Players and Interests Concerned With Community Development

The Basic Issue

All three levels of government are heavily involved in matters concerning rural life in all parts of Canada. Though Government and its agencies are not the only players in the field, their presence is a very large one.

The BNA Act, now brought home as our Constitution, laid out the various powers and responsibilities of the three levels of Government, with the third, the municipal or regional groupings being left to the development of the provinces as they saw fit. At present a great deal of "rural restructuring is taking place in the municipal/regional levels of all provinces as Provinces attempt to adjust to the huge migration from rural to urban over the past half century. This is a very exciting dynamic, with lots at stake for all parties.

The involvement of Voluntary organizations in various aspects of Community Development is a long-standing tradition in Canada, but these organizations also are undergoing restructuring as numbers of volunteers dwindle and constituencies expand.

The effects of NAFTA and other trade agreements have yet to be completely felt. One possibility in the area of community development work is that organizations from the USA will dominate all profit and non-profit organizations over the next decade or so, taking up involvements formerly handled by governments (education prisons, social services, health care)as profit seeking ventures.

Community development itself is a dynamic and ever-changing activity, but the context within which it operates is also in flux.

Off-Line Resources

• Borden, Lynne M. "Community Linkages: Addressing Social Issues from a Community Perspective: Journal of the Community Development Society Vol. 30, No.1, 1999. (p.48-65) Reprinted in Ferrazzi, Gabe. Course Reader, Rural Community Development, Brandon University, 2001.
  This study is a community based (social work flavored) version of the Keen chapter on "An Interdisciplinary Lexicon", dealing with border crossing at a community level in order to solve major community issues (family violence in this case). It used focus groups and key informant interviews to look at three collaborative efforts to see what components made for growth in the collaborative process. It found four necessary components:
  • Clearly stated goals
  • clearly identified membership
  • Good internal communication
  • good external communication

• Ferrazzi, Gabe. "Federal Organizations Dealing With Rural Issues" . Rural Community Development Introductory Modules,(WebCT class notes). Brandon University, Fall, 2001.Module # 3-c .
  An excellent overview of current Federal initiatives that touch on rural and agricultural policy development and program initiatives. A statement of the priorities of the Federal Rural secretariat is most informative.

  At the Provincial level, the paper outlines some of the diversity in programming and policy both in Manitoba and in the other Canadian provinces. It outlines the variety of admixtures of rural, urban and industrial departments as the various Provincial governments face the blending of these boundaries.

  At the municipal level the paper outlines the provincial sourcing of both money and authority, the associations of municipalities and their work, and the problems which various provinces have attempted to address in structuring municipal and regional groupings in order to best serve local needs.

  On-Line Resources