SOUND OFF: Investing in a bright future for rural B.C.
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WE LIVE IN RURAL PLACES because we love them — whether it’s the sense of genuine community with our neighbours, the opportunities in the resource economy and for entrepreneurs, embedding ourselves in the environment around us, or for so many other reasons. Most of us live in these places intentionally — we choose these places because we embrace the quality of life they afford us.
Generally, we don’t want our rural places to become little metro areas, but we do expect the services and supports that we need for our communities to thrive socially, economically and environmentally.
Rural people take pride in solving our own problems — and rural places certainly encounter unique challenges. These unique challenges, in turn, are typically met with unique, locally built solutions that didn’t fit easily in the support model of past governments. Our government recently presented a new vision to support these communities and a commitment to implement a rural lens for government to ensure solutions from ‘The City’ translate properly on the ground for all communities.
StrongerBC: Good Lives in Strong Communities outlines investments to strengthen our rural communities in diverse and interconnected ways. Investments to connect communities to services and services to communities. This means recognizing, for example, that health care and transit in rural places are inextricable, so new supports for people who need to travel for cancer care matter. That housing challenges in rural places are unique. And commitments to rural transit networks so people can actually get to the services they need and deserve are important.
