The two words used most at a regional development meeting in Brandon last week were “innovation” and “challenges.”
The Southwest Regional Development Corporation (SRDC) met in Brandon April 6 for its annual conference.
The organization is still recovering from funding cuts in 2012, when the provincial government cut off funds to seven rural and northern development corporations.
The result, according to SRDC president Jon Lewis, was a restructuring of the organization, pulling back on granting and a refocus on two projects, succession planning awareness and a rural innovation initiative.
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“Innovation was the toughest because we didn’t know where we were actually going to go with it,” Lewis said.
The SRDC has delved into zero-waste management, which it says will lower costs for municipalities that are currently transporting their waste to landfills.
The SRDC, partnering with Celtic Power and Machining, hopes to implement a pilot project on waste gasification, reducing solid waste to synthetic gas using temperatures in excess of 700 C. Gas may then also be run through a turbine to generate electricity.
The SRDC has argued this will significantly decrease waste volumes and the ash, metal and glass resulting in the process may be recycled.
The project went before the Federation of Canadian Municipalities April 6, which will determine whether it received funding to move forward.
Population and opportunity
According to the 2016 census, the population of southwest Manitoba increased from 2011-16, but was eclipsed by Brandon’s 6.1 per cent growth and Neepawa’s 27 per cent increase, although other communities and municipalities showed “moderate changes in population.”
Population in the RM of Two Borders decreased 10.3 per cent, while the RM of Brokenhead increased by 10.5 per cent and other regions, such as the (now amalgamated) RM of Minto-Odanah, Cornwallis, Souris-Glenwood, and North Cypress-Langford ranged between flat and five per cent growth.
Despite overall numbers however, Lewis says the SRDC remains concerned about the bleed of people and businesses toward urban centres and what he says is a persistent attitude building urban centres up as an environment of success at the expense of smaller towns.
“My small community I came back to had everything when I was growing up. Now we’re down to a quarter of the businesses there because everyone (thinks), ‘Oh, it’s better to go elsewhere.’ We didn’t have the foresight to say, how do we keep those businesses here? How do we make them viable?” he said.
The challenges resonate with Lynn Hennigar, a conference speaker who is a member of NOW Lunenburg County, a group promoting development in their region with a population of 48,000 in rural Nova Scotia. Hennigar says population decline, resident apathy and a perceived lack of opportunities are prevalent enemies to her organization’s goals.
Population growth has become the focus of NOW Lunenburg County and the organization hopes to attract 150 new families to the region.
The organization will travel across Canada through July and August this summer to promote the area. Likewise, 42 residents have agreed to be “illuminators,” responsible for connecting newcomers to the community.
“The cross-Canada tour, we started without funding and basically said, ‘We’ll drive the trailer as far as we can drive it based on the support we get, because if we wait until the funding is in place, we are never going to leave,’” Hennigar said.
Perhaps of more interest to the SRDC, given its funding challenges, NOW Lunenburg County does not derive funds from the government, something Hennigar says is largely intentional.
The organization hoped to differentiate itself from the “traditional economic development, provincially funded, group that in our area doesn’t have a huge success rate,” she said.
“They’re not necessarily viewed as innovative. They’re kind of stuck in a very prescribed way of doing things and, much like here, the government has reinvented regional development over and over and over again, so they just get their house in order and start to do something and suddenly the rules all change and whatever they started stops and they have to start again.”
Despite that stance, Hennigar says her group would have appreciated government funds during their first days and would still like to see support for their cross-Canada tour.
The group partnered with the Lunenburg County Community Fund, also a young organization at the time, early in its development. The joint effort provided exposure and direction for the young community fund, Hennigar said, while providing seed money for the development corporation.
The group has also derived funds from private foundations and community donations, but currently holds no legal status, an obstacle for municipal partnerships, which often require a paper trail.
There has been some discussion of becoming a legal entity, Hennigar said, but the group is wary of losing the administration services currently provided for free by the Community Foundation of Nova Scotia.
Lewis said the SRDC also hoped to detach from government funding for its innovation initiative.
“Our problem is that you do that and government regulations and policies could stop you right there, so we thought, OK, we at least need to have support,” he said.
The SRDC has been in contact with the province and gained the support of the Association of Manitoba Municipalities on the project.
