EDMONTON – A rural expert says the burning world issue of the next 25 years won’t be water or immigration, which is what the United Nations is predicting. It will be energy.
Mike Stolte, president of the Canadian Rural Revitalization Foundation, told a workshop during the Rural Matters conference that rural communities have traditionally been a safety valve for cities when they run short of affordable housing, but that may not be the case in the future.
One delegate at the workshop agreed, saying the cost of commuting will have an impact, especially because there are few rural transport options.
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Another added that outside of a reasonable commuting range, houses may become worthless.
Stolte agreed there will be issues around energy, but he said Canadians don’t appear to be as uptight about the price of gasoline as Americans.
A survey reported in the Globe and Mail newspaper two months ago found 80 percent of Americans said they had been affected by $3 per gallon gas. Today the price in the United States is $4 a gallon while Canada is at $6.75 a U.S. gallon.
Stolte said energy isn’t the only problem.
A report from earlier this decade listed demographic change, governance structures and gaps between the rich and poor as challenges facing rural Canada in the next 25 years.
The need for succession planning is another concern.
Stolte said just as farmers and their children need to plan how to turn over the farm, rural municipalities need a better way to ensure leadership doesn’t go stale. Too many people are acclaimed in municipal elections.
He said other ideas include basing plans on watersheds rather than artificial administrative borders and setting up one-stop hubs where people can access services from all levels of government.
“The reality is we’re going to have to be really innovative, really fast, and what we did in the past won’t work anymore,” Stolte said.
For more information, visit www.crrf.ca.
