Bridging the gap: A Collaborative Approach to Rural Sustainability

Abstract

In August 2013, the Eastern Ontario Warden’s Caucus (EOWC) produced a series of whitepapers that address municipal affordability in Eastern Ontario and the financial sustainability of local governments. With costs drastically outpacing population growth, rural municipalities have few means to bridge the gap. The white papers report that municipal operating budgets have increased by 65% over a ten year period, while population growth rose 13%. The factors driving costs are the same for each municipality, which supports the need to increase efficiencies through a regional approach on cost sharing. This same approach needs to be considered in economic development as communities continue to compete for investment from the same market place. This paper proposes that regional collaboration will result in economic sustainability. Economic and municipal strategies need to reinforce collaborative strategies through the development of a regional approach that shares costs and secures partnerships to deliver services and contain these costs. Short term actions should include developing an economic development strategy for Eastern Ontario, securing funding for infrastructure maintenance, and forming a task force that will investigate ways to contain infrastructure costs. Keywords: Collaboration, economy, regional, sustainability, growth