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The Transformation of Isle Madame
"Industry" is about products and profits. "Industrial development" is about jobs; products and profits are incidental. This seems a simple point, but the failure to grasp it has been costly.
Arichat is located on Isle Madame, a lovely 35-sq-km island which is home to 4300 people, including me. Since the island was settled by the French in the 18th century, its major industry has been fishing. In 1992, however, the island's fishery was tottering. Its collapse would eliminate 500 jobs in a workforce of only 1500. An emergency meeting formed a committee which obtained funding under the federal Industrial Adjustment Services program, and commissioned GTA Consultants to analyze the crisis and propose remedies. GTA polled the people, reviewed the alternatives, and concluded that the island's only hope was "community economic development." What was CED? It remains a slippery, amorphous concept, but it obviously requires effective communication within the community. So we started with a non-profit community cable television studio. Telile Communications had plenty of growing pains, but it survived. It currently employs three people full-time, and also produces videos for government and industry. The IAS committee also spawned a locally-directed development company, Development Isle Madame Association. Looking for business ideas, DIMA surveyed community organizations and more than 140 businesses, and then circulated the resulting 400-plus suggestions to the community. The research found that islanders wanted development which would sustain and strengthen the community's values and heritage. Entertainment and information businesses, built on the island's rich bilingual culture. Wood products and crafts. New directions in agriculture and aquaculture. Tourism -- but small-scale niche tourism, not beach hotels and bus tours. Indeed, the research revealed that a turnaround had already begun: more than 30 businesses had been started since the IAS Committee began its work. So DIMA held a Good News Expo to celebrate those start-ups. DIMA is currently developing a bilingual call centre; its staff is now in training. A DIMA-sponsored small-options home employs five people full-time. The island may soon become a Heritage Region, and its tourism business is slowly growing. Other start-ups also affirm a growing entrepreneurial culture. Island businesses now export kiln-dried lumber to Europe, and are developing innovative aquaculture equipment. Greg's Fuels, of Arichat, operates service stations across the Maritimes. We will need many small businesses to replace the lost fishery, but eventually Isle Madame's economy will stand, like a strong wharf, on many pilings. Never again will a single plant closure mean disaster. CED is people-centred economics, drawing its energy from the people who need it most. It could smooth the transition to the almost-workless world foreseen by Jeremy Rifkin and others. But CED challenges basic assumptions about what the economy is, what its purpose should be, how it is organized and shaped. Ultimately, it is a revolutionary enterprise. We have been driven to it by desperation. We should embrace it as our future, and pursue it with resolution. Celebrated author, national columnist and CED activist Silver Donald Cameron lives in D'Escousse, a small community on Nova Scotia's Isle Madame. Home page: Weekly columns:
THE LIVING BEACH
(Macmillan Canada, 1998) |
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Stories: 
"Create
jobs in Arichat" is not an item on corporate to-do lists in Tokyo or even
Toronto. It does crop up on the agenda of politicians and civil servants
in Halifax and Ottawa -- but in Arichat, Cape Breton, it rules the agenda.
It follows that "industrial development" should be done in Arichat --
and in Antigonish, Amherst and Annapolis.
CED
can work, but it not easy. It takes a sustained, long-term effort which
requires not only huge amounts of volunteer time but also seed money and
investment capital. If CED is really to be a cornerstone of development
policy, it needs a much deeper commitment from government and others.
Isle Madame has had important grants, and been grateful for them -- but
what we really need is a coherent, reliable long-term strategy which covers
not only funding but also marketing, training, communications, technology,
research and even securities regulations. Our new businesses, for example,
need access to our own savings, which constantly flow off-island into
RRSPs, pension funds and other capital pools. To its credit, the province
is currently replacing inappropriate regulations with programs which will
attract investment to CED, and the credit union movement is also moving
into community investment.