There’s less than two weeks left in the federal election campaign, but while the parties have put out various announcements, some industry leaders and experts say rural communities are being left out.
About 20 per cent of Canadians live in rural, remote, Indigenous, coastal or northern communities, according to Rural Economic Development Canada.
These communities are facing many of the same issues as their urban counterparts: health care shortages, crime rates and the impact of tariffs on important sectors.
The way those issues impact rural communities, though, can be very different.
“They’re discussing it as if how it looks and what the solutions would be are going to be the same in all places, which is incorrect,” said Sarah-Patricia Breen, the B.C. innovation chair in rural economic development at Selkirk College.
She said the issue comes with the data used to craft policies, often gathered from urban areas and utilized by policymakers living in urban communities.
“We end up, particularly in a federal election, and oftentimes provincial ones, with these universal issues being discussed in this one-size fits all way and that trend towards these programs being based on data that’s primarily urban by people who are primarily urban,” Breen said.
“We end up with an entire suite of policies and programs that make no sense across rural Canada.”
While by no means an exhaustive list, here are some of the challenges top of mind for rural Canadians and what stakeholders say could help rural communities.
There have been some promises made to help the agriculture sector amid the tariffs from the U.S., but Keith Currie, president of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, said more needs to be done to help the rural communities the sector operates in.
“The opportunities that are being missed is what really concerns us because the agriculture and food sector is the largest manufacturing sector in the country, and so in order to manufacture you have to produce,” he told Global News.
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Currie said if leaders want to commit to rural regions, infrastructure is key.
That includes a focus on updating ports and rail lines to get products where they need to go.
Currie adds investments also need to be made in helping protect rural communities from the impacts of climate change as the rising number of severe weather incidents can hit these regions hard.
Health care is another key concern.
Currie says all federal leaders should be talking about improving access for rural communities to social services such as dental and health care, as well as mental health.
“For those of us who live in rural parts of the country, we just don’t have those social services, doctors that we can get to, the specialists that we can get to,” he said.
“A lot of our farmers and ranchers are driving a couple hours each way to buy parts for equipment or to go do other business. Well, the same is also true when there’s doctors or other medical health specialists.”
He said when a doctor leaves an urban centre, patients may be able to get another on the “other side of town,” but that’s not doable in rural communities.
It’s an issue the Canadian Medical Association says needs to be worked on.
According to a survey of 9,000 people conducted by OurCare in fall 2022, most said they typically waited two or more days for an appointment with a family doctor, with one in 20 waiting a month or more.
Dr. Joss Reimer, president of the Canadian Medical Association, said the need for family doctors is prominent, but suggested federal leaders should focus on training in rural regions to increase the number in rural communities.
“We know that where people do residency often predicts where they’re going to end up practicing medicine,” she said.
“We want to make sure that we have good, strong training environments for rural medicine because it is a unique specialty and a unique experience.”
Reimer added policymakers, whether during or after an election, should look at investments in team-based care to improve access by making nurse practitioners, pharmacists and mental health professionals all available in one place.
“Having that team working together can mean that the patient hasn’t had to wait as long, means that they get care from the best provider for that specific concern,” Reimer said.
“That might mean in a rural community that you don’t see the family doctor every time you need care.”
The most recent data from Statistics Canada on police-reported crime showed the Crime Severity Index, which measures the volume and seriousness, was 33 per cent higher in rural areas than urban.
Both the Liberals and Conservatives have laid out plans on crime, ranging from recruiting more RCMP personnel to creating a new offence for intimate partner violence.
The Canadian Police Association says improving staffing in rural communities is needed.
“We need to have the capacity in those rural remote areas where Canadians live,” said Tom Stamatakis, president of the Canadian Police Association.
“Otherwise they’re not getting the services they need and that can often have a devastating impact on the community when the wrong people get into these communities and there’s no fear of apprehension, there’s no deterrence to discourage people from engaging in inappropriate behaviour or criminal activity and so it creates this enabling environment.”
But he added policymakers are still not tackling the root issues facing rural communities, which he said includes tying in supports like mental health such as having regional centres where people can get treatment and support if facing substance abuse or addiction issues, or serious mental health issues.
“This is what leads to these feelings of insecurity and the feeling that crime is happening in these rural communities and no one’s responding to it because there just isn’t the capacity for it,” Stamatakis said.
“I think governments need to get serious about making sure we have enough police to be able to respond, but also making sure that the response is effective.”
