Tuesday, May 17, 2022
No Result
View All Result
  • Media
Support Us
Macdonald-Laurier Institute
  • Home
  • About
    • Who We Are
    • Who Makes MLI Work
    • Tenth Anniversary
    • Jobs
  • Experts
  • Issues
    • Domestic Policy Program
      • Agriculture and Agri-Food
      • Canada’s Political Tradition
      • Economic policy
      • Energy
      • Health Care
      • Justice
      • Social issues
      • Social licence
    • Foreign Policy Program
      • Foreign Affairs
      • National Defence
      • National Security
    • Indigenous Affairs Program
  • Projects
    • COVID and after: A mandate for recovery
    • COVID Misery Index
      • Beyond Lockdown
    • Provincial COVID Misery Index
    • Centre for Advancing Canada’s Interests Abroad
      • Dragon at the Door
      • The Eavesdropping Dragon: Huawei
    • An Intellectual Property Strategy for Canada
    • Speak for Ourselves
    • Canada and the Indo-Pacific Initiative
    • DisInfoWatch.org
    • The Transatlantic Program
    • Indigenous Prosperity at a Crossroads
      • Aboriginal Canada and Natural Resources
    • Talkin’ in the Free World with Mariam Memarsadeghi
    • Past Projects
      • Justice Report Card
      • Munk Senior Fellows
      • A Mandate for Canada
      • Confederation Series
      • Fiscal Reform
      • The Canadian Century project
      • Fixing Canadian health care
      • Internal trade
      • From a mandate for change
      • Size of government in Canada
  • Events
    • Upcoming Events
    • Past Events
      • MLI Dinners
      • Great Canadian Debates
  • Latest News
  • Libraries
    • Inside Policy Magazine
      • Inside Policy Back Issues
      • Inside Policy Blog
    • Papers
    • Columns
    • Books
    • Commentary
    • Straight Talk
    • Video
    • Multimedia
    • Podcasts
    • Leading Economic Indicator
    • Labour Market Report
    • MLI in the Media
  • Home
  • About
    • Who We Are
    • Who Makes MLI Work
    • Tenth Anniversary
    • Jobs
  • Experts
  • Issues
    • Domestic Policy Program
      • Agriculture and Agri-Food
      • Canada’s Political Tradition
      • Economic policy
      • Energy
      • Health Care
      • Justice
      • Social issues
      • Social licence
    • Foreign Policy Program
      • Foreign Affairs
      • National Defence
      • National Security
    • Indigenous Affairs Program
  • Projects
    • COVID and after: A mandate for recovery
    • COVID Misery Index
      • Beyond Lockdown
    • Provincial COVID Misery Index
    • Centre for Advancing Canada’s Interests Abroad
      • Dragon at the Door
      • The Eavesdropping Dragon: Huawei
    • An Intellectual Property Strategy for Canada
    • Speak for Ourselves
    • Canada and the Indo-Pacific Initiative
    • DisInfoWatch.org
    • The Transatlantic Program
    • Indigenous Prosperity at a Crossroads
      • Aboriginal Canada and Natural Resources
    • Talkin’ in the Free World with Mariam Memarsadeghi
    • Past Projects
      • Justice Report Card
      • Munk Senior Fellows
      • A Mandate for Canada
      • Confederation Series
      • Fiscal Reform
      • The Canadian Century project
      • Fixing Canadian health care
      • Internal trade
      • From a mandate for change
      • Size of government in Canada
  • Events
    • Upcoming Events
    • Past Events
      • MLI Dinners
      • Great Canadian Debates
  • Latest News
  • Libraries
    • Inside Policy Magazine
      • Inside Policy Back Issues
      • Inside Policy Blog
    • Papers
    • Columns
    • Books
    • Commentary
    • Straight Talk
    • Video
    • Multimedia
    • Podcasts
    • Leading Economic Indicator
    • Labour Market Report
    • MLI in the Media
No Result
View All Result
Macdonald-Laurier Institute

We need to foster more connections between urban and rural Canada: Philip Cross in the Financial Post

August 25, 2017
in Columns, In the Media, Latest News, Philip Cross
Reading Time: 4 mins read
A A

Philip CrossRecognizing our rural roots and inheritance acknowledges that the conservation of traditions and values plays a crucial role in building acceptance of change by reducing the fear that important elements of what makes a society unique will be lost, writes Philip Cross.

By Philip Cross, Aug. 25, 2017

Like many Canadians, I spent my vacation exploring the countryside. Rural Canada plays a much larger role in our society that is conveyed in our political discourse or by media pundits. Beyond its natural beauty, the countryside houses our cultural inheritance of traditions, experiences and wisdom in a way that our increasingly homogenized and globalized cities no longer can. A good example of the growing divergence between cities and the hinterland was the stark difference between the “Brexit” vote in cosmopolitan London and the rest of England.

The rural hinterland is widely regarded as the repository of any society’s core principles and character. Former President Jacques Chirac called French regions “the guardians of our memory.” When the writers of the West Wing TV series wanted to establish the moral bona fides of the ultra-liberal President Bartlett, they set his roots in rural New Hampshire to emphasize his connection to fundamental American values. To celebrate Canada’s 150thyear, Parks Canada wisely granted free access to our national parks and historical sites so Canadians could reconnect with their roots. This reflects how rural areas are regarded as the “heartland” of any nation.

The conservative historian Donald Creighton wrote that conserving the past is as important as innovating for the future, although the latter dominates government agendas these days. An age of disruptive technological innovations more than ever requires the permanence of values and place that is based in the country. Recognizing our rural roots and inheritance is not “ancestor worship,” but acknowledges that the conservation of traditions and values plays a crucial role in building acceptance of change by reducing the fear that important elements of what makes a society unique will be lost.

Rural areas are regarded as the “heartland” of any nation.

Statistics that say 81 per cent of Canadians are urban imply rural residents are of little importance. However, if people were asked whether they spent time in rural areas, the share would be much higher than the 19 per cent implied by the official stats, another example of how society cannot be understood by numbers alone. Most city-dwellers flee their azoic habitats to spend their vacations and weekends in rural settings, often in cottages and cabins to reconnect with their rural heritage and to revert somewhat to the way of life of previous generations. Here in Ottawa, the local CBC weekend morning radio program is called “In Town and Out” in recognition of the fluidity of the rural/urban distinction at that time of the week. This constant movement of people between town and country is one justification for not requiring rural election ridings to have populations as large as city seats, since the snapshot of geographic location captured by the census numbers ignores the flow of population at regular intervals.

Unfortunately, the bridge between city and country carries some societal problems. Drug problems, once the scourge of inner cities, have migrated to the rural U.S. due to the opioid crisis, while also making inroads into rural western Canada. Economic problems are also spreading out of city centres as gentrification forces lower income people to leave the inner cities, creating what is called “slumburbia.” Soaring house prices in downtown city cores are rapidly aggravating this phenomenon.

Cities are becoming less representative of their country and region.

However, a stark urban/rural divide remains in some areas of economics and politics. The urban trend to sharing assets such as cars, homes and even office space has no counterpart in the country, where exclusive ownership reigns. And the isolation of individuals in cities, aggravated by social media replacing actual human contact, helps breed political divisions while its anonymity fuels the inflammatory rhetoric that harms political debate and consensus-building.

Cities are becoming less representative of their country and region. This is especially true for Toronto and Vancouver, which are increasingly attached to the global economy and distanced from their rural hinterland. They are plugged into global supply chains (including for people, who often move between cities in different countries) that have little connection with nearby regions. As noted by Edward Luce in The Retreat of Western Liberalism, cities increasingly drain labour from surrounding areas while buying less in return. One implication of major cities becoming more standardized is that rural areas increasingly are what make each region distinctive.

Cities were originally built to keep out the surrounding barbarian savages. Today, rather than building walls around cities to insulate them from the outside world, we need to foster their contact with rural areas to preserve our values, traditions and way of life. This may also help preserve the economic advantage of cities. Luce speculates that the increasing isolation of elites in cities threatens their economic dominance. Cities traditionally were more productive because of the constant cross-fertilization of competing ideas they encouraged, but now they are becoming an echo chamber for the politically correct liberal elites that dominate downturn cores.

Philip Cross is a Senior Munk Fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.

Tags: Financial PostPhilip Cross
Previous Post

Government should adopt principle of family-based taxation: Sean Speer for Inside Policy

Next Post

New Conservative leader should be open to new ideas: Stanley Hartt for Inside Policy

Related Posts

A nation of too many laws: William Watson in the Financial Post
In the Media

A nation of too many laws: William Watson in the Financial Post

May 13, 2022
Latvian Prime Minister encourages Canada to lead in Europe’s energy crisis
Latest News

Latvian Prime Minister encourages Canada to lead in Europe’s energy crisis

May 12, 2022
A Conversation with the Prime Minister of Latvia, Krišjānis Kariņš
Foreign Affairs

Video: A Conversation with the Prime Minister of Latvia, Krišjānis Kariņš

May 12, 2022
Next Post
Stanley Hartt

New Conservative leader should be open to new ideas: Stanley Hartt for Inside Policy

Macdonald-Laurier Institute

323 Chapel Street, Suite #300
Ottawa, Ontario
K1N 7Z2 Canada

613.482.8327

info@macdonaldlaurier.ca
MLI directory

Follow us on

Newsletter Signup

First Name
Last Name
Email Address

Support Us

Support the Macdonald-Laurier Institute to help ensure that Canada is one of the best governed countries in the world. Click below to learn more or become a sponsor.

Support Us

Inside Policy Magazine

  • Current Issue
  • Back Issues
  • Advertising
  • Inside Policy Blog
  • Privacy Policy

© 2021 Macdonald-Laurier Institute. All Rights reserved.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • About
    • Who We Are
    • Who Makes MLI Work
    • Tenth Anniversary
    • Jobs
  • Experts
  • Issues
    • Domestic Policy Program
      • Agriculture and Agri-Food
      • Canada’s Political Tradition
      • Economic policy
      • Energy
      • Health Care
      • Justice
      • Social issues
      • Social licence
    • Foreign Policy Program
      • Foreign Affairs
      • National Defence
      • National Security
    • Indigenous Affairs Program
  • Projects
    • COVID and after: A mandate for recovery
    • COVID Misery Index
      • Beyond Lockdown
    • Provincial COVID Misery Index
    • Centre for Advancing Canada’s Interests Abroad
      • Dragon at the Door
      • The Eavesdropping Dragon: Huawei
    • An Intellectual Property Strategy for Canada
    • Speak for Ourselves
    • Canada and the Indo-Pacific Initiative
    • DisInfoWatch.org
    • The Transatlantic Program
    • Indigenous Prosperity at a Crossroads
      • Aboriginal Canada and Natural Resources
    • Talkin’ in the Free World with Mariam Memarsadeghi
    • Past Projects
      • Justice Report Card
      • Munk Senior Fellows
      • A Mandate for Canada
      • Confederation Series
      • Fiscal Reform
      • The Canadian Century project
      • Fixing Canadian health care
      • Internal trade
      • From a mandate for change
      • Size of government in Canada
  • Events
    • Upcoming Events
    • Past Events
      • MLI Dinners
      • Great Canadian Debates
  • Latest News
  • Libraries
    • Inside Policy Magazine
      • Inside Policy Back Issues
      • Inside Policy Blog
    • Papers
    • Columns
    • Books
    • Commentary
    • Straight Talk
    • Video
    • Multimedia
    • Podcasts
    • Leading Economic Indicator
    • Labour Market Report
    • MLI in the Media

© 2021 Macdonald-Laurier Institute. All Rights reserved.

IDEAS CHANGE THE WORLD!Have the latest Canadian thought leadership delivered straight to your inbox.
First Name
Last Name
Email address

No thanks, I’m not interested.