Non-Ag Natural Resource Extraction Centers

The Basic Issue

Where exactly does Canada fits into the scheme of things. Are we really part of the "First World?"

It has been said that we are the top end of the "newly industrializing countries" who have had the benefits of living in the shadow of the United States' military protection, and have enjoyed profitable access to their markets, especially in the sale of our raw materials. We live in the illusion that we are prosperous because of our innate ability. Actually, it is because we are sitting on a pile of valuable rock and trees. We do not process our exports, we just ship them with no value added by the manufacturing process.

A contrast might be drawn to Japan which has few natural resources but has imported raw materials, added value, and then shipped them elsewhere for market. That is an example of a country which can claim some credit for having done something other than extract natural resource materials and ship them. Canada's vulnerability lies in the fact that most of the natural resources we ship are finite. The question faces us "what do we do when the natural resources run out?"

The centers which form around extraction sites face a number of difficulties some of which are seen also in agricultural sites:

• Their products are "undifferentiated", which means that when shipped it is impossible to tell where the product originated from, it all looks the same. That means that price is not based on some "niche feature" but rather on the supply and demand dynamics of the overall world supply.

• The towns often are established by some sort of co-operative arrangement between the company and the government, so the town residents are left out of much of the local government dynamics normal to other small towns . This leaves them vulnerable when shutdowns of the operation occur for market reasons. There is no fall back to other jobs in one-industry towns in remote locations

• their personnel tend to be industry specific, making their "community" one of a set of similar mines, forests, or oil patches. This means that they run across the boundaries of larger community agglomerations like provinces and regions. They keep meeting the same faces as they move from mine to mine, but the larger society does not adjust its services like Churches for example or schools) to this reality for the most part.

• The Urban majority has imposed their agendas on these operations imposing severe restrictions on resource sources, often without looking at the economic impact on both local economies and the larger macro economy of Canada.
• Although the resource sector has dropped in proportionate contribution to the overall GNP, people forget that it is this supply which feeds the value added industries of Canada such as they exist, and creates a great deal of the foreign exchange needed to import goods from off-shore, the loss of which would be a severe blow to the lifestyles of most Canadians.

The next six aspects of rural reality on the Canadian prairie today are actually six types of response to the current state of affairs in the rural areas, brought about by the six steps of activity we have examined. The first of these responses is the movement of the agricultural-industrial sector into value added industry.

Aspects of

• Environment
• Land
• Mining
• Timber
• Commercial Fishing
• Tourism
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Rural Development Institute Research Studies

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