Last week in Saskatoon rural community leaders, businesses, nonprofit organizations, governments, researchers, and students gathered to discuss rural issues at the Health and Shared Prosperity: 30th Annual Canadian Rural Revitalization Foundation Conference. The conference brought 150 rural leaders from across Canada and internationally together to discuss the future of rural issues. The School of Environmental Design and Rural Development was we
On October 3, 2018, Dr. Gibson provided testimony to the House of Commons Finance Committee meeting. The Finance Committee is studying the pre-budget consultations and more specifically what steps the federal government can take to support and encourage Canadian businesses to grow the economy in the face of a changing economic landscape. Dr. Gibson shared information and stories on how the budget bill could be used to strengthen local economic de...
June 19th, 2018 marks a historic day in Canada – it’s when the Senate approved Bill C-45, The Cannabis Act. The act states that recreational cannabis will officially be legal to cultivate, produce, distribute, retail and consume on October 17th, 2018. With four months to prepare for legalization, provinces and local governments appear to be scrambling to create policies that aligns with the legal federal requirements.
On September 27, Tracey H...
Tracey Harvey, PhD candidate in Rural Studies, recently spoke with the Arrow Lakes News regarding the upcoming cannabis legalization and what it might mean for rural regions. You can read the full article here: https://www.arrowlakesnews.com/news/pot-legalization-will-force-big-adjustments-to-kootenay-economy-society/.
For further information on Tracey's research visit: https://ruralbclegalizationstudy.wordpress.com/.
The 2017-2018 year has been incredibly busy for the Libro Professor of Regional Economic Development. Over the past twelve months, Dr. Gibson has been busy in research, teaching, and community engagement. Check out the highlights of this busy year in the recently released 2017-2018 Libro Professorship of Regional Economic Development Annual Report.
2017-2018 Libro Professorship of Regional Economic Development Annual Report
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Neil Stoop successfully defended his Master of Science in Rural Planning and Development thesis today. For the past year, Neil has been working on his thesis titled "Understanding Rural: A Comparison of Academic, Political, and Lay Discourses of Rural". Here is the abstract for Neil's work:
Rural is a word, which has many meanings and means different things to different people. Definitions of rural are often sorted into four broad categories; de
Alex Petric (MSc, Rural Planning & Development) recently attended the Modelling Complex Urban Environments Conference at the University of Waterloo in Waterloo, Ontario. Held on June 21-22, 2018, this event was organized by the Waterloo Institute for Complexity & Innovation and brought together leading thinkers and researchers to discuss Big Data, Smart Cities, and methods of modelling urban environments. Though not having a major focus o...
Academics and governments create definitions of what is a rural community, and what is not a rural community, on a regular basis. These definitions might be based on population counts or based on access to services. How communities actually define themselves, however, is a different question.
Neil Stoop, Master of Science in Rural Planning and Development candidate, share findings of his thesis research at the International Geography Union/Can...
Governments across Canada struggle develop and implement robust, flexible, and effective rural policies and programs to meet the ever-changing contexts of rural communities. Critical to understanding how policymakers are addressing this challenge as they design, implement and/or evaluate rural policy and programming is examining if and how they use research evidence – and what kind of evidence – they use to inform this process.
As a sub-component of the...
Recent transformations in global economies have impacted for rural places throughout Canada. While some rural communities have flourished, others have struggled. This has lead to the question, "What is the future of rural communities throughout Canada?". As part of CBC's series called Transformations, Dr. Ryan Gibson participated in a series of 14 radio interviews to discuss the factors influencing the future of rural communities, the resilience
