Rural Reach, Urban Roots: Two Sides, One Engine with guest expert Christopher Brown

Rural Reach, Urban Roots: Two Sides, One Engine

In this episode of Paths to Prosperity, Crystal Froese interviews Christopher Brown, creator and host of Cross Border Interviews and Municipal Affairs. 

Christopher draws on insights from hundreds of conversations he has had with community leaders, elected officials, and economic development professionals across Canada, sharing his perspective on the narratives that are shaping communities and things that are holding them back.

This conversation explores how communities depend on one another for success, and what opportunities emerge when we move beyond outdated thinking, challenge assumptions, and Christopher offers a fresh and informed perspective.

Is the urban-versus-rural debate distracting us from the real opportunity?

Paths to Prosperity is a platform for exploring how communities can build resilient, inclusive, and future‑ready economies.

Through thought leadership, practical insights, and conversations with leaders from across Saskatchewan and beyond, Paths to Prosperity examines the forces shaping local and regional economies—and the choices communities can make to navigate change with confidence.

Our focus is on what works, what’s emerging, and what leaders should be thinking about now.

To go deeper on the ideas shaping Saskatchewan’s future, https://seda.ca/about/paths-to-prosperity/ for more podcasts, thought leadership, and resources from the Saskatchewan Economic Development Alliance. 

Transcript

Crystal Froese 0:08

Welcome to Path to Prosperity, the podcast of the Saskatchewan Economic Development Planet. I'm Crystal Froese. And today, I am joined by Christopher Brown, creator and host of the very famous Cross-Border Interviews and Municipal Affairs. It's an online platform that is dedicated to municipal issues, leaderships, and storytelling. Christopher has more than 20 years of experience in media and municipal administration and has become a respected voice in local journalism and community conversations. Through hundreds of interviews with elected officials, economic development leaders, and community builders from across Canada, he has developed a unique perspective on the challenges and opportunities facing communities of all sizes. He hails from Newcastle, Ontario, and Christopher is usually the one asking the questions. But today, I'm really happy to be turning the tables and drawing on his insights he's gathered from conversations with leaders from coast to coast to coast across Canada. Today, we'll be exploring the myth of urban versus rural, how communities are more connected than we often realize, and what Saskatchewan can learn from leaders who are finding new ways to work together to build stronger regions and more prosperous future. So let's dive in.

Christopher Brown 1:38

You have spent so much time interviewing leaders across this country and really shaping the conversations of our community. So I'm so looking forward to discussing this, having turned the tables on you a little bit and really tackling the whole urban versus rural. I wouldn't call that a controversy necessarily, but definitely a topic of conversation here in the province of Saskatchewan. So, like we often hear that the economy is really framed as urban versus rural, but sometimes it's almost as if communities are competing for the people and the investment and obviously political attention. From your experience interviewing these leaders across the country, how common is that mindset when people are talking about regional growth? So there's about three different questions I want to try and tackle in this answer here because we have to start by focusing, going out a little bit on the question, because the urban-rural mindset is not just a Saskatchewan issue. And I'll just be blunt on that right now. It's a Canadian issue. When we dive a little bit deeper into that, I understand of where that divide lies is what is actually considered rural and what is actually considered urban in Canada, in Saskatchewan. Now, if we look at the Canadian context of urban versus rural, urban versus rural in Saskatchewan would be Saskatoon, Regina, and the rest of the province. And I can't imagine Al Bridal from Swift Current or Aaron Keenley from Yorkton saying we're rural, but in the context of Canada, they are. But when you look at the Saskatchewan model, you see that urban-rural divide being a little bit more flexible, where Yorkden, Moose Jaw, Swift Current, even Lloyd Minster, North Battlefort are considered that urban centers, but they're still not a true definition. When it comes to that economic development and collaboration around the urban world, I think we're seeing a big shift over the last year since the rise of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and Donald Trump, where more and more municipalities and more and more rural and urban municipalities, and I'd even say First Nations, are looking to partner together to work together around economic development and regional collaboration because they understand what's good for the goose is truly good for the entire gander. Yeah, absolutely. And and I mean, you're completely right on that. It's kind of a perspective how we look at ourselves here in Saskatchewan as is in comparison to larger, larger provinces, bigger population. And obviously, we have you know, here in Saskatchewan, we've got someone that lives in New Mormon and works in Faster Food, you know, or visits headquartered in Regina and they operate in the Southeast. You know it's it strikes me that Saskatchewan is you know, we're kind of disconnected maybe a little bit about how that is actually framed from the reality, you know, the the same gap elsewhere between the story we tell, how the economy actually functions. Maybe can you comment a little bit about like how we are viewing ourselves, even though there is there is that interconnection between rural and urban, but we sort of have that gap of how we're we're talking about that. I I think there's a big un I think there's in the in the grand context of municipalities right now, from what I'm hearing, and I'm just gonna put this on the table. This is my opinion and my opinion alone, and this is how I'm viewing things as we I move through this world of municipal affairs, and viewing that collaboration is a must. It needs to happen. But around the council table, there's a there's a lot of type A personalities who don't want the big economic driver to happen outside their community. They want to see it happen in their community. So there's a lot of still that silo effect that we're seeing within Canada and even in Saskatchewan. I think there are some examples, even in southwestern Saskatchewan right now, and I'm forgetting the names of the RMs, but it's the municipality of Kyle and the surrounding RMs, where they're truly working together and they're putting aside those differences of we don't need to understand that the building is gonna go in Kyle, but it's not going to affect the RMs. It's going to affect the entire region. And I think that's where we're seeing a big still disconnect between regional collaboration and regional competitiveness, because if we're not going to be competitive in this global market that we find ourselves in right now, we're not going to move ahead. So I think more and more people are still type A personalities, but they're letting their ego sort of step aside and say, okay, we need to put aside our ego for the greater good of not just our region, but the entire province as well. Right. Because so we so we have like these two engines that are that are that are working already in practice, you know, and the rural and smaller centers are often where the production is always kind of begins, you know, with agriculture and agri-food processing in western central regions. We've got the energy in the southeast and forestry and bioeconomy around Prince Albert, and then of course tourism and cultural assets all over the province. But then, you know, urban centers like Saskatoon and Regina, they tend to concentrate on the capacity on post-secondary institute institutions, especially as labor and logistics. From your perspective, you know, is that a useful way to think about the system in those ways? I think it's a useful viewpoint to look through, but it can't be the only viewpoint that municipalities and even the provincial government looks at because if you silo individual municipalities into one category over another, whether it be let's just say Esteban, it's the energy city. So we're only gonna talk about energy, we're only gonna see development around energy in Estevan. Well, that's not gonna make it a retail powerhouse, it's not gonna make it an agriculture powerhouse as well. If we look at Weyburn, which Weyburn is seeing a massive growth right now around the agricultural sector, if we just look at it through that, we're not gonna see the potential renewable energy projects that they're trying to attract to the community. So you can't, as a province and even as a municipality, just silo to yourself to say we're only an advanced education hub and that's what we're gonna be known for. We have to diversify, and the municipalities and the provincial government, and I'd even say the federal government and even the regional collaboration partners need to start looking at it as not just a one size that is going to fit our economic engine. We need to start diversifying and making it a regional economic hub for everything to be attracted to. Yeah, and so I mean the roles are obviously dependent upon each other. And you know, as you just expressed, like the agri agri food and processing, like and financing, logistics, and that it's it might be centralized, but they're all the work is done outside of those communities. But I guess I apologize to jump in here, but I I think you're right there because we look at, oh, we're gonna do an investment from the provincial standpoint, and this is not just a Saskatchewan issue, and I'm just gonna put that on the table. This is a cross-country issue where we do this major investment in a rural an urban community, a quote unquote urban community, and we see it as that is going to be the powerhouse. And then you're like, well, that's gonna have economic spinoff for the rural communities or even the smaller urban centers that situate themselves around those larger urban centers where that investment is going. So you need to, as a province, as a federal government, even in as a municipality, need to start looking through lenses of this is going to benefit all of us, but it's also going to ensure that what I get is not just me, it's the entire area that's going to get it. And we have to sort of take ourselves out of that. Again, going back to my original statement at the beginning of the interview, we need to start taking ourselves out of that silo of me first. It's now we first. Is it is it a bit maybe economic identity crisis in a way? That's a big question. That is a huge question. I think we are in the midst of an economic identity crisis right now. And I say that because of everything that's globally going on right now. And I think you see the province doing amazing work in the province of Saskatchewan, trying to diversify its economy and try to figure out we are not just the critical mineral, we are not just the agriculture, we're not just the canola producers anymore. We are the uranium producers. The uranium that we produce in northern Saskatchewan is going to benefit all of Canada. And I think the identity crisis, and maybe it's just a blip, and maybe like a 13-year-old child, you're just trying to figure out who you are. And I know we're over 120 some odd years old, the province of Saskatchewan, but maybe it is our 13th anniversary, and we're just trying to figure out who we actually are as an economic hub of Canada. Yeah. Yeah. Because, you know, I really see that maybe, and I'd love to hear your comments on this, is is about maybe it's about the system's performance, the actual system that we currently have. You know, it's we have this interdependence, which is so clear. We have people working together, you know, the housing person's house to vagina, and nearby communities have that land capacity and labor shortages, you know, in Wisha and you worked in the north of Adleford, but people are commuting, like we see that in Worstra all the time. That highway from between us and vagina is busy, busy. And industrial and logistics and landing highways, you know, kind of industry happening outside of what we're calling our urban areas. But like why does it feel so strained then, you know, from from your work? Does that sound kind of familiar? Is it is this about systems performance? I h it's a complex question to a complex answer because I think there are some system failures that we're seeing right now across not just Saskatchewan, but across Canada. And when I talk to municipal leaders outside of the province of Saskatchewan, I often hear the same thing. We're treated as, oh, we're a flyover community, nothing's gonna happen here. What you're just a bedroom community, so therefore you're just gonna live there and you're gonna commute to a larger urban center. And I think we need to get outside of that thinking and not look at everything as just a one size fits all, and or not a one size fits all, I apologize. You need to look at things in a local context from now on. And I and I I will be the first to admit, you can't do that all the time. Not everyone is gonna get their own hub of an economic boom to their community with so many municipalities across the province of Saskatchewan. Not everyone is going to be a winner. So we have to, and even the province, I think, understands this, and I could be wrong, so I'm not gonna try and speak on behalf, but in my opinion, viewing them for the last three years, it looks as though the province is looking at more regionalization of services and regionalizations of economic hubs rather than individual economics hubs. And I think that's the way that we're going in Canada right now. And I say this because I just got back from the Yukon where the Association of Yukon Communities convention was just happening, and this was a topic of discussion is how do we regionalize our approach around economic development? What does that look like? And at the end of the conversation in that in that territory, I got a sense that I don't even think province and territories, territorial governments understand what that means. Because we're so fresh into this whole identity of our biggest trading partner is no longer the most reliable partner. So therefore, we can't rely on them 24-7. So we have to diversify our markets, but we also have to diversify what we're actually doing because we're seeing more interprovincial trade, more interprovincial movement than we have ever seen, probably in the last hundred years, than we are right now. So I think the provincial governments are still trying to figure out what this actually means. And the big thing, and I just want to just add this on the movement of people is becoming less and less today. The rise of online shopping, the rise of online meetings like we're doing right now, we're literally doing this over a virtual uh setting. So we can have these conversations. So traditionally, 20 years ago, you would have to go and drive to an urban center to have a conversation. But now you can pick up a phone, you can pick up a Zoom call and say, Hey, can we have this conversation? So I think businesses are being more attracted to areas that are seeing high fiber optic internet. And I think that's where the provincial governments need to start investing a little bit more in to ensure that that connectivity is happening. And a side side note on that, we need some good cell phone coverage because I've driven through northern Saskatchewan and we really need some great cell phone coverage. So maybe if the provincial government can pick up on that, that'd greatly appreciate it for a guy who likes to travel a lot. Great noted. I'm sure they're listening loud and clear to that one. So just back to like so flipping that whole question, instead of instead of how how do we help cities grow, because the whole mentality what has been for so long about growth, growth, or just like what you were just saying, like how do we save our rural our rural communities? You know, what if what if we're asking how do we design a system that lets us catch one's urban and rural strengths we endorse each other just by default? And because you're just kind of saying up in Yukon, like what have you seen elsewhere? What does that kind of thinking sort of look like in practice? I I think there's many different facets to this answer. The big one that I think more and more people need to look at is housing. Housing will always be the biggest economic driver for municipalities and for communities across Saskatchewan and Canada. Every time I hear about economic development, I even talk to the CETA CEO about this on my show about what true economic development looks like in the context of housing. And housing is a top priority. You're not seeing people move to communities and start businesses to grow the local economy if they do not have adequate housing supplies there. So I think, and this is just again my personal opinion, the fed the provincial and federal governments need to do a better job in supporting housing development and supporting infrastructure development, because as a former counselor yourself, you know quite wholeheartedly that municipalities do not build houses. They build the infrastructure that's under the ground. So, unless we have a good supply of housing, even in our rural communities and our smaller urban centers in Saskatchewan, we are not gonna see the economic drives to communities because businesses do not want to set up shop where there is not an adequate supply for their workers, their managers to come into play. So I think when we look at the what can the provincial government do, is hand over a big check. And I know that's probably not gonna happen this year because the economic finances that we're in. But if there's a big giant check that they can hand over and say, this is for you to build more infrastructure to get more housing built, I think that would go a long way in starting a true conversation about what economic development and regional collaboration can look like. Because a hundred homes in a small community of a thousand people is a boon to that community, not just for property taxes, not just for the economic drivers, but for businesses to say, oh, this community is growing, let's invest there, let's go build a Tim Hortons, let's go build an AW there, because that is where people are congregating. Yeah. And and I think, you know, looking at sort of the demographics, and it's funny because people have been we're we're looking at the whole growth of the baby boomers and how that was going to impact everybody. And we're seeing that now, you know, a decade ago, everybody was saying about healthcare. But and housing particular, it was interesting. I was having, you know, on coffee roll conversation with a woman who is a baby boomer, and she was saying what we need is is that transitionary type of housing so that boomers can move out of their homes and into the condos or you know, the nicer sort of styles, and freeing up more housing that way because boomers are staying in their homes much, much longer than what has previously happened. And so that has put some pressure on to the housing situation where that's not moving like it had, you know, 20 years ago. And I think just to add on to that, it's not even just the boomers not moving out of their houses, it's the kids like the younger generation than I am, and I can't believe I can say that, being the age that I am, but the younger generation than I am aren't moving out of their parents' house. They're living in their basements because they can't afford housing, because the housing market is so in demand right now that prices are still in a very unreachable position for some people to achieve. So they stay at home longer and they're starting families at home with grandparents sitting upstairs. So therefore, they have built-in babysitters, so they don't need to worry about that. But I think it's not just the housing challenge, it's the diversity of housing challenges that we need as well. Yeah, absolutely. And and from that, you know, talking just about the infrastructure side of things, like we we could look at more of a regional collaboration and building more stronger systems maybe around the region of current, you know, even off of Highway 16. We've got so many sort of connectivities. I think sometimes we forget that we're we're a large province with a small population, lots of lots of room, but very similar issues when you go from town to town, which I'm sure from your experience, you know, you've seen in so just kind of grounding this back into Saskatchewan a little bit when when we're dealing with that demographic pressure and labor constraints and intense competition for the capital and talent, when when you look at regions, whether in Canada or elsewhere, what happens when an internal system like stays fragmented during moments like this? Are we losing opportunities? Are we missing the boat? Like, how do we stay competitive? So if I could answer the last part, I'd be a millionaire right now. How do we stay competitive? Because I I don't think there is an answer to that right now, and and I know that's probably not what you're looking for, but I'm gonna answer something a little go back to your part of your question here. I think we are seeing, and I I'm very cautious to say this, so I'm gonna try and use my words correctly here. I think we are seeing a society where we are seeing more movement towards large urban centers because that's where everything is. So, therefore, we're not seeing the growth that could happen in the smaller communities. You talk about the swift current to Moose Jaw to Regina Corridor. Like you go to this, the village of Chaplin, it is tourist economic hub. That aviator, that that salt mine is probably one of my favorite stops whenever I'm traveling through Saskatchewan because I stopped there. I probably don't spend as much money as I should while I'm there, but I do spend money while I'm in Chaplin. And you look at the areas where we could be building communities up along that Highway One corridor, you could do that in a way that's reasonable for the smaller communities to thrive and potentially bring economic development. I don't think. And I'm going to sort of ask you to get you to talk about the first part again because I'm I'm forgetting what you talked about past. So I'm just going to pause here for a second because I'm tongue-tied right now. So just pause for a second if you don't mind, Crystal. Can you say the first part of your question again? So what what happens when if we like what's going to happen if we're staying if we stay fragmented right now? Yeah. So going back to the very first part of your question, and I think this is the this, so we are recording this on the cusp of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities Convention that is happening in Edmonton, Alberta from June 4th to June 7th. So if this is out before before then, that's great. If it's out after, hey, we just got back from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities Convention. It will be out in June. Yeah. Sometime in June. I think this is the conversation that needs to happen. I I truly believe we are seeing a viability issue across Canada right now. And when I talk to smaller mayors and small town mayors or rural Reeves, I'm hearing the exact same thing. We're becoming less viable because more and more of our infrastructure money, but more and more of our economic drivers are going to more regional hubs. And that means we're losing out. Everyone has the same infrastructure challenges across Canada. You go talk to a mayor in British Columbia, a mayor in Saskatchewan, and a mayor of New Brunswick. You sit them all down on a roundtable discussion, you ask them what the big challenge is. It's paying for the aging infrastructure that they're having. And when you see more and more people leave a community and not see that that growth that municipalities kind of rely on, I don't want to say I'm not optimistic about the future of smaller communities, and that means less regionalization. I'm just concerned that we are potentially moving into a situation where we're going to see more and more smaller communities cease to exist and where do they go? Because if you look at, we're on the Saskatchewan show, so I'll just talk about Saskatchewan. If you look at the Saskatchewan evidence right now, I think the province has the responsibility to step in and say, okay, guys, we are taught we need to have a serious conversation about what the viability of our communities are and where we have to go from here as a province, but also as a municipal organization, SUMA and SARM. And I might get some strongly worded emails from this comment. But if we don't do it tomorrow, we might be too late. So I'm hopeful that the province is looking not just at the future of the province, but looking at the future of all these small town municipalities who need a helping hand, not a handout, a helping hand to ensure that their viability stays because people want to live in small-town communities. They want to build businesses there. They just don't have the opportunity to do it because of all the challenges that we've talked about. Housing, infrastructure. Do we have enough residents in the community to support a business like a bakery? I just take one example in particular. And the only reason I know this is because I was just there last summer and I think it is a fascinating story. In the village of Torquay, Saskatchewan, the former mayor and I are good friends, Mike Stracken. I think you and him are good well known as well. Last year there was a bakery that opened up. Family came from outside Torqueway and set up a bakery and a sort of convenience store. This is a huge win for their community. This is still a hub now for the entire regional area. A small town, a small village like Torquay, Saskatchewan, of less than 500 people that has a bakery. This is huge. And I'm feeling, and again, listening to mayors that I talk to, they just need a little bit of a hand. They just need someone to come in and start something up so their community doesn't feel as hard hit as it might have a year ago. So if you're looking at a good economic story, provinces, municipalities, look to the village of Torquay, Saskatchewan because Chef Kissed and Amazing Cheesecake, just FYI. Worth the drive. Yeah. It is the drive. So when I want like I wanna I wanna close and kind of wrap up this on an optimistic note. You know, I lived in British Columbia for a while, and they have regional districts, which you're probably very well familiar with that have been in place for a long, long time. And other provinces, I'm sure, have similar things, whether official or unofficialized. I sort of feel like in a way here in we in our province, we have sort of an unofficial regional collaboration. So from everything that you've seen and all the different people you've spoken to, what becomes possible when our our regions start to act as that integrated system where the cities and smaller communities really start to see themselves as part of the same growth strategy? I think the opportunities are boundless. I think municipalities and even communities of all sizes, of all backgrounds, urban, rural, and even First Nations, these we have to remember the First Nations part of this as well. Absolutely. Because we are on treaty lands, therefore we need to bring in treaty representatives, and we are treaty people, and the treaty first nations are there for a reason, and we need to ensure that their conversation, their commitment, but also their voice is heard at the table, and it's not just urban and rural, it's urban, rural, and first nations. So I just want to put that on the table as well. But I think, and this is my again to leave on the optimistic point, I think it's possible. I think any is anything is possible if we have a group of people who are willing to just put an ego aside, put the betterment of just their individualized municipality aside, and look at things as, like I said, it's not the generation of me anymore, it's the generation of we. We need to do this together. We can't sit in a silo and just do this by ourselves. I know I say silo a lot on the Saskatchewan show, so therefore people should know what I'm talking about. I I truly believe, and I truly believe the bet our better days are ahead of us. We're in this weird moment in time right now, with everything going on globally, with everything changing in the entire structure of how we do economic development from a global perspective to a more regionalized, to a more local perspective. I think our best days are ahead of us. And I I it and I'm gonna do a shameless plug here, and I know you're probably gonna do it in your intro and your extra, but I'm gonna do it as well. Reach out to the people of CETA for those who are listening to this, for municipal leaders across Saskatchewan who are listening to this, reach out to CETA because you the best thing I ever heard from a municipal leader is steal from the best, steal from your municipal colleagues, do not try to reinvent the wheel. If you see something good going on in another municipality, go ask them how did you do this? Guarantee 1000%, they will openly tell you what they did right and what they did wrong because they want you to be better than what they did. So that way the next person can learn from you and the next person can learn from them, and so on and so forth. So our best days are ahead of us. We just need to start looking at what's going on in our province and ensuring that what's happening up in Outlook may be able to be transposed into Jansen, Saskatchewan, or what's happening in Air Range might be able to work down in Kyle. So while we are so spread out, we are truly connected, and I think our better days are ahead of us. Thank you, Chris. Yeah, I 100% agree. Nothing new on the sun. Everyone, everyone's got similar challenges, and everyone's trying to do their very best for their communities and that. And I really appreciate the the expertise that you provide, and I and I so enjoy the conversations that you have with all of the different leaders. It's it's it's really started to to highlight not just what goes on within the communities, but also the passion that people have that run for leadership and that and and some of the challenges that they face as well. But yeah, nothing new under the sun. It's really great to be connected that way. So thank you so much for spending some time with us today in your busy schedule. I certainly appreciate it. Thank you so much.

Crystal Froese 30:49

What a great conversation that was with Christopher Brown, and a sincere thank you to him for sharing his insights and experiences from hundreds of conversations with leaders across Canada. Today's discussion challenged us to look beyond the myth of urban versus rural and consider what Saskatchewan could achieve when communities work together as part of a connected system. If this episode resonated with you, please share it with another leader, an elected official, an economic developer, or decision maker here in Saskatchewan. These conversations matter because the future of our province depends on our ability to think differently, collaborate more effectively, and build stronger communities together. To sign up for our companion blog and access more episodes in this series, just visit pathstoprosperity. And be sure to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts for more conversations that are coming that will help us shape Saskatchewan and our communities. I'm Crystal Froese. Thanks for listening to Paths to Prosperity.