Statement made on 13 February 2007 by Senator Joyce Fairbairn
Hon. Joyce Fairbairn:
It is my pleasure, honourable senators, to tell you a little bit about the work the Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry is doing. As senators know, our committee is in the midst of a wide-ranging study on rural poverty. This is the first time we are aware of that this focus has been placed in either parliamentary chamber. On the basis of the broad testimony we heard last fall, we wrote our interim report, which was tabled in the Senate chamber on December 13, 2006, and which, by all accounts, has really struck a nerve across the country. Canadians are taking note, and they have let us know that. I think every member of the committee, even though the report was released just before Christmas, was overwhelmed by phone calls from media and others to ask more about what we were doing.
Honourable senators, something is happening in rural Canada, and it is time that we paid attention to it. Indeed, for too long, the plights of rural Canada and the rural poor, in particular, have been largely ignored. Not any more, honourable senators. We are not ignoring this issue here in the Senate. Indeed, we are continuing our hearings here in Ottawa. In the coming months, we will be travelling to every province in the land and visiting rural Canadians in their communities, in their workplaces and even in their homes. It is our hope to visit the northern territories as well before a final report is produced. Our travels begin next Monday, in Corner Brook, Newfoundland and Labrador, following which we will travel to Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and then out to Prince George, in British Columbia, and then across the Prairies. We look forward to reporting back to honourable senators on those findings as well. Periodically, we will be back here in Ottawa, to have hearings in both Quebec and Ontario, which are close by.
For the moment, I should like to focus on some of the major themes from our interim report. The first thing to say about the rural poor is that, in some ways, they are invisible. They are invisible because they do not beg for change. They do not congregate in downtown cores. They rarely line up in homeless shelters because, with few exceptions, there are no homeless shelters. They are invisible. As some of our witnesses told us last week, they only visit their food banks in the evening after dark when they cannot be easily identified. They rarely complain about their plight because that is just not the way things are done in rural Canada. In fact, the incidence of poverty is higher in rural Canada than in urban Canada, and most of the new food banks, we are told, are now opening in the rural part of this country and not the big cities.
Even these statistics, though, do not quite capture the full breadth of the problem. Statistics rarely do. Rural families in difficulties often end up in our cities, forced out of their communities by a lack of economic choice, and sudden find themselves devoid of the familial and social supports that are such an important part of our daily life. At least some portion of urban poverty is, in a sense, rural poverty.
This out-migration points to a large systematic problem, which is that rural Canada is losing its people. Statistics Canada tells us that rural Canada's population fell for the first time ever between 1996 and 2001. Rural Canadians, and especially young people, are leaving for the cities in search of economics, educational opportunities and a decent standard of living.
Who can blame them when the farm sector is beset by one crippling challenge after another, whether it is bovine spongiform encephalopathy, BSE, drought, a strong Canadian dollar or trade action? Who can blame them when the forestry sector is shedding jobs at an unprecedented rate, threatening the existence of the more than 300 rural communities that depend on forest-sector jobs? Who can blame rural Canadians and rural youth, in particular, when everywhere they turn, the media, and largely the urban media, are full of stories about the excitement of the cities that do not focus on the importance, productivity and history of the land, the people, and the communities that live on it?
Only last week the Conference Board of Canada came out with yet another study saying that Canada needs to think of itself as an urban country first and foremost. It argued that strong growth in the hub cities of Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Halifax, Winnipeg, Regina, Saskatoon, Calgary and Edmonton is all it takes to lift up all parts of our country.
That scenario might be fine in some parts of the country but where does it leave Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick or even Nova Scotia: provinces without the kind of hub cities in the urban part of this country? Where does that leave a place, for instance, such as Kapuskasing, Ontario, which is 850 kilometres from Toronto, or Keg River, Alberta, which is approximately 700 kilometres from Edmonton?
Honourable senators, the situation in rural Canada in many ways is challenging, but I would be remiss if I did not tell you today that it is not only an image of gloom and doom. Despite serious challenges there is every reason to be hopeful about rural Canada's future.
To begin with, rural Canada is becoming an increasingly desirable place for manufacturers who are drawn into its low real estate prices and skilled labour. Everyone knows, for example, that farm families are some of the best workers anywhere in this country. Despite all the youth out-migration, rural Canada is benefiting from a wave of in-migration comprised mostly of young families and baby boomers nearing retirement who want to leave the city pressures behind.
Finally, rural Canadians themselves have demonstrated time and again their resilience and progressive attitude. These citizens have deep reservoirs of talent, skill and work ethics, and are waiting for an opportunity to show the world what they can do. Our travels will reflect this sense of optimism. While we will visit places and meet people who are struggling, the committee also believes it is important to visit places and talk to people who have managed, perhaps with a bit of help, to turn their situation around, and their own experience and skill has led them through it.
Most of the policy proposals that are dismissed in our interim report, which is called Understanding Freefall: The Challenge of the Rural Poor, are the top-down style of helping rural Canada. That approach is no longer appropriate, if it ever was. Instead, governments must help our rural citizens to capitalize on their strengths and assets, which we have identified.
A cynic may well say, and they have, why bother? Why should we not leave them to work through their own challenges? In the words of one of our witnesses, we care because this issue is ultimately a matter of citizenship. We also care because our urban society needs rural Canada, not only for its farm products, minerals, water, trees and natural beauty, but also for its people, culture, and promise.
I want to thank all the members of the committee. I want to thank, in particular, Senator Segal for raising this issue shortly after he entered this chamber as a senator. It is a great committee, honourable senators. Every member needs to be thanked for the effort that they continue to make on this study, and we look forward to reporting our recommendations.
Finally, I give a special thanks to my co-chair, Senator Gustafson. We have been hanging around the Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry for more years than we want to admit. He has been an absolute welcoming angel because he is a farmer. He is a real farmer, he cares what this industry is all about, and he has great knowledge and concern about where it is going.
Altogether, with that kind of prodding from our colleague, we are trying to accomplish this goal with what is one of the most important studies that we have had in the Senate for a long time.