Rethinking Lifestyle

A few weeks ago in this column, Eric Rempel challenged us to think about what a Homestead Act for the 21st century would look like. The first Homestead Act, called the Dominion Lands Act in Canada offered to give (for a $10 administration fee) every person over 18 years old, including women who were leaders of a household, 160 acres of land with an additional 160 acres available for another $10 fee. In order to get a title of ownership you had to “prove” the land which meant live there for at least three years, plow up at least 40 acres of the 160 and build a permanent dwelling on the land.

The purpose of the Dominion Lands Act was to settle the prairie in Western Canada and to prevent the possibility of the United States taking possession of the land. The act was controversial at the time because Canada was short of funds and had not provided compensation to the indigenous nations for taking the land.

Western Canadian towns, villages and rural areas are seeing continuing declines in population, where Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta now have only 18% of Canada’s population but 81% of the farm land. In all of Canada over 80% of people now live in urban areas, further exacerbating the Western Canada rural population decline. These rural Western Canadian trends are expressing themselves as hospital and school closures and in grocery stores, churches and other service sectors disappearing.

This trend could be, and I believe should be, reversed with a new Homestead Act for the 21st century. The intent of the new Homestead Act would be twofold: allow the significant number of people who want to farm to get access to land; and to allow people wishing to work from a rural location access to a good internet connection.

My new Homestead Act would require living on the land for 10 years instead of the original 3 years to prevent land speculation. After living in a rural location for 10 years, many connections and friendships would have developed as well as suitable infrastructure, reducing the desire to move back to a city. One of my rural friends said that initially she thought rural living would be lonely and lacking in entertainment opportunities but she discovered that the further away you move from a city the more people become your entertainment; the coffee pot is always on. Of course, excellent internet service to all of Canada would be a requirement for the success of my Homestead Act as would available land. I do not have the space to develop the land issue here.

There is another concern that a new Homestead Act could help address. Gwynne Dyer raises this concern in his book Climate Wars. In 2008 he predicted that in 15 to 20 years there would be many refugees looking for a new home, many of them climate refugees. Rural Canada would make a great home, not only for Canadians that want to move from urban to rural areas but also for refugees from other countries. Currently we produce a lot of food, exporting about one half of all we produce. As energy and transportation costs rise it would make sense to bring the people to the food rather than bringing the food to the people. Canada also has the world’s best water supply as well as many other natural resources to meet the needs of an increased population. Let’s revitalize the rural west.