Rural Canada faces poverty crisis
Senate: Population dwindling
Rural Canada, once the backbone of the nation, is on the verge of an irreversible decline, according to a new Senate report that details problems such as an ageing population, migration to the cities and a growing class of "invisible poor."
Canadians living outside large cities have become "second-class citizens" in their own country, says the interim report of the Senate committee on agriculture and forestry, and may even be in danger of extinction.
"Can we really afford to depopulate the rural parts of the country?" said Senator Hugh Segal, the committee member who first suggested the Senate S8 look into the plight of rural Canada.
"Areas that are so important to food production, to forestry, to the environment, to so many things? We don't think so."
But the Senate report, entitled "Understanding Freefall," suggests that unless something changes soon that may be where rural Canada is headed.
"We've gone from one of the most rural countries in the world to one of the most urbanized in something like 60 years," said Mr. Segal. "That's extraordinarily quickly in historical terms ... [and] it's caused some problems."
Up until the Second World War, most Canadians lived in rural areas. However, in the past 50 years that statistic has been dramatically reversed. In the 2001 census, only about 20% of the population lived in the countryside.
Lower populations in rural areas have led to a steady erosion of services -- from hospitals to banking or businesses.
The result has been fewer business opportunities and fewer jobs created in the countryside and a steady migration of young people to the city, lowering the population further in what the Senate report calls "a vicious circle."
Rural Canadians face dwindling services or longer and longer drives to larger communities for even basic needs such as groceries or health care or education, the report says.
But because all this is happening outside major population centres, it draws little notice from most Canadians, says Mr. Segal. "Rural people tend to get forgotten: they don't get the media or the government attention that problems in the cities do."
The Senate study also found that agriculture, a mainstay of much of rural Canada, has been suffering from perpetually depressed crop prices and soaring costs, leaving farmers with little or nothing to show for their work. Despite nearly two decades of federal and provincial farm aid programs, "real net farm income" -- the farmers' take-home pay after covering all their costs -- has been at or close to zero since the mid-1980s.
"Persistent low farm incomes have created
some serious problems for farmers in many parts of the agricultural sector," the report says. "Hardship on the farm is leading to a situation where farming is seen as a life with few prospects [and] where depression, crisis and/or debt seriously impact many farm families."
And the crisis in the countryside has created a population of rural poor, the study argues, who are worse off than the poor in large cities.
"The rural poor are, in many ways, invisible," the report said. "They don't beg for change. They don't congregate in downtown cores. They rarely line up at homeless shelters because, with few exceptions, there are none. They rarely go to the local employment insurance office because the local employment insurance office is not so local anymore. They rarely complain about their plight because that is just not the way things are done in rural Canada."
Debbie Frost, the president of the National Anti-Poverty Organization, said poor people living in the country have to get by with a much higher cost of living and cannot easily get access to services like food banks or public transit. "They're left by the wayside -- it's a very serious problem," she said, in an interview from Saskatoon.
"If you don't live in a rural area, you just don't think about it ... but they're out there too: the poor don't just live in the city."
Ms. Frost agreed with the dire picture the Senate committee painted for the future of rural Canada. "You go to any small town: Stores are shutting down, banks are closing branches, hospitals are shut down, whole towns are closing up shop," she said. "There's nothing left for people anymore: why should they stay? So they move to the cities."
"And it's not going to end unless the government does something about it."
Mr. Segal said Ottawa "needs to make a strategic decision that it wants people living in rural Canada," and suggests that it move more government operations to rural centres, or modifying immigration standards to favour applicants interested in and willing to move to Canada's rural areas. "That's how this country was built: I think we need to look at doing this again."
"We have to think about the kind of policies that will reverse this ... we can't turn our back on our rural population."
Senate: Population dwindling
Rural Canada, once the backbone of the nation, is on the verge of an irreversible decline, according to a new Senate report that details problems such as an ageing population, migration to the cities and a growing class of "invisible poor."
Canadians living outside large cities have become "second-class citizens" in their own country, says the interim report of the Senate committee on agriculture and forestry, and may even be in danger of extinction.
"Can we really afford to depopulate the rural parts of the country?" said Senator Hugh Segal, the committee member who first suggested the Senate S8 look into the plight of rural Canada.
"Areas that are so important to food production, to forestry, to the environment, to so many things? We don't think so."
But the Senate report, entitled "Understanding Freefall," suggests that unless something changes soon that may be where rural Canada is headed.
"We've gone from one of the most rural countries in the world to one of the most urbanized in something like 60 years," said Mr. Segal. "That's extraordinarily quickly in historical terms ... [and] it's caused some problems."
Up until the Second World War, most Canadians lived in rural areas. However, in the past 50 years that statistic has been dramatically reversed. In the 2001 census, only about 20% of the population lived in the countryside.
Lower populations in rural areas have led to a steady erosion of services -- from hospitals to banking or businesses.
The result has been fewer business opportunities and fewer jobs created in the countryside and a steady migration of young people to the city, lowering the population further in what the Senate report calls "a vicious circle."
Rural Canadians face dwindling services or longer and longer drives to larger communities for even basic needs such as groceries or health care or education, the report says.
But because all this is happening outside major population centres, it draws little notice from most Canadians, says Mr. Segal. "Rural people tend to get forgotten: they don't get the media or the government attention that problems in the cities do."
The Senate study also found that agriculture, a mainstay of much of rural Canada, has been suffering from perpetually depressed crop prices and soaring costs, leaving farmers with little or nothing to show for their work. Despite nearly two decades of federal and provincial farm aid programs, "real net farm income" -- the farmers' take-home pay after covering all their costs -- has been at or close to zero since the mid-1980s.
"Persistent low farm incomes have created
some serious problems for farmers in many parts of the agricultural sector," the report says. "Hardship on the farm is leading to a situation where farming is seen as a life with few prospects [and] where depression, crisis and/or debt seriously impact many farm families."
And the crisis in the countryside has created a population of rural poor, the study argues, who are worse off than the poor in large cities.
"The rural poor are, in many ways, invisible," the report said. "They don't beg for change. They don't congregate in downtown cores. They rarely line up at homeless shelters because, with few exceptions, there are none. They rarely go to the local employment insurance office because the local employment insurance office is not so local anymore. They rarely complain about their plight because that is just not the way things are done in rural Canada."
Debbie Frost, the president of the National Anti-Poverty Organization, said poor people living in the country have to get by with a much higher cost of living and cannot easily get access to services like food banks or public transit. "They're left by the wayside -- it's a very serious problem," she said, in an interview from Saskatoon.
"If you don't live in a rural area, you just don't think about it ... but they're out there too: the poor don't just live in the city."
Ms. Frost agreed with the dire picture the Senate committee painted for the future of rural Canada. "You go to any small town: Stores are shutting down, banks are closing branches, hospitals are shut down, whole towns are closing up shop," she said. "There's nothing left for people anymore: why should they stay? So they move to the cities."
"And it's not going to end unless the government does something about it."
Mr. Segal said Ottawa "needs to make a strategic decision that it wants people living in rural Canada," and suggests that it move more government operations to rural centres, or modifying immigration standards to favour applicants interested in and willing to move to Canada's rural areas. "That's how this country was built: I think we need to look at doing this again."
"We have to think about the kind of policies that will reverse this ... we can't turn our back on our rural population."
Comment