Rural Dialogue
Truro, Nova Scotia

Meeting Particulars

Truro, Nova Scotia - ENGLISH
May 26, 1998
5:00 pm to 9:20 pm

Questions

1. A) Rural residents are concerned about the future of their communities.
What are the key strengths of your community as you look to the future?

1. B) What are the biggest challenges that you, your family and your community face as you look to the future?

2. A) What is preventing you and your community from overcoming these challenges? What is holding you back?

2. B) What needs to be done?

3. A) What organizations, levels of government or others should be involved in working to overcoming these challenges?

3. B)How should they be involved?

4. What role do you see specifically for the federal government in working with you to overcome these challenges?

5. How can federal programs and services better support your community's needs (e.g., are there changes needed in the design, delivery, awareness or accessibility)?

6. What is the best way for the Federal Government to continue to hear the views of rural people on an ongoing basis (e.g., meetings, surveys, polls, newsletters, advisory groups, the Internet, etc.)?

Findings

1. Rural residents are concerned about the future of their communities.
1. a)What are the key strengths of your community as you look to the future?

• Hard working people who pull together in tough situations
• Natural beauty
• Resiliency
• Untapped resources
• A willing labour force
• A desire to stay in Nova Scotia
• A safe, secure place to grow-up in
• A foundation of history and culture
• A quality of life that others envy
• A greater sense of community with a loyalty and a responsibility to where we live
• Reasonable land prices
• Greater opportunities for recreation and outdoor pursuits
• Lower taxes than urban areas
• The water and air are less polluted
• Stronger families and a more active Church

• Lack of leisure time
• Lack of financial resources
• Steady erosion of the basic infrastructure such as roads, rail, harbors
• Mixing of the rural and urban cultures with the urbanites demanding change
• Lack of leadership or vision as many try to persist in doing what has worked in the past
• Increasing crime, declining respect for property
• An aging population that depends on increasing services
• As our children grow-up they tend to only receive urban images and messages
• Dealing with government red-tape and a situation were the rural communities feel "over-parented"

• An aging population that has less energy and interest in actively working in the community
• Our children leave the community for their education and then to find jobs
• Traditional ways of making a living by being entrepreneurial are disappearing as we learn to be more dependent

• Look at ecotourism as a way to create work
• Increase access to information by making use of technology
• Looking for ways to enhance rural self-esteem
• Develop consultation processes that start with the community and their problems. Build funding support based on these needs
• Develop an umbrella organization that brings all services to the community and coordinates the various levels of government

• Any change has to come from within the rural communities, not imposed
• Talk to people in their homes (Kitchen talks) and in their communities
• All levels of government and the post-secondary education system working together

• By working closely with the communities
• By having all the levels of government work together
• By listening to our problems and then structuring grants and programs around these

• Make the process of applying for projects and grants much simpler
• Develop project funding that has a longer time horizon than one year
• Encourage the province to be more flexible
• Stop subsidizing large business projects and focus on small business
• Ensure every program has a rural component and the need to prove rural benefit before it is started
• Be more sensitive to rural needs

• Allocate funds directly to communities so they can make project choices
• Stop eroding the core infrastructure of transportation, education, health care and banking
• Strengthen the CBC
• Ensure every level of government works together
• Change government so they aren't patronizing the rural communities
• Move parts of the government into the rural community
• Incorporate activities that build rural self esteem

• Give the rural areas access to information and the means to do something
• Organize small kitchen meetings, have these report back
• Use the Internet

All Rural Dialogue session reports on this Canadian Rural Partnership (CRP) web site are included for information purposes only. The views expressed in the Rural Dialogue session reports have not been edited and are those of one or many rural Canadians who attended the Rural Dialogue sessions.

The views expressed in the Rural Dialogue session reports do not necessarily represent the views of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada or any other department or agency of the Government of Canada. Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada does not make any warranties, expressed or implied, as to the content and/or use of the Rural Dialogue session reports.