there, and, in turn, created a number of jobs)

• Human potential/capacity
• Jobs are not just people, but land and other natural resources as well
• Economic development as linking human resources with the responsible use of the environment
• Connecting economy with existing assets (based on Luther's "Connecting the Dots")
• Job creation/diversification
• Networking
• Partnerships
• Infrastructure
• Resources
• Leadership to make it happen
• Training and education

Resources That Support Jobs as a Resource

1. Networking
2. Training
3. Government funding
4. Programs from all levels of government
5. Partnerships
6. Non-profit organizations
7. Telecommunications
8. Leadership
9. Capital (private and public)

Threats to Jobs as an Asset

1. Duplication of activities (which results in funds being wasted and not available to those who need them)
2. Competition
3. Globalization
4. Cuts to education/incompatibility of training
5. Ageing workforce
6. Economic restructuring
7. Loss of people (emigration)
8. Inadequate infrastructure
9. Volunteer burn-out and loss of people from the non-profit sector
10. Illiteracy
11. Cuts to government funding
12. Restrictive funding criteria
13. Lack of leadership training and incentives
14. Remoteness
15. Apathy of citizens and organizations, and acceptance of the status quo

Strategies and Actions to Sustain Economy and Jobs

7. TELECOMMUNICATIONS

Definition of Telecommunications

1. The working group did not attempt to define "telecommunications". Instead, they identified four aspects associated with "telecommunications". They include:
2. Rural communities eager to access telecommunications to empower social and economic development.
3. Range of infrastructure and hardware available as options for deployment of telecommunications.
4. Recognition of telecommunications as an economic driver.
5. Human resources with the skills and abilities to use telecommunications.

Resources That Support Telecommunications as an Asset

The working group identified resources for each of the four aspects of telecommunications.

1. Consolidate telecommunication users' needs in order to reach common goals
2. Community networks, lobbyists and champions
3. Government agencies (e.g. Connect Ontario, Broadband Task Force)
4. Application summary of existing effective models to support community efforts to develop information technology business case
5. Potential of satellite technology to serve hard-to-service areas
6. "Build it and they will come" (build telecommunications infrastructure and vendors will come)

1. Range of viable/existing service providers
2. Sense of security and confidence in available technologies
3. Research tools
4. Tourism promotion is key in rural areas
5. Technology has the capacity to put everyone on a level playing field
6. Government regulations should aim at fair and equitable service

1. Subsidization as an emerging issue
2. Customers/users are growing rapidly
3. Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) as a regulatory body
4. Satellite technology provides emerging options
5. CFDCs, local people and lobbyists support rural telecommunications
6. Municipalities are recognizing the importance and application of telecommunications
7. Hospitals are utilizing telecommunications in administration and services
8. Confederation College and community colleges are supporting increased telecommunications capacity
9. Business applications of telecommunications technology - buying, selling, credit card access, Internet, etc.
10. Cell phones are increasingly becoming a basic utility
11. Customers expect to be able to connect to Internet

1. Libraries
2. Volunteer network
3. School network
4. Education
5. Health services
6. Municipalities
7. Banks
8. Hydro utilities
9. Economic Development Corporations (EDC)
10. Local services
11. Smart Communities Initiatives

Threats to Telecommunications as an Asset

The working group identified threats for each of the four aspects of telecommunications.

1. Geography - large land area with a low population density
2. Lack of awareness of the potential of telecommunications and fear of unknown
3. Recession affecting government funding
4. Lack of champions in some communities
5. Youths and seniors are leaving the area do seek jobs or for health reasons

1. No access to fibre optic infrastructure - only old technology
2. The costs of long-distance calls and connecting to the Internet
3. Party lines
4. Safety of personal information on the Internet and liability in case of theft or fraud on the Internet
5. Slow-speed access to internet restricts business growth
6. Regulations that restrict growth and implementation
7. Lack of infrastructure and advanced services leading to out-migration of youth and seniors

1. Accessibility
2. Affordability
3. Reliability
4. CRTC not focused on local needs
5. Not enough satellites
6. Costs are too high
7. Inconsistency in accessibility
8. Slow progress of upgrading
9. Telecommunication is a non-competitive environment, so there are limited choices for consumers

1. Resistance to change
2. Cost of service
3. Affordability
4. Accessibility
5. Lack of awareness of potential
6. Lack of education
7. Loss of population base

Strategies and Actions To Sustain Telecommunications as a Key Rural Asset

1. Provide cell phone coverage
2. Provide local calling coverage
3. High-speed Internet access
4. Provide rural communities with access to current and competitive services

1. Ensure communities have: capacity to respond to change and global trends; a complete needs assessments; education; and access to financial resources
2. Empower local communities
3. Promote sharing of resources within the community
4. Use local media to create community portals

1. Provide funding
2. Plan and deliver programs with: local control and local priorities; long-term, continuous training; and infrastructure
3. Promote Information Technology education-influence curriculum development in telecommunication area

1. Use existing tools
2. Lobby telecommunication companies and municipal, provincial and federal government to get infrastructure in place
3. Encourage the CRTC to change rules in order to open up markets and increase the bandwidth available in rural areas
4. Make CRTC more friendly
5. Promote public education
6. Promote awareness

Strategies and Actions to Sustain Telecommunications *

CATEGORIZATION OF STRATEGIES

Ten Comments on the Categorization of Strategies

Ten themes were identified through a scan of the strategies identified by the asset groups.

1. Strategies can be grouped into overlapping categories:

1. Partnerships/Networking
2. Local Community Empowerment
3. Education and Awareness
4. Regulations, Policies and Programs

Although other strategies were also identified (e.g. Coordination, Telecommunications, and Rural Recognition), the four main categories are clearly dominant.

2. There is a desire to identify new ways to address the complexity of rural assets in Ontario.

3. There is a new understanding of community and community-based development.

1. Partner approaches
2. Regional approaches
3. "Connect the dots"
4. Positive outlook ("glass half-full")

4. Raising awareness of rural assets is important.

1. Rural campaign (The Ontario Rural Council)
2. Find ways to support communities (action/community capacity building)

5. Regulations and programs are tools that can aid in sustaining assets. As a consequence, we should explore new ways in which regulations and policies can support regional diversity of rural areas.

6. "Asset Thinking" makes sense and can be applied locally.

7. Strategic thinking among leaders at all levels is critical.

8. Partnerships are:

1. a vehicle for efficiency and coordination;
2. new ways for sustaining assets; and
3. a way to bolster resources and ameliorate threats.

9. "Asset Thinking" can stimulate policy change and development at all levels.

10. Asset mapping, asset thinking and asset building are useful ways to sustain and develop rural Ontario.

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