My perspective - Back to our roots
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- Published on Friday, October 9, 2015
By Kate Jackman-Atkinson
The Neepawa Banner
Once upon a time, in this country鈥檚 early days, most Canadians lived outside of the cities. A hundred or so years ago, Canadians predominantly lived on farms or in small farming, fishing, logging or mining towns. However, during the 1900s, many Canadians left these rural areas for the cities, which offered a better life, characterized by electricity, indoor plumbing and a social life not possible when town was so far away.
For much of the last century, young Canadians were encouraged to head to the 鈥渃ity鈥� for opportunity.
Today, we see the effects of this in the ghost towns and abandoned yard sites, declining school enrolment and in struggling businesses.
The problem is that the thinking common in the last century no longer holds true. Today, cities are characterized by expensive properties, higher crime rates and a poorer quality of life.
As someone who grew up far from rural 水果视频, I know a lot about what this area has to offer and the issue of rural depopulation is one in which I have a great interest.
At recent events, I had the opportunity to ask the five candidates running to represent the Dauphin-Swan River-Neepawa riding about the issue. Here鈥檚 what they had to say:
For NDP candidate Laverne Lewycky, the solution to rural depopulation lies in education. 鈥淚 think unless are able to retain the young people and the seniors, we will be depopulated. For me, education can be an engine for growth. It鈥檚 not as great a problem in Neepawa, where you can skip over to Brandon, but [it is] if you鈥檙e in the Dauphin area. A university college there [in Dauphin], where you could have degree completion, you could have trades, you could have all these other things鈥� [The key is] using education as an engine.鈥�
For independent candidate Inky Mark, the answer also lies in education. 鈥淭he only reason people leave is because there鈥檚 no work, there has to be gainful employment. One of the things that other provinces have done well is set up community colleges and university throughout the province. That鈥檚 what we need to do. We need more than just a satellite of Brandon, we need a college here. Why can鈥檛 we spend money to build a college here, one in Dauphin [and so on]?鈥�
For Liberal candidate Ray Piche, the answer lies in infrastructure investment. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a multifaceted issue. This is where the Liberals have a really good plan, we want to push infrastructure. We want to spend money now, not in four years. Every municipality will have a different need, some may have a water plant need, others roads or internet鈥iving people jobs and keeping them in community. They need to have the ability to have a job, and not just a job, but a good job.鈥�
For Conservative candidate and incumbent MP Robert Sopuck, it鈥檚 about livestock and promoting the advantages of rural living. 鈥淚鈥檇 like to see much more livestock production. The studies are very clear, livestock production, being more labour intensive, tends to keep people on the land more.
Outside of agriculture, I see marketing our quality of life鈥� I鈥檇 like to see a marketing campaign in Europe. Europe is undergoing some major security issues now and I think there are a number of people looking around the world and wondering, 鈥榃here can I be safe?鈥欌��
For Green Party candidate Kate Storey, the answer lies in relocalzing the economy. 鈥淕lobalization is depopulating [rural areas], we鈥檙e shipping out raw resources instead of processing them here, we鈥檙e shipping out the jobs鈥� The Green Party wants to relocalize our economy, we want to bring back the processing jobs for the foods we grow and we want to also address climate change.
That means we鈥檒l invest in a Green action plan to renovate your house and put an army of carpenters, plumbers, electricians to work. At the end, it鈥檒l save you money and save the climate and have created all those trades jobs.鈥�
With a federal election looming, to me, it鈥檚 important that our elected representatives have a vision of our area that offers people, young people in particular, the option of staying, or coming back.
