On March 24, Humboldt became part of a unique western Canada brainstorm in which a team of researchers have been traveling town to town to find out what community needs aren’t being met, what solutions are there, and if a co-operative could fix it.
“There are a couple of unique things about this particular project,” said Murray Fulton, director and fellow in Agricultural Co-operation at the University of Saskatchewan (U of S) and one of two researchers at Tuesday’s community meeting. “There have been different (studies like this) in different provinces, but this is the first to look at western Canada as a complete package and the first to think about aboriginal communities alongside non-aboriginal communities.”
The meeting began by splitting everyone up into two groups, each of which was led by a different researcher. They first asked participants what geographic area they’d consider their community based on any factors such as work, family, community involvement, etc. They then asked people to brainstorm what they thought was missing from their community. During a small break, the two researchers put together the results and compiled a list of the things that were common between the two groups.
“We had two different groups and two different facilitators and we looked at how often the same issues came up. It was a good signal that there was a fairly common view in the community,” said Fulton. “It would have been worrisome if vastly different issues came up.”
The facilitators then took the selected issues back to each of their groups and had a conversation about whether those issues were going to be met in the future by traditional organizations, someone starting a business or local government.
The gaps that are left gave the researchers the answers they were looking for.
“Humboldt had a different set of needs than some of the smaller places we’ve visited,” said Fulton.
“One of the comments I made to the group that seemed to resonate was that it was clear that there are a lot of services that are being provided, but people were wondering if there was a way to coordinate those services in a better way.
“It’s a theme you start to see in larger communities. It’s easier in smaller communities because everyone knows everyone. In larger communities, it’s more important because people have to travel longer distances and the services are quite distinct, but sometimes people aren’t communicating in a way to make it easier for the people using those services.”
Some issues that Fulton said they’ve been seeing “right across the board” are affordable housing and addressing needs for both seniors and young families.
Young families are looking for more resources around things such as daycare to help balance family and work. There has also been frequent mention of improving access to health care and public transportation.
“People have a good idea of the issues that they’ve put together. Some will be addressed and some won’t be and some won’t be even in the longer term,” said Fulton. “Then there are ones you need to think about differently. Co-ops have come in and addressed the needs that people have. It’s not what people first and foremost think about.”
According to Darcy Overland, a research manager for the Cooperative Innovation Project at U of S, a co-operative is a type of business model. It’s democratic in nature, which means it’s controlled and operated by its members. A good example of this would be the Co-op food store.
“There is a set of co-operative business principles which basically reinforce the idea that co-ops run on the idea of one member one vote, everyone can join, and if/when there are profits they are shared back to the members on a dividends basis (usually based on use rather than capital invested),” said Overland in an email response. “Co-operatives tend to be more sustainable than other business models and are based in the communities in which they are located.”
Fulton said he and his team have already visited about half of the communities on their agenda so far and the rest will be completed by April, May and June.
Aside from just talking with people in the communities, he said they also collect data on the community from websites such as Statistics Canada.
These visits gather information from a random selection of people across the province. By the end of it, Fulton and his team will have to compile it all, analyze it, and pull out their observations.
“There’s lots of data and stories coming out of these community visits that we now have to put into a form that we can make sense of and see what patterns emerge,” he said. “We’re already starting to see some. We still have to test them out and probe them a bit to make sure they really exist and aren’t just things that exist in our minds as we look at the data.”
Fulton said that while they’re not yet at the stage where they can make recommendations or draw any conclusions, they can see some interest in the co-op model in some areas. In other areas, not so much, so they want to figure out why. Some seem ready to embrace change while others are reluctant because “that’s not the way things are done.”
“In some communities, we have to work extra hard to establish some kind of trust with the leadership. That’s where the hard work comes in,” said Fulton.
“The work itself is the fun part. We get to come in and talk to people … It restores your faith in people and in communities when we see people taking what’s going on in their communities very seriously and actively thinking what they can do to improve their community. It’s heartening to see people out there trying to make a difference. In the end, that’s what’s really important.”
