Five Year Plan & Sustainability Vision

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The Main-à-Dieu Coastal Discovery Centre

In consultation with residents, friends and supporters, we have devised a ‘three-dimensional’ criterion of – to coin a phrase – humane community development. These ‘dimensions’ are:

• Health & Leisure
• Participation & Involvement
• Environment & Energy

In our view, any community project advancing any or all of these goals, without replicating efforts or duplicating services already available locally, should be considered eligible for support funding. Crucial to the equation is that ‘project’ be understood to include the ‘core’ costs and ‘general’ obligations involved in providing a home for a range of ‘specific’ activities.

The Project So Far

These ‘alternative’ dimensions already guide and inform our actions. With regard to health & leisure (defined as any and all activities designed to enhance personal and communal quality of life) we have begun a community garden project; held exercise and fitness classes and clinics for seniors and others; hosted a range of leisure activities such as crafting, card games, local history projects and poetry readings; and initiated the process of seeking the building’s designation as an Emergency Comfort Centre.

There is significant overlap here with participation & involvement, which refers to the volunteer lifeblood of both the Centre and the Association, and which contributes to the success – both in terms of planning, and benefits derived from – a range of activity, both routine and creative, too long to itemize here, but which has grown in scope and complexity each step on our journey.

The remaining dimension – environment & energy – is the most ambitious, as well as experimental, of the three, and plays a foundational role in the long-term plan for the Centre. It is, in a word – and to mix metaphors – the ‘key’ to the Association’s ‘sustainability vision.’

Its two-fold aim is to reduce the Association’s financial burden while reducing the Centre’s ‘ecological footprint.’ (A measurement of the Earth’s capacity to replace the resources a human population consumes and absorb and render harmless the corresponding waste.)

In turn, less income will be diverted to heating and powering the building, and instead toward the provision of more and better – and crucial – community services.

This includes using our growing expertise on renewable energy and sustainable practices to assist area households implement the same or similar cost-saving and conservation measures; as well as providing a model – a ‘Green Beacon’ – for other communities wishing to ‘go green’, reduce costs, or both.

Along the way, we expect to deepen inter-generational relationships in the community. There is much to be learned from our elders regarding sustainable practices (in terms of energy use, gardening and foraging practices, and more general community actions) and we feel compelled to ensure that such knowledge is not lost. (In the words of Cape Breton Post columnist LeRoy Peach of Port Morien, “Every old man or woman that dies is a library that burns.”)

At a series of recent workshops and information sessions attended or hosted by the Association, the focus has been not only on the promise of ‘green’ solutions for community sustainability, but – more broadly – the promotion of sustainability as community.

To this end, and building on the Association’s accomplishments thus far, a broader mandate would bring to fruition the full transformation of the Coastal Discovery Centre into a centre of excellence on renewable energy and sustainable development, as well as enable the formation of the Renewable Energy Alternatives Project (REAP).

Comprised of members of the Alternative Energy Committee of the MCDA along with experts from the renewable energy and community economic development (CED) sectors – chosen for their knowledge and experience in areas of policy, planning, design, and technology – this action group would be tasked with contributing to the development, promotion, and implementation of a ‘sustainability vision’ for communities throughout Cape Breton.

The Project in Peril

While advancements have been made in some of the key directions of these broad and ambitious goals, it has been despite the constraints imposed on us by the current funding model – with its focus on short-term projects – and the absence of a sufficient support structure for the voluntary sector.

Community pride – an unrivalled natural resource in rural and industrial Cape Breton alike – has fuelled the progress. But despite consistently exceeding our fundraising targets – and even before the grievous and unanticipated loss, last year, of our ‘core’ tenant, the Main-à-Dieu Credit Union – it was clear to us that we were not miracle workers; that relying on so few ‘loaves and fishes’ would inexorably lead to our financial starvation.

But given the Association’s visionary energy plan, it should come as no surprise that, while the closure of the Credit Union came as an unexpected blow, it’s been the relentlessness - as opposed to the mere fact – of the rise of fuel prices which has compounded, for us as for many, the burden of already onerous energy costs. That is, world events simply outpaced the Association’s ability to implement its alternative energy/sustainability plan.

This is also partially due to the Association’s lack of charitable status, which would otherwise free us from restrictive geographic boundaries. There are a number of foundations currently directing their members’ funds toward environmentally-friendly projects such as ours; and specifically, Cape Bretoners abroad are looking for ways to give back to the communities from which they came.

Everything from the legal costs to the time period associated with acquiring a charitable tax number make it near impossible even without the circumstances particular to our predicament. This remains, however, a crucial step if we are not only to secure the necessary funds but to promote the project-as a experimental model of community socio-economic  development-beyond our current confines (location, time and money).

In this regard, as in many others, our 5-year plan is not unlike CBCEDA’s, which acknowledges the need for “private and government resources and partnerships from both inside and outside the local region.” Both strategies are owned by many stakeholders “and can only be delivered through cooperative efforts of leaders and champions working in unison.”

The Costs of Failure

Once we’ve secured the ‘springboard’ funds necessary to acquire charitable status in order to pursue funding elsewhere, targeted philanthropic giving may soon be counted on to cover more, most, or even all of the costs associated with retrofitting the CDC and making Main-à-Dieu a ‘green’ community.

Our intent here is to present – to relevant government agencies, as well as other supporters and interested parties – a conceptually cogent case for providing community funding on the basis of a new, ‘humanized’ criterion of sustainability. This means recognizing the irreplaceable – and in human terms, invaluable – social services provided by volunteer-run community centres like ours; and acknowledging the inevitable day to day economic deficits involved with providing a space to do so.

In other words, the imperative to create, promote and sustain healthy vibrant communities is a moral issue; the ability to do so is an economic one-and the two are inextricably linked, as are the Coastal Discovery Centre and Main-à-Dieu & area, as means to ends.

The cost of failure, therefore, is self-evident.

The Benefits of Success

Rural communities find themselves in a peculiar set of circumstances: as industries traditionally associated with the Maritime economy contract, the ensuing decrease in employment and the corollary increase in youth out-migration leaves an aging population – with more retired pensioners and/or fixed-/low-incomers – dependant on a shrinking tax base. In rural economies, where the need is often most pronounced – but where creative solutions nonetheless exist – the means are lacking.

But while the moral imperative compels governments to pay attention to this need, there is an economic rationale which obliges any fiscally prudent government to pay closer attention to community socio-economic  development. For such attention pays off in myriad ways, not least a very real fiscal return on investment, which, to ignore, would do a great disservice not only to the communities in question, but to the tax-payer in general.

Consider the following analogy. Globalization has made it possible for transnational corporations to pick up and leave town whenever a more ‘business-friendly environment’ presents itself elsewhere, leaving in their wake waves of unemployment which local governments must navigate.

Throughout Canada and the United States, communities have been set adrift, local economies sunk, the wreckage of whatever government was in power at the time-if they failed to act-washed up on shore. Subsidies and other incentives for business, while potentially controversial, make sense in this light; to be sure, a government would be foolish to ignore the consequences of doing otherwise.

A similar case can and has been made with regard to health care costs, especially given Atlantic Canada’s aging population. In rural areas, services and socializing opportunities are often unavailable nearby and/or travel to the nearest socio-economic  centre is impossible for health or financial reasons.

As a result, those living in such areas – seniors especially, but not exclusively – risk becoming isolated, putting them at even further risk of suffering from depression, developing chronic health problems, or having existing health problems worsen.

Prevention – whether in the form of targeted programs or general measures – requires funds beyond the means of small not-for-profit volunteer-run community organizations. But it repays government investment in the form of decreased Medicare costs.

For example, according to the Public Health Agency of Canada’s website, a study examining the correlation between certain exercise routines and fall prevention found a 20% reduction in the incidence of falls-equalling $3,695 in Medicare savings for every $906 invested in injury-prevention strategies.

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Posted by Mike Targett | Email a comment