Tape #431 - Outmigration

 

When you speak in the microphone, please give your name and where you’re from first and this afternoon it’s my pleasure to introduce Kay Young.  Kay is co-owner operator of a Beef Forage Farm in eastern New Foundland, not too far from where the Titanic went down so I think maybe you can relate to where that is.  Kay was a school teacher.  She is the immediate, past president of the Canadian Farmwomens Network and she was elected to the House Assembly in New Foundland, and was the minister responsible for social services and also represented the status of women.  Please join me in welcoming a very dynamic person, Kay Young.

Thank you Ann and I‘d like to welcome everybody here.  I don’t know if a lot of people knew what out migration meant, because I had a number of people ask me, What is out migration?  And I had to explain to them it was just people moving out of their communities and thus, it causes a bit of a ripple effect on everything that happens to our rural areas.  The title of my presentation is Out migration-The Fallout and The Future.  I firmly believe, unless there’s intervention by all players to strengthen and improve their rural economy, small towns and communities are facing the eradication of many of the government services we currently take for granted.  This in turn will lead to the demise of many rural communities, which are far from major cities and service centers.  Small towns and communities which are near cities will survive, because they will serve as bedroom communities for people who work in the cities.  By living in the country, these city workers have lower property taxes, cheaper and larger lots of land, less pollution, and the advantage of being near cultural and recreational activities.  No doubt, this is not unique to my country.  I live in the province of New Foundland, which is located on the east coast of Canada.  The province is made up of two parts.  Labrador, which is on the main land and the island of New Foundland, which sets in the Atlantic Ocean.  It is my intent to share with you the issue of out migration which we are facing in rural New Foundland and what needs to be done.  I will also ask for your input.  Last year our province celebrated its 500 anniversary.  New Foundland was discovered in 1497 by John Cabot who was representing England.  And New Foundland was important to the English because of the cod fish, which were found in abundance on the shores.  Settlement was forbidden for a number of years, but gradually the island was settled mainly along the coast, and thus, began the first attempts at farming.  However, the cod fishery was the industry that thrived but not without some pores, but the stocks always recovered.  In the 1950’s, government realized that it could not provide and maintain the services to all the remote fishing settlements on the coast and on the many islands near good fishing grounds.  Resettlement was encouraged and government assisted people who wish to relocate from the remote fishing communities to larger towns.  Many took advantage of this scheme because they realized that there would be no support from government for the continuation of schooling, Ann is saying to slow down but I want to get your input because we’ve run so late.  There would be no support from government for the continuation of schooling, postal and other services supported by government.  Today the cemeteries are the only reminders of these once thriving fishing communities.  After resettlement came many fish plants to process the catches, in fact, there were more fish plants built than were really needed.  And that was for political reasons of course.  In 1992, a moratorium was placed on the northern cod fishery which had been the back bone of the New Foundland economy.  This move by the federal government had a dramatic effect on the lives of thousands and thousands of New Foundlanders who had either owned fishing vessels or had worked on them.  As well, those who worked the many fish plants were affected by the moratorium.  The collapse of the northern cod fishery did not happen over night.  For many years, fisher persons were advising the federal government, which had jurisdiction over our waters, that there was gross over fishing by foreign vessels, but it fell on deaf ears.  One can only speculate as to why they were ignored. New Foundland has only seven members of parliament, out of total of nearly 300 federal government.  When one considers our countries global trading,  then one wonders effects foreign countries who are over fishing was not a factor and why this practice continued in our waters.  However, it was not only the foreign vessels which were at fault, over fishing by Canadians and the invent of the trollers had a negative effect on the fishery, and of course the draggers were a major problem.  Sealing was a valuable asset to the New Foundland Labrador economy and traditionally had been carried on for years, and helped to sustain many rural communities.  However, with increased protest against the sealing industry by some very well funded environmentalist and others, the markets for seals and seal products dried up.  With the near shut down of the sealing industry, the seal herds increased rapidly and this had a devastating effect on the cod stocks, when we know that seals eat cod and the smaller fish of which the cod feed upon.  During a year, a seal herd would eat thousands and thousands and thousands of pounds of fish.  In recent years, there has been an increasing number of seals which can be harvested and this should have some positive effects on the restoration of cod stocks.  As some of you may be aware, there has been a raging controversy over the slaughtering methods of seals.  The majority of commercial and domestic sealers exercise humane methods when harvesting seals.  There are always a few who are ready to violate rules and regulations.  There have even been those who violated rules and regulations for the cameras and these scenes have found their ways to national and international television screens.  One can only speculate as to why this was done.  What did they really gain is the question that begs to be answered.  I personally feel that a seal hunt conducted in a humane and sustainable manner, is important for the ecological balance of the seal herds on our northern cod stocks.  Seal oil capsules which are new to our problems, have been found to be a very effective relief  for many ailments such as arthritis and just as a pick me up.  Seal meat is very nutritious and new food items such as seal sausages are being processed and marketed.  When the northern cod fishery was thriving, the fish plants were in full operation and the workers did not have time to travel to the service centers to buy groceries, furniture and appliances, so local businesses flourished and created employment.  Restaurants and take outs were busy and again, jobs were created.  With the closure of  the plants, people found themselves the time to travel further up field and did much of their ship shopping in the larger centers.  This has caused many rural business to close and to put even more people unemployment.  The truckers who transported the fish and the electricians, engineers and refrigeration technicians who services the plants, were also without employment.  The companies which supplied ice, fuel and other products to the plants had to downsize.  The ripple effect was felt almost everywhere.  The local farmers find themselves now in competition with displaced fishers and plant workers.  Because, with time on their hands, they can grow vegetables and raise their own livestock.  Some also have enough to sell to their neighbors and without the high overhead, which commercial farmers have, they can sell their products much cheaper.  The traditional market to the fishers is now drying up for local farmers.  Shortly after the moratorium came into effect, a compensation package was announced by the federal government.  It is not sure whether this first offer was a trial balloon or whether the federal government thought people would accept a package that was far from adequate.  They soon found out that New Foundland fishers considered the package an insult.  After demonstrations and consultations, the package was improved. This program was to help people train for employment other than fishery, or as a safety net to help them through the northern cod fishery crisis.  As I said, one component of the compensation package was upgrading and training.  Some people did train for employment outside the fishery, but many were trained for jobs which did not exist.  One positive training program though is into the goat farming.  And that is taking part on the most easterly part of the province. There were too many women trained for hair dressing.  Fish plant workers with low education levels were encouraged to return to school for adult basic education programs.  I know of many people in their fifties who were very scared at the thought of having to return to the classroom, because they had quit school at an early age and had made a good living in the fishery.  As far as some people are concerned the many private colleges were the beneficiaries of the program and not enough planning went into the whole issue of retraining.  It is an understood fact that for many years, too any people relied on the fishery and there were too many fishing boats and too many fish plants.  The fishery could not sustain the numbers but this is a very difficult issue to address.  To date the northern cod fishery has still not reopened and scientist are saying that the stocks are not high enough to warrant a full fledged fishery.  However, some of our local bays are full of cod fish, and older fishers had never seen anything like it.  This is certainly disconcerting to in shore recreational fishers they do not know if they should believe the scientist or their own ears.  Since the moratorium was announced, there have been three compensations packages with the latest one being announced on June 19 of this year.  Included in this package are buy out, early retirement and reallocation allowance.  Many see the relocation allowance as another resettlement package.  Many concerns have been raised over this new program.  Some people feel that government has met its obligations, while others feel that over fishing was caused by government and government should be held accountable until the stocks are fully restored.  Over the past 5 or 6 years, we have seen many of the younger fishers leave our provinces with their families and head to Ontario or western Canada to seek employment.  Many have been quite successful.  Because many of the fish plant workers had either quit school or graduated from high school and gone directly to work in the plants, they had no other skills or trades.  Those who are in the forties or fifties are finding it difficult to make the transition to other sectors and many have traveled outside of the province to seek employment, but have not been as successful as the younger generation.  For them, it was very difficult to leave their homes which carried no mortgages and many could not afford the cost of moving.  Selling homes are out of the question, because there are no incentives to lure people to rural communities.  In one community of about 500 kilometers from where I live, I’m sorry about 50, about 50 kilometers from where I live, about 50% of the residents have left.  Just last week I drove through there and saw home after home abandoned.  For sale signs are in abundance.  Those that took out mortgages realized that they may lose their homes and the parcels of land which have been handed down from generation to generation.  Even with the closure of  the northern cod fishery, there is a viable fishing industry in many other species, such as crab and lobster.  The fisheries still generates millions of dollars for the province and employs many worker on a seasonal basis.  Although the fishery was the back bone of the rural New Foundland  economy, farming continued to grow in some areas.  Even with only 3% of the land based on New Foundland viable for agricultural purposes, the province is self sufficient in some commodities such as eggs and beef, I’m sorry eggs and milk.  Chicken, beef, strawberries, raspberries, forage and vegetables are some of the products grown.  Blueberries, partridge berries bake apples and other wild berries have been growing upon our barrance and bogs for centuries.  And in recent years, some of these berries have been cultivated for commercial operation.  Buy some and EMU have been introduced to the province.  And these projects are being watched with interest.  New Foundland had a valuable forest resource which was capitalized upon.  For many years the forest was harvested by traditional methods, horse and buck saw, but with the advance of technology, the methods have become modernized and today there are some concerns of over harvesting  and the use of mechanical harvesters.  Again, there must be a balance between the economy and the eco system.  The New Foundland government has divided the province into forestry units and each unit must develop a forest management plan with input from all those who have an interest in the forest including  tourism, recreation, agriculture, and the forestry sector.  I am a member of the planning team for our unit and we are into interesting discussions.  As a farmer, I am promoting the fostering of cooperation between forestry and agriculture.  I believe that if rural communities are to exist and be viable, we must cooperate among all sectors.  In recent years, a huge deposit of nickel was discovered in Labrador, and this discovery meant that the smelter would be built on the island of New Foundland.  But with the decline of rural markets, and the average on land claims not resolved, this project has not proceeded as fast as was anticipated.  But it’s certainly not on the back burner.  The off shore oil industry is being developed on schedule, and we are very hopeful that with new discoveries, the work off shore and on shore from this industry, will be an asset to all parts of the province.  Many of our young people who moved to western Canada to work in the oil fields, and have gained from experience many of the skills which will enhance their prospects of gaining employment with the off shore oil industry in this province.  Tourism in an industry that has moved ahead by leaps and bounds, New Foundland is rich in history and has breath taking scenery, visitors can be taken to remote lodges for big game hunting or salmon fishing.  This year, ice bergs seem to be a big attraction as a result of the movie, Titanic.  Even with some of  the more positive happenings, such as development of the oil industry, many rural communities are seeing the loss of services, because as we all know, the population numbers determines the services we get and the services we maintain.  Because of the out migration of our younger people, many communities are left with mainly middle aged people and seniors.  And as one ages, the health problems increase.  How can we care for these seniors?  There are less dollars today than there were ten years ago for home support.  So many of these seniors will be relocated to institutions far from their homes and communities.  As school enrollments decrease, the smaller rural schools will close and children will be bussed to larger schools if that, indeed, is an option.  Young professionals such as nurses, doctors, teachers, and social workers who have young children, will take a second look as to whether or not they want to raise their children in rural communities and deprive them of quality education, health services, culture and recreation, or whether they will take positions in rural centers.  As services decline, the chronologically unemployed, the welfare recipients, the disabled seniors too, will have no alternative but to move to urban enters where some will live in poorer housing and even ghettos.  They will be faced with a totally different society from that in which they have lived.  They will see more criminal activity and more poverty.  The loss of help from neighbors in difficult times will be missed.  This is unfortunate, because many of these people own their own homes and lived in crime free environments.  I have often stated that still viable fishery of species other than northern cod, then the farming industry, the logging and saw mill operations, the mining, the oil industry and tourism.  We should have full employment in our rural communities for all those able and willing to work.  I read in my member parliament in last months newsletter, that in 1995, nearly 50% of Canada’s exports came from the countries rural areas.  Why then, do we have so much unemployment in rural Canada.  What can we do?  First of all, we must convince the rural inhabitants that they must cooperate and if possible, form a coalition of resource based industry stake holders.  If we could collectively voice our concerns to governments, we would have much stronger bargaining power.  Unless there is a high percentage of  rural people speaking collectively, we will not be heard and certainly not heeded.  There must be value added to the raw products that we produce to maximize the dollars we are capable of earning.  If we ship our raw products out of the rural areas,  we gain no employment opportunities and no revenue is generated to maintain our communities.  How can we as rural people entice others to come and live in our communities?  Many of us have access to the Internet and we should be touting our communities as great places to live. If  there is no employment, you ask, why would people be willing to live in these rural communities.  Well, there are many urbanites who take a years leave of absence from their employment to travel or experience another culture.  There are artists and writers who like to work in quiet settings with beautiful scenery or just to get in tune with nature.  We have plenty of vacant homes in rural areas which will never sell, but which could be rented for a year or even seasonally.  In my province, people from warmer climates may wish to experience a winter of skiing and snow mobileing or just come to experience North Atlantic snow storms.  Others may want to come in late Spring and early Summer to see icebergs and then to stay for whale watching and wild berry picking.  Things we take for granted are unique experiences to others.  If we advertise and produce credible packages then we build up a reputation and we also help our communities survive.  Because while all these people are experiencing rural life, they will contribute to the economic and social well being of our communities.  Since many rural areas have access to the Internet, we can certainly conduct business any where in the world through the information highway.  Products can be marketed through the Internet and they might include cottage items as well as factory produces articles.  With the advancements in technology, many of our government offices could operate in rural parts of the country and thus bring workers to the communities.  I feel that if some of the bureaucratic program designers could actually live in close proximity to the people they are challenged to assist, they would be greatly enlightened and the programs would be much more effective.  We must convince governments to provide attractive incentives to entice business to start operations in rural communities.  Unless we diversify, we will not survive.  I met with officials in Norway in 1991, who are administering a rural development fund and they were offering added incentives for new business to set up shop in remote parts of that country.  I have not done follow up on that program, but at that time, they were seeing amazing results.  Over the past 8 years, I have seen our area develop three strategic plans by three different agencies which have been funded by government.  These plans have caused the tax payers thousands of dollars and while we have been big on the development of  these plans, we have been weak on the implementation.  It is time that we try something new.  Instead of trying to have large areas buy into a strategic plan, I feel it would be better to have 5 to 10 communities which have commonalties, to come together and brainstorm as to what initiatives can work and government can offer some assistance to local entrepreneur in the form of capital or management business skills.  If there are no local people willing to take on larger initiatives, private developers could be sought who have the expertise and the access to capital, to start these business.  Governments should consult with rural stake holders before they develop programs which are designed to stimulate the rural economy.  Far too often, government funded programs have turned out to be ‘make work projects’ for twenty weeks duration and were only meant to give workers enough insurable weeks to qualify for what we call unemployment insurance or what was called.   In Canada, we now call it employment insurance.  The Canadian government is implementing a new strategy for supporting development in rural Canada.  This new strategy is called Canadian Rural Partnership.  There has been an interdepartmental working group established to make government work better within the federal government and across jurisdictional boundaries.  This working group is made up of 22 federal departments and agencies.  As well, there is a rural team set up in each province and territory.  I understand that some of these rural teams are still evolving, but I do believe that they are made up mainly of  from the bureaucratic section of the country.  Rural issues are to be considered in the design of all future policies, programs, and services of the federal government.  Pilot projects are being tested, which have innovative approaches and new practices to respond to rural issues.  Projects of one year duration that are innovative, can demonstrate local impact, can be replicated in other communities, can demonstrate a multi partner approach including shared contributions, and which includes an evaluation framework, will be given priority.  This fiscal year, 3.2 million dollars has been allocated to these projects.  I’m a member of the Selection Advisory Committee for the Canadian Rural Partnership Pilot Projects Initiative.  On June 19th, the members who came from a diverse range of  backgrounds and who have knowledge of current issues effecting rural Canadians, met with the purpose of reviewing 42 projects and to make recommendations to the honorable Lyle VanCleef, minister of Agriculture and Agri Food Canada.  As well facilitated workshops are being held across Canada, to engage citizens and opening lines of communications, and to encourage input into federal decision making.  Rural Canadians are being encouraged to complete work books which are available by calling the rural secretariat or visiting the website at www.rural.gc.ca, we’ll put that up in a little while.  This is the first year for this five year program.  Hopefully, the movers and shakers in our rural communities, will support this new concept and make it work.  At the workshop I attended, we were asked by the representative from the rural secretariat to state three outcomes we would like to see as a result of our evening of input.  And I challenged the government to come back to the group in a year and tell three things which they had done as a result of our recommendations.  It is not only the bureaucrats who must be working closely with rural people, elected representatives must spend more time listening to the elector and seeking advice from them.  After being elected in rural districts, many politicians move their families to the capital cities and do not visit the districts on a regular basis.  Is this proof that they believe urban is better than rural?  I know they must spend time in the capital, but how can they stay in tune to the issues if they do not spend time living among the people they represent.  Before you cast your vote in the next election, ask your candidates to state their visions for your rural area, and what he or she is prepared to do, to make that vision work.  If possible, invite them for a public debate and make sure you question each as to what he or she has done to improve rural communities.  Politicians must be held accountable. We, as rural women, must rally to the cause.  Do not let global distance stop us from sharing what can and will work for us.  We need employment, we need sustainable development of our resources, we need health services, quality education, recreation and culture for our rural people.  We need the technological advantages so that our rural youth can be as knowledgeable as their counter parts in urban centers.  We can make passionate speeches, but unless we offer positive solutions, and demand that work cooperatively with governments because we are the experts when it comes to rural issues.  We can never achieve the best possible results to maintain healthy and viable communities.  No doubt many of you are experiencing out migration in your communities and can relate to the problems encountered in my province.  Collectively, we have a great deal of expertise on rural issues.  We know the problems and possible solutions.  And over the next little while, you will have an opportunity to share your experiences with this group.  We need to hear about the successful programs which have been implemented in other countries so that we can use them as models.  I trust that each of you has something to share with the group.  We need to know if there has been a high percentage of out migration in your country, and if so, the cause.  Or the positive things that are happening to prevent out migration.  We want to hear about the strategies to strengthen the rural economy that have been tried and whether or not they have been successful.  And we want to hear about new initiatives which you would like to see government or the private sector undertake.  Please identify yourself and give the name of your country.  We’ll take about 15 minutes at the end of the session to wrap up and to determine what we can do with the information coming from this workshop.  I feel that it would be unthinkable to just leave the workshop and not take our recommendations.  And we can make these recommendations heard at the government level.  And hopefully it will improve our rural communities and thus, help reduce the out migration of our brightest and best.  We are the stake holders and the stakes have never been higher.  I ask that you bear with me just a few more minutes before we commence to group participation.  Last September while teaching a great four class, I was encouraging my students to write poetry.  And they suggested too, that I should write a piece.  Having been challenged, I agreed.  I feel very passionate about my province, it’s beauty, it’s history, and it’s people.  I think it is appropriate, that I share with you my poem, Filed Memories.

 

New Foundland, you have filed so many memories with me.  Craggy cliffs overlooking raging seas, whipped up by North Atlantic gales.  Trees bent and crooked by these same forces of nature, sea gulls screaming and gracefully soaring squabbling over abandoned fish. Lighthouses standing sentinel, recalling the fishing schooners which apply the shores  Boats and nets once yielding bountiful harvest from the sea, abandoned now, the victims of regulations beyond their control, forever a reminder of more productive times.  Houses and sheds gray and weather beaten, holding the secrets of their owners.  Windows left without panes and curtains flapping in the wind, pieces of history left behind.  Never to find their places in museums.  Nature feels its immortality as it reclaims the land.   Churches standing proudly knowing they were created through acts of love.  Records of baptisms, marriages, and deaths stored within the sacred walls.  Moss covered tombstones and forgotten cemeteries, yielding a little of our history presided over by weeds and blueberry bushes.  Majestic moose roaming freely and venturing onto the highway, completely oblivious to the perils awaiting them.  Industrious beavers damming brooks and flooding country roads, unsuspecting death by trap is the penalty for this innocent act.  The ever changing scenery on a leisurely drive densely forested hill sloping to meet white capped waves.  Communities obliterated like blankets of fog.  Iceberg cathedrals carefully craft by the elements.  Memories are imprinted on all my senses, the pounding waves and the cry of the loon, the unforgettable scent of the ocean and that of a forest fire.  A mud trout slipping through my fingers and the prickly sea urchin against my hand, a whale parting the waves and a startled rabbit scurrying for cover.  The ocean salt on my lips, and the tartness of crab apples, memories last, but reality takes over.  New Foundland, are you aware of the changes taking place around you?  Rural communities once prosperous, now wasting away.  r is it coincidental that you now choose to divulge your secrets offer encouragement to bide a little longer.  Natures creation and a testimonial to the perseverance of a proud race.  So many memories enticing ex-patriots to return.  And ever waiting the arrival of future generations, more memories to be filed. 

 

And you might wonder why I talked about the fishery when actually, I’m a farmer.  But I think that it if you take that into any other commodity, and if you have a disaster such as we had,  then it could effect your country.  What I’m asking for now is some more solutions, I’ve offered a few, but I’m sure you have a wealth of information and Ann is going to assist me in writing down some of your suggestions so the mike is open for you. 

Who is going first-we have a bureaucrat from Ottawa, Canada?  If there’s anyone who would like to offer a suggestion, we also have a politician here from Australia who might offer some suggestions, she represents a rural district, I believe, Caroline? 

 

Caroline Schaffer from South Australia.  I guess the problem with out migration, as you call it, sounds very similar.  We’ve lost a lot of grain farmers in the last few years due to a series of droughts.  And I think probably the sad thing is that while industries are not profitable, the young people find something that is.  And by the time the industry becomes profitable again, you’ve lost a great number of probably more professional young farmers and they don’t tend to come back and so the problems that you had with your cod fishery, I think are very common to our problems.  I think the solutions suggested are probably the same, but how you in gender that enthusiasm in the people that remain are very often older people who are ready to retire is probably the difficult situation.  I don’t suppose it’s a good thing to say, I think the big picture is simply that profit has to return to some of those industries before people are attracted back.  I know that technology will be one of the  things that makes it very easy to conduct  a business from an isolated area, but that doesn’t provide people with entertainment or schools or any of the things that they find attractive in living in more populous areas.  And we all know, that as the population reduces so do the facilities in that region.  So then you lose school, so then you lose more people so you lose more shop workers and the whole thing spirals.  I wish that I had some solutions that I felt would work. 

 

Ann McKensey, Ontario.  We are very fortunate in our area, we have a lot of timber.  And a wafer board plant has opened up and it has given a lot of  employment with good wages to the young people and the farmers can also go and work there.  And fortunately farmers are expected to have an off farm job to keep the farm going in Canada.  But anyway, we have this plant and we had the railway there also, but they’ve moved down the road 4 hours for us, so a few people I’ve had to relocate.  But this wafer board factory that we have in our area, there’s the transport drivers that haul it to the south and in the United States and there’s the workers in the plant, and there’s the bush people and there’s programs in place now where when the trees are cut, they have to be replaced within a certain number of years.  So it’s an on going thing.  Thanks. 

 

My name is Karen Oliver and I am a principal at the senior high school in a rural town 100 kilometers east of Perth, which means that we’re not as large at all but we are still suffering the same problems.  My school once had a population of over 1,000 and I think it has stabilized at is around 650.  But of course, that’s quite serious because it reduces the number of courses that we can offer.  One of the problems that appears to be is the lack of recognition at a, in our case, the state level and also federal level.  Because it is possible to relocate government services in a place that’s not so far from the capital city and this case northern.  And for example, the agricultural department has quite a big scene in Northern, but there’s really no reason why more could not be relocated because we have a train service to the city or be it not a very good one, but they could do something about that.  To you know, if you’d like to set an example.  I belong, or I’m on several committees, but the Weightbelt Development Committee, are looking at telecommunications as another way of improving the access to services for people.  I also belong to a federal body which is called the Weighbelt Area Consultant Community and that’s looking at retraining and employment in the whole of the Weightbelt.  It’s a huge problem because we don’t have, tourist potential is not huge in the area, there is some potential, but not a lot.  And we don’t have many other resources that we can work on.  So the only way I can think, I mean lifestyles is important, and if you think about that.  A little town where I was principal prior to coming to Northern, but is in the same region probably another 200 kilometers further east Bruce Rock, actually made national television because they gave away free land. And I was actually principal of the school during the period when that happened and I got 2,000 phone calls from all over Australia and they actually got quite a large number, not any where near 2,000 of course, but quite a large number of people moved to this town.  This town I’m talking about is very small, a couple of hundred people, 40 new houses were built and people moved in with various, various businesses.  So that worked.  So maybe if you make offers like that then maybe that will assist with this problem.  And the final thing I would say is I actually don’t live in the town that I work in, I live in town much smaller town 35 kilometers away.  And it’s the oldest rural town in Western Australia has great historical potential and tourist potential but we really fight the old residents who don’t want to see that happen and that is just a huge problem that they get very cross about all these new comers that don’t really want that, so you’ve got to deal with as well, you know there is a resistance there. 

Did you offer the free land to business as well? 

The free land was for houses but the shiron on that particular it’s a very progressive shiron, not only did they offer, I don’t know if whether the business premises were free, but they were certainly subsidized and they built factory units so there was great encouragement and that ‘s what a lot of the people moved in and set up, you know, automotive business and electrical contractors, that sort of thing. 

 

I’m from a different state, I’m from Victoria in Australia where we have much of the same problem.  At the moment we’re still in the middle of a very bad drought.  We have got a big problem where we get most of our water from is only 77% full at the moment.  So it’s been told that if it doesn’t have an above average rain this year, there’ll be no water for many people that will effect South Australia as well.  And I think a lot of people are just getting frightened. And the young people just won’t stay around you know they can’t see any long term future for them and they are leaving.  A lot of our weight is Swan Hills.  Swan Hills itself is fairly stable in its population of about ten thousand, but we have got lots of small towns out in the Mali area and I would say a lot of them in the last ten years are down to about half their size.  We can’t get doctors, the hospitals are closing the banks are all closing in all the areas and I just don’t know really what the solution is.  We are trying in our area get more tourism going, but we’re four hours from Melbourne, you know it’s just a little bit too far lot of the weekend ones.  I think now four hours is too far to go for a weekend which when we go down to Melbourne it’s no problem when it’s the other way.  It’s a real worry  for all the areas just to know what to do.  And as far as telecommunications goes, a lot of our areas it’s not good.  Personally, I’m only 20 miles from Swan Hill, but I can’t get the Internet because the phone lines just aren’t good enough.  So you know, the whole Australia is the same, we really want to open it up to tele-medicine and things like that but where does the money come from?  I mean without the government putting money into the whole system, we just can’t do it. 

 

I’m just saying is their an opportunity to lobby government?  Because our government, this is our state government has contributed to the problem in some ways for example, in education of course, which is what I know best, they’ve now had two attempts, they don’t describe it like this, two attempts really to close small uneconomic schools and of course most of those are rural.  They haven’t been very successful because the communities have resisted so strongly but there’s definitely that message there that look you’re just not economic whereas if it was, if they put the same amount of money and energy into saying, look this is costing us a lot to have a school here we really need to look at how we can help you make this a viable school.  But that’s not the approach that’s used so I don’t think there is an appreciation of what it will mean if our rural areas die.  So, I mean who’s going to feed the people? 

 

You’re from  Costa Rica, we’d certainly like to hear if there are any problems in your province or your country.  (Spanish)

 

Side Two-

 

Thank you Carolyn.  My name is Wayne Moore and I’m also from New Foundland in Canada and I’m working right now with our federal government in our capital city in Ottawa.  A lot experiences where I spent a lot of my summers where my mother grew up was very close by to where Carolyn comes from and a lot of the experiences are very familiar.  Families split up during the year with the man having to go north to work on the boats for half the year while they left their children and their families at home.  It strikes me that in Canada, there are probably two or three things that are going on that may be of interest and relevance here.  The first one, I think Ann made a very important point at the beginning which is the point of taking back, because it strikes me that a lot of us are working around similar problems of being based in rural communities where resource extraction is really important and a lot of it is about taking out and very little of it seems to be about putting back in. Now they’ve put in a sort of line in the sand if you will about replanting and reinvestment in the community.   Another thing that’s happening a lot in some areas of Canada is a whole notion of community bonds.  What’s been happening is that, for example, in New Foundland where we come from,  a lot of money has flown through these communities and very little of it has stuck but in a number of places they are saying let’s take this, let’s invest, reinvest, put money back not just as individual but into the community.  Another area that may be similar in Australia, I know you face some of the challenges we do with regard to the relationship between the indigenous people and European and other people who have come later to the country.  In fact our aboriginal communities are one area where there’s in fact some reinvestment being made in rural communities. In fact there’s money and control starting to go into some of these communities and we’re actually seeing some, these are one of the few areas we’re seeing in migration into rural communities.  Which is something that is very interesting.  I think a third point, and I’ll just stop here, I’m very interested in hearing the technology, the stories, and that of people’s experiences with that because I think it’s, I find this being touted as a bit of a, I’ll take off my government hat here, because our governments very strong.  In fact we’re putting in computers into ten thousand rural communities and we made a commitment whether it’s through libraries, community centers, or schools.  But at the same time, there’s a lot of capacity issues in terms of  infrastructure, which government is the only player whose capable at all of dealing with it as much the same way with highways and telephone infrastructure.  But I’m just wondering whether this is the magic bullet, because I know what telehealth does work in some places ,dial a doctor, I don’t know if you have that in Australia, it’s something that’s starting to become popular in Canada.  But I’m very interested to hear those comments because it strikes me that there’s a lot of potential there, but it’s not a magic bullet yet, so anyway, thank you. 

 

I talked about before, about trying to get people back or I guess that’s what I was thinking about trying to keep young people in communities.  But I think perhaps listening to everyone I should perhaps put a positive spin.  As I said I come from a peninsula which was an area that was very  badly hit during the inflationary high interest rates.  Byowealtor had a series of very severe droughts in that time.  Three years ago I hit it at a community group who looked at the problems of their peninsula called the Rural Strategy Task Force.  We made a series of 29 recommendations to the federal and state governments.  Of those, I think there were about 15 accepted and we attracted about 11 ½ nearly 12 million dollars of state funding to the peninsula.  And that has a number of differences that I think I should probably talk about.  I don’t know that it’s attracted people back to communities, but it has stabilized those who remained.  We made a valued judgment to not ask for grants as such but to ask for state funding to allow people to get back on to their own feet.  The majority of the money has gone into things like land conservation and salinity projects in Laury Peninsula studying rising ground water which is taking out viable soil.  A number of people have accessed subsidized money, I suppose you’d call it a one for one type, one dollar for one dollar for planting projects on their own properties.  I think perhaps the word of encouragement most of all we set up some state funding to look into a desalination plant.  Those kind of infrastructure things, rather than putting money down the endless funnel of trying to help people.  We try to help people stand on their own feet.  And that has made quite a difference, and it’s made a difference probably most of all to the moral of those who had stayed.  I think, I’m not saying don’t lobby governments, but from the point of view from someone who is in government, I’m only too well aware of the problems and frankly governments, I think reflect communities rather than the other way around and I really think it’s for communities.  Governments can actually do very little because it’s your money, it’s your taxes, and no one likes to pay extra taxes.  Some of the best things that have happened on our peninsula have happened out of necessity.  A number of farmers who, along coastal areas, where I don’t come from but who were quite desperate begin to pioneer aqua culture interest and we know have a number of people who farm  south pacific oysters very, very successfully and they were people who were virtually bankrupt.  Grain farmers who are now probably millionaires exporting south pacific oysters all over the world. We have a venuating project at Port Lincoln where tuna farmers who were going broke now catch their tuna, all tuna fishes, put them into cages and fatten them so that they will acquire a sushi market instead of canned tuna and they also now, many of those are actually millionaires.  And perhaps the one for Swan Hill, and it is little, but I’ve got here with me a plant in a 12 and ½ inch rainfall area and a group of very innovative women got together and they now export sturt dessert pea plants.  A sturt dessert pea, I’ve got it here actually, it’s the state floral emblem that’s a very attractive dry land flower.  They built themselves some plastic covered salong shade cloth, covered glass houses, put up drippers and started to grow these wild flowers and they now export the plants around the world.  I wouldn’t say that they are making a huge amount of money, but they employ a half a dozen, 10 people and so what I’m saying is out of desperation, sometimes, if people make the decision, that they are going to stay there, as you said, that this is the line in the sand where they begin to become innovative.  But I can only say someone who has been through it, there’s a lot of pain in the mean time. 

 

One thing we’ve got going for us is our local politician, Barry Stegall.  He’s working very hard to try and get doctors back to the rural areas.  He’s been putting, he showed me just before I came over, this poignant plan that he’s got out, trying to attract overseas doctors and to make it easier at the end of their two year stay that they stay there to get registered.  At the moment they are there for two years and then they have to sit in an exam, be up to our standards, they’re trying to bring that the doctors now say one day at Fort Sandal and one day month in a slightly larger rural area so that they are gradually trained instead of just being thrown into the exam at the deep end and trying to bring it into more sections so that they don’t have one big exam, they’ll have several smaller exams.  We’re hoping by this, if we can get the doctors back to some of the towns, that maybe the people will come back.  Because a lot of people have left because there’s no medical services.  And that is a real worry.  I run a blood bank in Victoria, and we’re finding that towns that we have small blood banks in now, are having to close because there’s not a doctor.  And if there’s not a doctor in the area, we’re just in that town, the doctor has to be handy, we can not run a blood bank, so it’s sort of affecting a lot of other things like that.  But hopefully, if we can get the doctors back in maybe it may to a slight extent reverse it. 

 

We have a difficult time in Northern Ontario also getting doctors and the discussion that’s happening now is to take local students who are interested in the medical field, help them with their education, and have them come back for a few years and hopefully they will stay where they grew up. 

 

We’re trying to do that but a lot of students, they go to Melbourne and they don’t want to come back again.  They have a taste of the city life and they realize as far as medicine goes, there’s a lot more advantages to being in a bigger area. 

 

One of the things that really puzzles me, as I said I’m only a hundred kilometers from Perth, and yet I have a devilsome job trying to staff my school.  I just can’t get people to come.  I mean, you would think it was in the middle of the nullible plain, and there’s a low range of hills between Perth and I and nobody can see over them.  But one thing we don’t do well is sell, what I said before, the quality of life.  See, I did many, many years of work in the city, but when I was posted to the country, I’ve never been back and I never will go back.  And I just think that urban people don’t realize that there’s often tremendous advantages, I understand the disadvantages because I’ve lived for so long now in the country, but there are advantages I mean otherwise I would go back, I could in my job.  So maybe we need to sell ourselves a bit more.  Having said that, I do understand there are some real problems like housing in my town is unavailable, so teachers are living in very poor conditions comparatively and paying rent is equivalent to Perth, so one could understand that maybe there are things we need to do there too. 

 

 I said South Australia has 1 and ½ million people in the whole state.  A million of those live in the metropolitan area.  And Perth, western Australia is exactly the same situation, I think they have 1.8 million, but they have a greater land mass.  So we’re in much the same situation and by the way, export the same kind of things so we have a lot in common with Western Australia.  I think one of our problems is that we tend to have this, even within our metropolitan area and south Australia got huge debts and lots of problems , and we tend to talk ourselves down.  But I think country people do it worse.  We dwell on our problems instead of selling ourselves.  It’s one thing I look with some envy at the Victorians, those of you who, Australia, Southern and Western Australia have a different football code called IFL and Victoria started it and we all dislike Victoria because of it, and because they are better than us a football.  But one of the things Victoria does very well is tell the rest of Australia how good it is and I think we tend to do the opposite.  We tend to, country people do it a lot, and even my state does it.  We dwell on our problems instead of convincing the rest of the world how good we are and maybe that’s something we could do as communities is dwell on our assets.  It’s one of the things I will take back from this conference.  I don’t want any of my colleagues to start resting on their laurels, but one of the things that comes home to me is, a badly off as I might think I am, is how very lucky we are in Australia.

 

I don’t know if everybody now has had enough time to say what they want to say, is there any body else who would like to add to our discussion?  Well, when I came here, I didn’t want to make it sound like New Foundland is, you know, in dire straights,  I want to emphasize some of the positive things that were happening, but when you get tens of thousands of people thrown out of industry in a population with little over half a million, then it is a devastation.  There are some positives things that are happening, as I outline, but nevertheless, I don’t know what we can do about it.  I guess we’re all caught in the same dilemma.  Is there anything that you would like to see come out of this session?  I said I would allow about 15 minutes, I’m sure you would like to have a little break before the next session is on.  Anybody got a suggestion as to where we can go with this because we’ve all talked about it we’ve all got concerns and I’m sure if we had some solutions government would be very happy to hear about them.  Ann says keep government informed but do we want to develop a resolution that we take back to our countries, is that a suggestion?  What? What can we take back? 

 

I think with the people that are here, with the few people that are here, we’ve come up with a lot of great ideas and I think if we were going to form a resolution, that would take you days and maybe go over the points that were listed here from the group.

 

Is everybody in agreement with Ann’s suggestion I think it’s a good one.  Okay, return of profit to agriculture, capitalize on other resources,  locate government offices away from large cities, land grant and subcities could be offered that was your suggestion, yep, land grants and sub cities, you give free land and I think that’s a marvelous suggestion, I really do because we have a lot of undeveloped land in New Foundland.  Long term plans for communities, yet communities are not drawing up long term plans.  Most communities operate on a year to year basis, and there’s no long term strategy.  When I look at the communities, now I live in a community so small that we have no form of municipal small government.  But if we as a group sat down and devised a long term plan for our community, I think it would be very, very helpful.  Okay.  Communication, telephone lines upgraded just so that we’re all on the information highway, we should all push forward for, yep, the advancement of, Ann says road kill on the information highway, we need value added to our products and that was something that I discussed in my presentation is that a lot of our products are going out in a raw form.  And so it’s only just the people who are involved in the primary production are reaping any benefits and their not great.  We should reinvest back into community, AG bonds, yes agricultural bonds, computers into small towns, libraries and that’s something that ties in to making sure that we have more information on the network, and access to funding.  There are a lot of programs out there, I mean we’re always finding out about a pot of money somewhere or other.  But these pots of money are sometimes so well hidden that nobody knows about them, so actually they just go back, I suppose, into general revenue and somebody else gets them the next year.  But there are pots of money out there but where do you go to find out where they are, you need I guess a clearing house.  Do we have such a thing Canada Wayne? 

 

One of the things that I hear talking back and forth while politicians and nothing in politicians about being a bureaucrat, is a different thing but, I know one of the things that going to people whether politicians or bureaucrat, bureaucrats with problems, I think the point was made before we’ve heard most of them and I think a lot of government officials whether elected or hired or whatever, have been struggling and trying to figure out ways, often unsuccessfully, once in a while successfully, to try and deal with this.  But there’s one thing that politicians, and this is no slide at all, one of the things politicians are very good at is knowing where the funds are and they love announcing funds because it’s part of the process of being re elected and that’s something I know that all the politicians love this, so this is one way they, your politicians, while they may not have they answers, they’ll certainly if there’s any resource they can get their hands on, they’ll certainly know where it is.  So that’s one good way.  The other way the Internet is being used more and more I find for governments services and access to information, what they are calling Single Windows and that’s it.  And that’s one of the real challenges where I think we’re in sort of a transition period because I do believe in the longer term that the Internet or satellites based will be as absolutely common as phone lines are right now.  Even though that’s still a problem in some countries, I think we understand that.  But the point I thought I would make is also in some communities, and this is more in the services centers, they’ve been putting in Single Windows service centers, for all the government services of various levels, so that’s something we’ve tried in Canada with some minor success. 

 

Well I remember being in politics Wayne, and they would announce this little pot of money and you were so scared that everyone was going to apply for it but you would really tick everybody off.  Because everybody would apply and hardly anybody would get approved so you were caught in the middle there.  But, yet diversify, we should diversify and not put our eggs into one basket as we did with the fishery in New Foundland.  Keep government informed and let government know I guess, that we want to be apart of the decision making, find a local student through the medical school, that’s if you are looking for doctors for your rural communities, and we should promote and taught advantages of rural life.  I mean when you look at what we have in our rural communities, I was thinking to myself last night as I walked back from the restaurant, I don’t think I would want to live in a city.  I took the metro across town, across the city and I’ve also taken the bus and everything and I saw, see all of these people getting on and I’m wondering, how in the world do they operate because most of them probably don’t own cars because they wouldn’t even have a place to park them and how do you get home with your groceries, being a woman I look I guess at it from a practical point, and so how would you get around.  And so we don’t have that problem in rural.  You can drive right up to your door in your car and you can just park it anywhere when you go shopping.  And we have to be proactive rather than reactive and that’s what comes of looking at a long term plan for our communities.  I want to thank you very, very much for participation and even though we were a small group, I really felt that we really did get some discussion going.  I didn’t think that I had all the answers by any means, but I think collectively we can, we can input into the, I think I should say the communities, they’re dying.  I hate to use that, but if we’re going to try to revive them and make them viable, I don’t want to live in a community that’s surviving, I want to live in  a viable community and I’m sure all of you do to.  So thank you again very, very much and go look for another session to attend.