Featured Report
BCRC Submission to the BC Provincial Government’s Interior Forestry Revitalization Engagement Process
The most recent downturn in the forest sector is creating significant challenges once again for many rural communities and families. Unfortunately, these most recent layoffs and closures add to an over twenty-five year trend of decline in employment in the provincial forest sector. Technological change, corporate consolidation, and the advent of the so-called “super-mill” has…
Read MoreTla’amin Nation & Powell River: Government to Government Collaboration on BC’s Sunshine Coast
The coastal town of Powell River shares several similarities with other rural communities in BC. Powell River was established and grew next to a historical First Nations community – in this case on the traditional territory of the Tla’amin Nation. Its economic growth and expansion was primarily due to a…
Read MoreRural Hospice and Palliative Care Models and Innovations
This report features three rural hospice and palliative care model programs and successful rural projects in the U.S. that can serve as a source of ideas, and provide lessons others have learned for practitioners and rural community-based organizations in British Columbia, and elsewhere in rural Canada. Project ENABLE (Educate, Nurture, Advise, Before Life Ends)…
Read MoreTechnology Boosts Rural Life
Is it true that technology boosts rural life? Conventional wisdom has it that the rural economy is in decline due to seismic shifts in the modern economy. Traditional rural industries are shrinking, or are moving abroad. Mainstay activities like farming need fewer people as they become more efficient. There is poor broadband and mobile…
Read MoreLooking Back On 2018
Looking back on 2018, we’re proud to have greatly expanded the extent and breadth of our online — and live — efforts to help inform and inspire rural British Columbians and First Nations. We look forward to building on this solid base as we move into 2019 and beyond. From all of us here at…
Read MoreYouth Attraction: Rural Challenges, Successes
Introduction We have become a culture of nomads. “Where do you come from?” is a question we now routinely ask one another because we rarely expect the answer to be “here.” Discovering where someone comes from tells us about who they are and what their story is — but we never ask, “When…
Read MoreCommunity Land Trusts, Land Leases & Shared Equity Affordable Home Ownership — a New Report
This report on Community Land Trusts, land leases & shared equity approaches to creating affordable rural housing was written by Gordon Borgstrom, Executive Director of the BC Rural Centre. The report is based on research completed by Borgstrom, as well as consultants retained by the BC Rural Centre to work on the project. This report…
Read MoreRural Innovation — Communities As Engines Of Change
by Rupert Downing, June 1, 2018 This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Highland and Islands Enterprise (HIE) in Scotland, one of the most impactful examples of community partnerships for change in rural areas anywhere. It was fitting that the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) chose to hold its 8th international conference on rural development, Enhancing Rural Innovation,…
Read MoreABCD Toolkit
In this toolkit by DePaul University’s ABCD Institute, Dan Duncan sets out the concept of asset-based community development, or “ABCD.” Duncan argues that, to improve individual and family well-being, communities, neighbourhoods and their residents need to be involved as co-producers of their own and their communities’ well-being. Everyone has something to contribute, Duncan asserts, and…
Read MoreRural Schools — Successes & Challenges
Rural schools — it’s difficult to imagine a thriving rural community without one. Yet across the rural landscape, declining populations led by an outflow of young people to the cities threaten the existence of many small schools, and with them the towns and villages they are based in. Is this steady loss of rural schools…
Read More