Rural Ontario should be revitalized, not cast aside

An explanation for the way the provincial government has stomped all over rural Ontario in the past 13 years is not hard to find.

We all know about the stomping, of course. Local planning was suspended to allow for wind factories that have torn communities and families apart; and rural schools are being closed at an alarming rate in deference to some bureaucratic standard for ideal student populations.

Mark my words, our smaller hospitals will be next.

It all fits a strategy that is proceeding according to a plan based on a study completed 13 years ago.

The study on what to do with those pesky rural regions was commissioned by the Mike Harris Conservatives.

By the time it was delivered, Liberal Dalton McGuinty was warming the chair in the premier’s office. (Not using it to do much of benefit, but warming it just the same.) All McGuinty seemed to know about rural Ontario was what he saw out the window of his speeding limo.

It must have passed a few estates surrounded by miles of white board fences that drew him to conclude the harness race industry was all about people with money.

He didn’t think of the fact it also involved lots of small guys with one or two horses, and thousands of employees from stall muckers to harness makers.

The industry is only now recovering from McGuinty’s meddling.

Getting back to the report, it spewed mostly nonsense.

But government actions since then would indicate that it led to an overarching strategy for dealing with regions outside the Big Smoke.

The report was called Investing in People and focused on governance, health care, education and other such issues.

As I’ve said before in this space, the section on rural communities contained more bull feathers than you’ll find in an average sales barn.

Academics who wouldn’t know a Hereford from a heifer, to quote John Tory, but with lots of book learnin’ about urban areas had the most input into the report.

These citiots see all kinds of risk in rural communities that are “characterized by their small size, older demographic structure, population decline, geographic isolation, etc.” The report contains a bunch of recommendations, some of which would require a Philadelphia lawyer to interpret.

Added together, one writer at the time concluded, they suggest “unsustainable rural areas in Canada’s heartland be taken off life support and allowed to die a natural death.”

The results of this nonsense can be seen throughout the province. Population has been steered to that soul sucking place known as Toronto, to the point it has become so congested that it is barely fit for human habitation.

If this province needs anything, it is a strategy to revitalize rural Ontario and attract people out to the boonies to ease the burden on cities.

Any such plan would have to begin with the government treating rural areas as more than just playgrounds and energy and food sources.

Retired MPP Bill Murdoch had it right when he said Toronto should go it alone and the rest of Ontario become a new province.