In the wake of a government discussion paper bemoaning the trend of
young people leaving rural Canada for the bright lights of bigger
communities, Martha Robbins has some blunt words for the hand wringers.
“A lot of people pay a lot of lip service to wanting youth to stay in
rural areas,” said the youth president of the National Farmers Union,
raised in Laura, Sask., and now living in Saskatoon.
“When it comes down to specifics, things that would help make it
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happen, we don’t see a lot.”
A discussion paper issued by the federal rural secretariat, researched
and written by consultants R.A. Malatest & Associates, suggested that
more than half of rural young people plan to leave.
“The research suggests that there is a definite need for a rural youth
strategy as labour market data indicated that rural youth have been
migrating in relatively large numbers to urban centres,” said the
discussion paper. “Out-migration from rural areas will likely continue,
if not accelerate, in the near future.”
The reasons, according to the research, are both simple and complex:
attitude, opportunity and community power.
The attitude comes from young people who consider rural communities the
place where losers stay.
“While large urban centres were viewed as being less safe, many youth
equated relocation to a larger centre as a sign of success,” said the
study.
Urban opportunities came in the form of better education, job
prospects, social life and mobility.
The power issue was a feeling by many of the rural young people
surveyed that community elders are not really ready to give up local
power, no matter what they say about wanting fresh blood.
“A significant proportion of rural youth feel that they are not
considered to be active participants in their community,” said the
study. “In some instances, youth felt that they were a marginalized
group within the community and had no influence or status in the
community.”
Robbins, 22, the daughter of farm activists, agreed that is part of the
problem.: “It is back to the lip service,” she said in an interview.
“Lots of older people say they want youth to stay but when it comes to
who runs things, they’re not really ready to involve youth a lot.”
The discussion paper suggested options for enticing young people to
stay in rural areas could include tax incentives for companies agreeing
to locate in small towns, grants or interest-free loans for students
learning skills that can be used in rural communities and better rural
high-speed internet service to make long-distance learning and
telemedicine more practical.
Robbins said governments must do a better job of connecting policies
with the objective of making rural areas attractive for young people.
She cited agricultural policy as a prime example.
Governments have reduced farm support, cut rural services and presided
over the contraction of rural rail service and infrastructure. All of
these developments lead to the demise of small towns.
“Governments say they want to encourage a new generation in rural
Canada, but then they should look again at what kind of agriculture
they are creating,” she said. “If the blueprint is for bigger and fewer
farms and less emphasis on the family farm, then that is not a way to
create a place for a new generation.”
