By Cheryl Jahn

FCM

Rural Canada gets FCM attention

Jun 5, 2025 | 3:24 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – Infrastructure, housing and homelessness, community safety and climate change adaptation were just a few of the issues identified as needs in rural regions during the FCM convention.

“As we’re looking at diversifying rural Canada, I think one of the most important things is access to broadband internet,” says Councillor Cori Ramsay, who attended the AGM. “Access to the connectivity that will be provided is going to drive economic opportunities for our region, and we still have a vast number of areas that are still struggling with connectivity.”

Chair of the FCM’s Rural Forum cites his particular passion in a word: Infrastructure. And it’s a national issue.

“The Liberal Government outline that they want to go from building 270,000 homes to 500,000,” explains Neal Comeau. “It’s a great number. I don’t necessarily think it’s achievable right away, but it’s a great number. But at the same point in time – and I brought it up inside meetings that we had with some of the ministers this past week – is we got a focus on what’s in the ground first, because you can build a brand new house, but you can’t flush the toilet house is useless.”

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The FCM’s report on the future of rural Canada defines rural municipalities as those with large areas, low population densities and large amounts of infrastructure for which they are responsible. That’s Prince George in a nutshell.

“We saw a significant amount of coverage for northern, rural and remote communities,” says Ramsay. “It’s something that I think a lot of us were really happy to see. We don’t all live in densely populated urban areas, and the definition for rural at FCM is populations under 100,000. So Prince George itself even falls into the rural category. So, you know, people might not think we are rural, but when we’re looking at communities that have a million people, we are really in that spectrum.”

And, with the AGM now wrapped up, the legwork begins for the likes of Councillor Cori Ramsay.

“We’re going to see a lot of the committees do that work. I feel privileged to sit on some of those committees. We also have Director Kirk from the Regional District of Fraser for George re-elected to that BC caucus representing our area, as well as Gord Klassen in Fort St. John. So our communities in northern B.C. are well represented as FCM takes on the work they’re doing over the next year.”

Rural communities stretch across more than 95 per cent of Canada’s land mass, and the populations of rural communities have risen.