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Navigating Change: Rural Realities and Resilience in New Brunswick  

Corrine Cash, Lisa Hrabluk, Robert MacKinnon  

Introduction  

As with most of Canada, New Brunswick’s rural communities are in the midst of a significant, multilayered transition that brings with it a mixture of challenges and opportunities. Despite its small size, or perhaps because of it, New Brunswick’s rural communities are home to every significant resource industry: fisheries, forestry, farming, and mining. This chapter begins with a brief overview of trends affecting rural New Brunswick before focusing on specific realities affecting rural New Brunswicker’s quality of life and capacity to absorb change. These include municipal amalgamations and reforms, economic disruptions and climate change’s impact on rural people’s lives. The Rural Upper Fundy Partnership offers a story of success and rural innovation that is seen through the Rural Upper Fundy Partnership, and the chapter concludes with a brief prediction for the future of rural New Brunswick.  

Brief overview of rural New Brunswick  

Over the last four decades, Canada has become increasingly urban, with approximately 82 % of its 38.2 million people living in cities. However, nearly half (48%) of New Brunswick’s 800,000 residents were classified as “rural” in 2022, making the province unique among Canada’s 10 provinces and three territories.i Only Nunavut and Prince Edward Island recorded similar percentages of rural residents.  

New Brunswick’s largest cities – Moncton, Saint John, and Fredericton – are relatively small urban populations of 145,000, 126,000, and 102,000, respectively, without significant urban fringes. The province’s secondary urban centres – Miramichi, Edmundston, and Bathurst – recorded fewer than 30,000 inhabitants each. More ubiquitous across New Brunswick are small towns and villages. Of the 31 population centres in New Brunswick documented in the 2021 census, the majority (20) recorded between 1,000 and 5,000 residents. Such a limited urban network has sometimes been perceived as a barrier to economic development in New Brunswick. Unlike its nearest provincial neighbours, there is no single metropolis dominating the provincial economy. Yet, despite its small size and population, the province remains economically resilient and is predicting a positive labour market outlook for the next several years.ii 

As of December 31, 2023, there were approximately 17,270 First Nations people in New Brunswick – 10,014 living on reserve and 7,256 living off reserve.iii Although this represents a relatively small percentage of New Brunswick’s total population, the concentration of First Nations in several rural areas has created an important network for knowledge sharing, cultural heritage preservation, environmental preservation, and rural economic development.  

Farming, fishing, aquaculture, forestry, mining, tourism, and service sector employment, as well as working away (remote employment), are characteristic features of many rural communities.iv  Many New Brunswickers work in the oil industry in western Canada and travel back and forth to their home in rural New Brunswick. Although it is difficult to generalize, rural New Brunswickers frequently experience longer commutes to work, more limited access to healthcare, and less reliable internet access than their urban provincial counterparts. They also generally earn less and spend more on transportation than their urban counterparts. For example, the province’s tertiary care hospitals are in Moncton, Saint John, and Fredericton and public transit does not exist in most rural communities. Indeed, many rural residents have turned to a commercial satellite service because high-speed internet service is either unstable or not available.v 

A 2019 study concluded the province’s news media regularly depicts rural New Brunswick as having a “deepening dependence” upon extractive industries, which follows the traditional ‘boom or bust’ economic cycles typical of commodity-based regional economies, unlike urban areas, which have more diversified economies, with growth in health care, information technology, cybersecurity and energy. This leaves rural economies more precarious and could lead to declines in New Brunswick’s rural population base as these natural resource-dependent industries are expected to shrink.vi Another provides empirical evidence that those areas of the province without a significant urban centre experienced employment decreases between 2017 and 2021 while regions with a major urban centre experienced increases.5 Jobs in the Edmundston-Woodstock rural region, for example, dropped 6 % and in Campbellton-Miramichi, by 5 %, in this period. In comparison, the more urban Fredericton- Oromocto and Moncton-Richibucto areas recorded increases of 7 and 6 %, respectively. Hourly wages were generally lower in rural New Brunswick and the number of employment insurance recipients was proportionately higher compared to the province’s urban areas between 2021 and 2022.  

Overall, between 2016 and 2021 New Brunswick recorded net positive interprovincial migration rates that were three times the rates of 2011-2016 and 2006-2011.vii While some interprovincial migrants are relocating to rural communities where housing is more affordable, overall, the rural labour force has declined, partially fueled by young people seeking employment, either in the province’s urban areas or elsewhere in Canada, and immigrants are increasingly choosing urban areas over rural areas.5,viii   

Specific rural realities in New Brunswick  

Municipal amalgamation and local politics  

In 2023 the Government of New Brunswick undertook the first significant regional governance reforms in over 60 years. After a short public consultation period, the Department of Local Government announced the number of local government entities would decrease from 340 to 77 municipalities and 12 unincorporated rural districts. These reforms transferred 161,000 residents – 22 % of the population – from previously unincorporated areas into locally-elected municipalities.  

The reforms also expanded the role of New Brunswick’s 12 regional service commissions (RSCs), which had been created at the turn of this century to coordinate regional services, such as land use planning and waste management. The RSCs’ responsibilities now also include economic development, tourism promotion, regional transportation, policing and fire services, and regional recreational facilities. In addition, the three urban commissions, which serve the greater Moncton, Saint John, and Fredericton areas, are also responsible for regional approaches towards homelessness, mental health, and poverty reduction.  

The RSC funding model changed too, with costs shared between the provincial government and the 77 municipalities. While New Brunswick’s three urban regions absorbed these changes with little resistance, the same could not be said for some of the new rural municipalities. Organized resistance by way of the ballot box, saw candidates elected to the new municipal councils on a promise to resist and possibly undo the amalgamations. For example, in the new municipality of Lakeland Ridges, a community of 2,600 people that includes the former villages of Meductic and Canterbury, and a large swath of formerly unincorporated rural areas, the council was so divided that the province was forced to appoint a supervisor to attempt to bridge divides after the five- person council was unable to agree on the agenda for a June council meeting. In January 2024, Mayor Tanya Cloutier quit, citing chronic infighting and division as her reasons for leaving.ix  

In other communities, such as Fundy-Albert, home to the region’s famed ‘Flowerpot Rocks,’ and Carleton North, the world headquarters of McCain Foods and billed as the birthplace of the French fry, chief administrative officers hired by these new municipalities resigned, because of council dysfunction. In March 2024, the Government of New Brunswick created the Local Governance Commission “to review, assess, rule and make recommendations on matters affecting the administration and governance,” a mediator for the fallout from rural reform.x (para. 4)  

Natural threats to New Brunswick and impact on rural people  

Climate change also presents significant challenges for rural New Brunswick, which, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), will experience rising average temperatures, heightened precipitation variability, and increased storm severity. New Brunswick will likely be influenced by temperature increases of between 2 and 4 ° C in summer and 1 and 6 ° C in winter by the year 2050.xi This may cause more extreme and intense weather events such as ice and snowstorms, hurricanes, rising sea levels, heat waves, and increasing vector-borne diseases carried by pests (such as ticks and mosquitoes). Health impacts due to extreme events could include respiratory and cardiovascular illnesses, physical injuries, heart attacks and strokes.xii Furthermore, severe storm events will present considerable economic burdens for rural residents and governments. In September 2022, Hurricane Fiona inflicted significant damage along the northeastern coast of New Brunswick, causing over $30 million in insured damages.xiii However, many residents did not have full insurance to cover losses. The physical and financial demands caused by extreme weather events like snowstorms, ice storms, flooding, and hurricanes make it especially difficult for the many elderly residents in New Brunswick, especially those with health limitations.  

Storm surges, for instance, are expected to continue to occur more frequently and severely due to climate change. Storm surges could destroy the dykes of the Chignecto Isthmus, a vital transportation corridor that links Nova Scotia and New Brunswick by road and rail but which is only slightly above sea level. A network of dykes – some dating back to the 17th and 18th centuries – provides the only protection from predicted rising tides and sea levels. This area will completely flood when the dykes fail, essentially rendering Nova Scotia an island and cutting it off from the rest of Canada. Approximately $100 million in trade moves across the Chignecto Isthmus daily.xiv The federal government said it would pay for half of the approximately $650 million upgrade costs; however, the Nova Scotia and New Brunswick governments believe that the costs should be fully paid for by the federal government. Nova Scotia has a case before the Nova Scotia Court of Appeals to rule on whether the dykes fall within the exclusive legislative authority of Parliament. On October 3, 2023, Senator Jim Quinn from New Brunswick put Bill S-273 forward for the Chignecto Isthmus Dykeland Systems Act. This act would declare the Chignecto Isthmus Dykeland System and related works to be a general advantage of Canada.xv On May 2, 2024, Premier Blane Higgs appealed to the Senate Committee on Transport and Communication to push federal leaders to pay for the upgrades out of its responsibility to maintain interprovincial links.  

A story of success in rural New Brunswick: the Rural Upper Fundy Partnership  

There are areas that provide hope. For example, the ongoing work of the Rural Upper Fundy Partnership (referred to as the Partnership), is a community-first process that brings together businesses, governments, non-profit organizations, and citizens to develop a strategic development approach for the Upper Bay of Fundy area of New Brunswick.xvi Co-author Lisa Hrabluk was the lead practitioner on this project for its first three years, and worked closely with the volunteer working group, which included local tourism operators, the Albert County Museum, the St. Martins Chamber of Commerce, Poley Mountain Resort, the municipalities of Fundy-Albert and Sussex, and the UNESCO Fundy Biosphere Region. The Partnership is a special initiative of the non-profit Friends of Fundy, which has a mandate to enhance public awareness and appreciation of the cultural and natural heritage of Fundy National Park and increase engagement in the surrounding area. The Partnership’s project was initially funded by the federal Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency and the provincial Department of Tourism.  

The Upper Bay of Fundy is defined as the northeast half of the Bay of Fundy, stretching from the outskirts of St. Martins through to Cape Enrage, and includes the rural communities of Hillsborough, Riverside-Albert, Alma, Sussex, and the adjacent rural areas. Jurisdictionally, it includes the three rural municipalities of Fundy-Albert, Sussex, and Fundy-St. Martins, and parts of the Southeast (Moncton) Regional Service Commission, the Kings County Regional Service Commission, the Fundy (Saint John) Regional Service Commission. It has 26 distinct settlements, one national park and three provincial parks that roughly total 3,000 km2. It is home to about 15,700 residents and 170 small businesses directly supporting the visitor economy.  

This strategic development project was initiated by community leaders who were frustrated by 25 years of failed investments in consultant-led studies and reports that produced a variety of ideas and recommendations, with few enacted. This was largely because of the combined lack of community capacity and financial investment. The completion of a parkway to enable visitors to travel this part of the Bay of Fundy coastline, the longest stretch of undeveloped coastline on North America’s Atlantic coast, also raised community concerns. Residents were concerned with the region’s capacity to address long-standing systemic challenges related to infrastructure, environmental sustainability, housing, social inclusion, transportation, and community well- being that had slowed local prosperity.  

To produce an alternative result, the region believed it needed to do things differently. Thus, the community created the Rural Upper Fundy Partnership, a multi-jurisdiction, multi-sector, network that uses an asset-based community development model. It emphasizes a collaborative, integrated and principle-based approach to regional destination development planning.  

In the Upper Bay of Fundy, this translated into the following approach:  

  • Use local stories to build pride of place and illustrate successes;  
  • Emphasize a local-first approach to economic development – what is good for the residents of the Upper Bay of Fundy will be good for tourists and others too;  
  • Focus on a ‘by us, for us’ approach that emphasizes community-designed initiatives over external consultants’ recommendations; and,  
  • Determine measurable outcomes that illustrate systems change, including strengthening of social capital, experiential products and services, and community knowledge and support for the visitor economy.  

The Partnership’s mission and work are informed by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) and regenerative development practices because in the Upper Bay of Fundy, the environment is the economy.  

In its first year, the Partnership focused on gathering baseline data and conducting gap analyses to determine how to align the organization and region with the UN SDGs and regenerative development practices.xvii For instance, it worked with BC-based GreenStep Solutions to conduct a baseline measurement of the Upper Bay of Fundy’s sustainability performance and climate action with the goal of helping local operators learn how to develop and scale regenerative tourism products and services. Regenerative tourism involves visitors in helping to return local areas to more pristine conditions, a step beyond conservation practices, which seek to preserve current conditions.  

The Partnership’s action plan seeks to maximize the positive benefits of tourism while minimizing negative impacts on people, culture, and the environment.18 The assessment is based on the Global Sustainable Tourism Council criteria and the UN World Tourism Organization Indicators for Sustainable Tourism.xviii ,xix It includes 117 questions that measure sustainability performance in four broad categories: management, social and economic, natural and cultural, and environmental.  

The Partnership seeks to provide local communities with some guidelines for solving complex systemic challenges, which can be particularly challenging in rural areas where it is not always clear who is responsible for incubating and supporting innovative solutions. Is it government, non-profits, businesses, or some combination of all three? The Partnership’s research found that while local people and organizations are supportive of change initiatives, no one organization has the capacity to initiate and support projects, particularly ones that involve the whole region. For example, operators have consistently identified staff housing as a chronic problem and the top reason businesses cannot extend the tourist season or scale to offer more services or extended hours. To address this, the Partnership hosted a day-long “Community Innovation Day” in February 2023. It brought together people with the problem (operators, residents, staff and local government officials) with technical experts (builders, service providers, developers and regulators) to discuss possible solutions. The end result was a housing partnership with a local nursing home, which had existing plans to build housing for its own staff. The nursing home agreed to expand its mandate and become the local non-profit housing agency and build accommodations for others in the community.  

The future of rural New Brunswick:  

The past five years have brought significant change to rural New Brunswick, courtesy of global forces such as the pandemic and climate change, and regulatory changes via municipal reform. Each highlights the need for proactive planning, authentic community engagement and adaptable policies and processes. The province must accelerate efforts to diversify local economies beyond traditional sectors like forestry, fishing, and agriculture. Regenerative tourism development could be a way to begin that shift. In addition, technological innovation to create more value-added product industries from New Brunswick’s plentiful natural resources could help stem population decline in rural areas. This includes investing in modern infrastructure to improve connectivity and accessibility between rural and urban regions.  

While there are challenges related to infrastructure and service accessibility, initiatives like the Rural Upper Fundy Partnership offer examples of community resilience and sustainable development. The increase of climate-induced disasters will continue to influence rural New Brunswick, with those who are already historically marginalized or vulnerable being especially impacted. A coordinated disaster risk reduction strategy could be usefully developed as future trends indicate that climate disasters will increase.  

A component of New Brunswick that adds to its distinctiveness is the over 17,000 First Nations people who are stewards of the land and resources. First Nations have historically practiced sustainability principles, which would enhance any climate- and environment-related initiative. Furthermore, First Nations in New Brunswick bring community cohesion and economic development opportunities to the province. Partnerships with First Nation communities are extremely important in whatever direction rural New Brunswick will proceed. Closing cultural divides and promoting cultural exchanges between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples in New Brunswick, built on respectful communication, will only enhance the provinces’ resilience and vibrancy.  

There is debate whether the population of rural areas will continue to increase as Canadians retire to rural parts of the Maritimes or, as job opportunities flourish in urban areas, young people will move to urban centers, where new immigrants settle. So, what is the future of rural New Brunswick? Global trends indicate that 68 % of the world’s population will live in urban areas by 2050.xx Will New Brunswick align with global predictions, or will it remain evenly split between rural and urban? Whether New Brunswick’s rural areas will follow global urbanization trends or maintain their rural character could depend on a balance between economic development, environmental sustainability, and community-led initiatives. As shown in the Rural Upper Fundy Partnership, part of the solution could be to focus on asset-based community development, which focuses on the unique talents, gifts, and ideas that local people already have, as opposed to outside experts telling communities what they need.  

References 

References

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