The Current - Is anyone paying attention to rural voters this election?

Episode Date: April 15, 2025

Party leaders aren’t listening to rural concerns in this election — but that’s nothing new, says Marlene Spruyt from the township of North Frontenac, Ont. She talks to guest host Mark Kelley about what her community is worried about, from health care to internet connectivity.

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This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, it's Mark Kelly here. You might know me from my regular gig as co-host of the CBC's The Fifth Estate. You'll be hearing more from me when I fill in for Matt as he crosses the country talking to Canadians about the election. I hope you tune in, and please enjoy the current podcast. About one in five Canadians live in rural areas across the country, yet people living in these places often feel like their voices aren't heard come election time. Whether it's about health care, internet connectivity, or the impacts of climate change.

On Friday, in a letter called Elbows Up for Climate Action, more than 100 municipal politicians from across the country, many of them from rural communities, called on parties to invest quote, in national projects that will connect and protect our country from the dual threats of tariffs and climate change, end quote. Marilyn Spruitt is a retired family doctor who spent her entire career working in rural and northern communities. She lives in the township of North Frontenac about two hours west of Ottawa. She also ran for the Green Party in the last two Ontario provincial elections. Marlene, good morning. Good morning and thank you for having me and thank you for bringing attention to this.

Well, let's talk about that attention. As we mentioned, there was a letter called Elbows Up for Climate Action and a lot of rural communities signed on to that. What did you think when you saw that published? Well, when I saw the letter, I thought these folks should be all running for the Green Party because it's all very climate and green focused. It isn't specifically rural focused, but it applies to rural areas as well as urban areas.

Well, let's talk about North Frontenac. Let's talk about your community and what is it that you need for the community and are those needs being met during this campaign? So rural area of 2000 residents, a lot of them are seasonal, all small businesses, a lot of tourism, no significant industry, you know, a few schools and a medical clinic, no hospital within that actual municipality. It's an hour away. So what this community needs is improved connectivity, poor internet. I'm not actually at home now, I'm in visiting other people, but we have

intermittent cell service, not adequate connectivity, and if people want to run businesses and work from home, that makes it a lot harder to do that in those rural areas. I'm a little surprised to hear, Marlene, I'm just sorry, I'm a little surprised to hear that you're you're only a couple hours from the nation's capital and you're having problems with internet connectivity in the community. Yep. I also can't get a CBC radio signal in my house at home. A lot of it is because it's rocky. It's up and down. There's little valleys and they've slowly put in a few more cell towers, but

the connectivity of my internet is satellite based and so if there's a good rainstorm or a Lot of weather issues. I can't get reliable internet. But can you get the government's attention or the federal party's? Attention during this campaign as I mentioned you're just a couple hours from that from the nation's capital Are your voices being heard? I don't think so. I think this particular election is being driven by economic cost of living and tariff issues and all the other cost of living and tariff issues, and all the other issues that are relevant to the average citizen are sort of falling by the wayside. But aren't those, I mean, cost of living,

those are average citizen issues, whether you're in a rural community or whether you're in an urban center. Sure, that's one, but there's other issues like access to healthcare, access to good schools, community infrastructure, you know, maintaining our roads, and as I said, the connectivity issues. And they're not being spoken about at all by the leaders.

As we mentioned, you worked as a family physician in rural and northern communities for 25 years. Is rural health care being, and the needs being addressed in this campaign for you? I haven't heard mention of it at all. The feds put a lot of money into health transfer payments and although it's administered by the province and people say it's a provincial issue, the federal government has the ability to address some of the ongoing concerns. Primary care access has become an issue across the country. It used to just be a

rural issue, but we're hearing more and more mid-sized communities also having a shortage of access to family physicians and primary care practitioners. What's the feeling when you speak to your friends and neighbours in North Frontenac then? What's the feeling when you feel left out of a campaign? What's that like for you? I don't know that it's a unique feeling because it's an ongoing issue. So we just live with that and say, oh yeah, they're not listening to us again. And, you know, rural folks kind of like the quiet lifestyle, so they don't tend

to get up and lobby very much. And they kind of a lot of times just accept the fact that they're being overlooked and, and hope that their local representative will do something to have their voices heard when, when they get elected. So what's at stake for people living in communities like yours if they continue to feel like their needs aren't a priority in Ottawa? So what's at stake for people living in communities like yours if they continue to feel like their needs aren't a priority in Ottawa? Well, as I said, healthcare is at stake. But for the communities themselves though, does this affect the future of these communities?

Well, for some of them I think it does. Those that depend on industries and our one industry communities when the paper mill shuts down, there's nothing for that community. And a lot of them, they're housing value falls. They move away. There's no jobs

for their kids to grow into. And so they move away, go to school, and then don't come back. And rural communities are becoming more of a retirement and a seniors community than thriving municipalities. Are you worried about the future of North Frontenac? We're close enough I think to some urban areas where there is access to services. So I'm not really worried about the viability of the community. But I do think it's more of an issue in some of the

more remote and very rural areas. Okay, well I'm glad we gave you a voice and we hope that the politicians are listening. Marlene, thank you so much for your time this morning. Thank you for having me. Bye. Marlene Screwitt is a retired family doctor living in rural Ontario. Have you ever finished a book and just needed to talk about it immediately or wanted to know the wildest research an author has done for a book or even what book talk books are actually worth your time?

Hi, I'm Morgan Book. Yes, that is actually my last name. And this is Off the Shelf, my new podcast that covers everything related to books. Each Thursday, I chat with other bookworms and authors, or sometimes it's just me rambling about my latest book obsession. From book to screen updates to hot takes on new releases and of course our monthly book club discussions, I've got you covered. So get your TBR list ready and listen to Off the Shelf wherever you get your podcasts. Kyle Rich is a researcher at the Niagara Community Observatory, a policy research institute in

southern Ontario. In a recent paper, he co-wrote about the federal election. He asked the question, is anyone paying attention to rural communities? Kyle, good morning. Hey, thanks. You asked the question. What's the answer? Is anyone paying attention to rural communities?

Yeah, I think, you know, just like Marlene said earlier, I think this election is really being dominated by these big kind of global issues. You know, we're hearing a lot about tariffs and these geopolitics. And so I don't think that I'm really hearing much about those issues, those on-the-ground issues that people have been living with for a long time and that I think they would like to see represented. Okay, help me understand that then. What are these on the ground issues that are important to rural communities that are not coming up in this campaign? Again, I'm going to agree with Marlene here. There's a few things that have been consistent.

We've seen for a long time an infrastructure deficit in rural Canada. So whether that's things like schools, hospitals, roads, or even other community infrastructure like arenas and recreation centers, small places have not had the ability to kind of renew those things and fix them. And then that affects many, many aspects of life. And so I think that is a really key one. Internet connectivity, climate change, those are felt in different ways in different communities. And I think those are all really important things that people would like to see.

But given the situation with the trade war that we're currently involved with the United States, is this not then a good time, and I use infrastructure as an example here, for Canadian governments to be investing in their communities, whether the communities, urban centers or rural communities. This seems to be, you know, to get Canadians working and get Canadians building projects in our own country. Absolutely, you know, we've seen that historically when we've had downturns, investments in infrastructure to kind of keep things moving, so that could be one way to approach it. I think what we actually have seen,

we don't have costed platforms out yet. So we don't know exactly what all they're planning, but we've heard some discussion about Arctic sovereignty, so investments in the Arctic. And then we've heard also a bit of discussion about specific industries, so things like pipelines, but we haven't seen kind of a broad approach like that being articulated yet. But with one in five Canadians, about one in five Canadians living in rural communities,

what's it take to get the candidates' attention? Honestly, you know, I think one of the issues is we tend to talk about rural Canada as one thing, or one place, when in reality it's many, many places that have many, many different Honestly, I think one of the issues is we tend to talk about rural Canada as one thing or one place, when in reality it's many, many places that have many, many different issues. Often it's those same issues that will just impact communities in a different way. I think we need to think about places as unique places, and then they will have their own issues and those are things that we need to amplify and advocate in Ottawa, right?

And having their elected officials bringing those issues up in government and then trying to address them in a way that's place specific and meaningful for those communities. So your concern then is that this idea of the one size fits all, that what's good for one rural community, it's good good for another no matter where you are in Canada? Exactly and I think that's something we should be cautious of. In the rural development world we have a saying, if you know one rural community then you know one rural community and that's something I think we need to really lean into. In 2019, Bernadette Jordan became Canada's first minister of rural economic development.

How big of a step was that in getting that representation in Ottawa? Yeah, I mean, that is obviously a positive thing when we see an issue or places elevated to the level of a minister like that. But I would actually look kind of back historically. So from 1996 to 2013, there was a rural secretariat in the federal government. And they actually worked on this., there was a rural secretariat in the federal government

and they actually worked on this, they called it a rural lens. Whenever they were to make policy, they used the rural lens to understand how that would look in rural places, how it would work and what it would be like. I think historically we have had rural Canada reflected in different ways at the federal government. While that was certainly a positive thing to have that there, I don't think it's completely unique and we have seen it reflected in different ways. And I think rural communities pose a complex and interesting issue for

policymakers. And I think there's many ways that they could address it. So I think the key is having it addressed and meaningfully addressed and reflected in Ottawa so that they can work on the policies and programs that are going to support communities To make them kind of vibrant and resilient places, but to pick up on your earlier point if you say that every small community is different You know who needs to speak to these communities? How can a federal government broadly address so many issues right across this country in rural communities? Yeah, I think one way to think about this is thinking about policy that's designed around access, so policies and programs that'll allow communities to access the things that they need.

So instead of pushing out infrastructure funding where it's like, okay, we're going to build all these things you can apply and get the money to build the things that you need, in some cases, one community might need a school and a bridge and a new arena, right? So if you have one fund and you can only apply to that at one time, that kind of limits one In some cases, one community might need a school and a bridge and a new arena, right? So if you have one fund and you can only apply to that at one time, that kind of limits what you have access to and what you're able to offer for the people that live there. So if we think about place-based approaches where we can provide support to build communities what they need or get communities what they need, That's one way of kind of reframing the conversation about policies and programs to support rural

places. So we mentioned 2019, you get the first Minister of Rural Economic Development and then under Prime Minister Mark Carney, the position has been changed to Minister of Agriculture and Agri-food and Rural Economic Development. And that may just sound like a, you know, a triple barreled ministry, but does that pose a concern for you where you see agriculture rolled into rural economic development? Yeah, and this is often what we see is rural policy becomes sector-based policy. So something

like agriculture gets tied with with agriculture. It doesn't mean that it can't be done well, but quite often it ends up being a sector-based approach instead of a place-based approach. And then so what that means is kind of policy and programs end up focused on specific sectors. And then unfortunately, sometimes what happens then is that means that those policies and programs end up supporting a handful of corporations or a handful of regions and not really reflecting what other regions or other communities need. As Marlene was saying, people are getting used,

people who live in rural communities like hers in North Frontenac say they're getting used to being forgotten, which is kind of a sad sentiment to hear that. How can rural communities get urban dwellers to listen and to care about their needs? I mean, we're all Canadians, we're all in this together. Yeah, you know, I think that's a wonderful sentiment.

I think it's something that I wish more people felt that way. I think just having these conversations, talking about what these issues look like in different communities, and also really articulating the way that urban and rural areas are interdependent. Rural Canada is where we do a lot of food production, it's where pollution is processed, it's where people go for their recreation. It's really important for national identity. We think of the quintessential Canadian landscapes and they're often rural places that we're really proud of.

So I think it's important to recognize the interdependence between urban and rural places and the way that we all contribute to this big idea of, whether it's our provinces and territories or our regions, how we're all connected within those spaces. Kyle, you're a good ambassador for rural Canada. Thanks for being on the show today. Thanks for having me, Mark.

Kyle Rich is a researcher at the Niagara Community Observatory, a policy research institute in southern Ontario.