Rural and Aboriginal Communities in Western Canada Murray Fulton, - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Rural and Aboriginal Communities in Western Canada

 Murray Fulton, Dionne Pohler, Darcy Overland, Wu HaoTao, Merle

Massie, Bev Fairful Centre for the Study of Co-operatives, University of Saskatchewan

 November 30, 2015

Co-operative Innovation Project

Project Background

In November 2013, Federated Co-operatives Limited entered into a partnership with the Centre for the Study of Co-operatives to examine:

 Is the co-operative model relevant to meet needs in rural and

Aboriginal communities in Western Canada?

 If so, what is needed to effectively develop new co-operatives and

sustain the existing ones?

 Research partners

 Centre for the Study of Co-operatives (U of S)  Johnson-Shoyama Graduate School of Public Policy (U of S)  Edwards School of Business (U of S)  Institute for Northern Governance & Development (U of S)  Plunkett Foundation (UK)

The Research Team

 Project Management Group

 Dawn Brinkmeier, Ken Coates, Peter Couchman, Murray Fulton,

Dionne Pohler

 Researchers

 Bev Fairful,Wu Haotao, Rhiannon Klein, Dazawray Landrie-Parker,

Merle Massie, Nicole McLaren, Darcy Overland

 Research Assistants

 Miranda Gouchie, Paula Mowat, Kyle White

Findings

 The co-op model remains feasible in rural and Aboriginal

communities as a locally-driven solution to address unmet needs.

 People will explore and create innovative and thriving co-

• ps if they are inspired to do so, and supported through

politically-aware relationship-building and connections throughout the process.

 What is needed is a dual approach: vigorous co-op

development activity at the community level; and focused effort at the pan-provincial level to leverage economies of scale and connect the western Canadian co-operative community.

Background

 Rural and Aboriginal communities in western Canada have

been under increasing social and economic pressure due to changing demographic patterns, market forces, urbanization, and government priorities & programs.

 Communities, and individuals within communities, need to

take advantage of innovative ideas and practices if they are to maintain and improve their quality of life.

 Communities have different strengths to leverage and

challenges to overcome – solutions must be community focused and locally driven. There is no silver bullet.

What is Needed?

 Social Innovation – Ideas to address complex social problems

in new ways.

 Social Enterprise – Social innovation that involve businesses

blending profit earning with the achievement of social

• utcomes.

 Co-operatives

 A critical element in social innovation and social enterprise  Owned and democratically controlled by the people that use or

benefit from the service that the enterprise provides

 Are often able to meet the needs that arise because of market or

government provision failure

Research Design

 Definition of rural communities

 Use Statistics Canada definitions – Census Subdivision (CSD) as

• community. Eliminated any CSDs in Census Metropolitan

Amalgamations (CMAs), Census Agglomerations (CAs), strong Metropolitan Influenced Zones (MIZ)

Province Total CSDs With Population > 0 CMA/CA CSDs Strong MIZ CSDs Rural CSD (Study Population) Manitoba 279 19 17 243 Saskatchewan 903 64 62 777 Alberta 421 81 52 288 British Columbia 656 199 34 423 Total 2259 363 165 1731

Research Design

• Definition of Aboriginal communities – use Statistics Canada

definitions for CSDs.

• Multiple CSDs were associated with the same community
• name. For some analysis these CSDs were combined.

Prov. Aborig. CSDs

• Aborig. CSDs

Associated With Community of Same Name Total CSDs (Study Population) Modified Population After Combining Aboriginal CSDs MB 72 8 243 235 SK 112 40 777 737 AB 59 20 288 268 BC 244 83 423 340 Total 487 151 1731 1580

Data Collection

 Literature review  Statistical data collection  26 community visits to 13 Aboriginal and 50 rural communities  Phone survey of 2,025 rural and Aboriginal residents  Web survey of 359 community administrators  Reached 37% of rural and Aboriginal communities in W

. Canada

 Analysis of provincial co-operative association websites  Interviews with co-op developers across western Canada

Community Visits (26)

Communities Reached

Research Challenges

 Data was often difficult to access, unavailable, or not in a

format useful to the project.

 Timelines – 18 months of data collection and analysis – lots

more to do.

 Data collection and reporting mechanisms to serve co-op

development and the co-op sector in general are lacking. Data on new start-ups are costly to obtain, and data on overall co-op activity are extremely dated. The up-to-the-minute data required for development and policy work do not exist.

Overall Community Information

 Information is at a western Canada level by community type.  Based on 2006 Census and 2011 Census and National

Household Survey.

 The same information is available at a provincial and

community level, where not suppressed by Statistics Canada.

Key Lessons: Comparison of Provinces

 BC has older mean age; SK and MB have highest dependency

ratio.

 MB and SK have highest international immigration in last 5 yrs.  MB and SK have highest % Aboriginal population.  MB and SK have lowest median income.  SK has fastest income growth.  MB and SK have smallest income % in Wages & Salaries;

Highest % in Self-Employment.

Key Lessons: Rural versus Aboriginal

 Aboriginal population younger; most of population is 3rd

generation or more.

 Rural population has higher post-secondary education, and

greater % in business, life sciences, math/engineering.

 Very different pattern of home ownership.  Aboriginal population has a lower median income, but

similar % of income from wages and salaries.

 Rural population has higher participation rate, lower

unemployment, higher rate of self-employment, and smaller % in education, law and social services.

Community Visits (26)

Cluster Pop Age Migration Education Income Major Occupation 2nd Impt Source

• f

Income Main Business 1 Stable

• Older

Low Higher Higher Sales Trades Pensions Construction Agriculture 2 Growing Younger Low Higher Higher Sales Invest Agriculture 3 Growing Average to Younger High Higher Average Trades Sales Invest Pensions Agriculture Construction Real Estate 4 Stable Younger Average to High Average Higher Sales Trades Mgmt.

• Child

Agriculture 5 Growing Younger Very low Lower Lower Sales Educ/Law/SS Trades Child Retail

• Agriculture

6 Stable to Falling Average to Older High/Low Average- lower Higher/Lower Trades Management Pensions Agriculture

• 7

Falling Average High/Low Lower Lower Trades Sales Ed/Law/SS CPP Child

• Construction
• Agriculture

Clusters: #1 – Lac Du Bonnet MB, Dauphin MB; #2 – Humboldt SK; #3 – Laird SK, 40 Mile AB, Mountain View AB, Kootenay BC, Smokey Lake AB ; #4 – Ponoka AB, St. Paul AB, MacKenzie AB; #5 – Div. #18 SK, Div. #/22/23 MB, St. Louis SK; #6 – Arborfield SK, Skeena BC; #7 – Central Kootenay BC, Kitimat BC.

• Community Cluster Characteristics

Questions?