Every Tuesday, The duty offers a space to the creators of a periodical. This week, we offer you a text published in Quebec geography notebooksvolume 66, number 186.
After a period of strong scientific and political interest, regional development has become rather secondary. Territorial analyzes have turned considerably towards cities, metropolises and megacities. It is true that the former regional gap in terms of living conditions was largely made up for, in the West, by government interventions. In the process, the traditional economic sectors were structured, although without industrial maturation.
To this end, recent strategies deduced from theoretical contributions were insufficient to truly renew public policy, itself less pressured by generally cooled regionalism. Too bad, because the peripheral regions everywhere illustrate a worrying problem with regard to the inhabitants, the natural environment, the economy, and governance. Scientific observation and analysis remain essential.
The metropolisation movement has become powerful on the planet. Largely rural until recently, the world population of 10 billion people in 2060 will be more than 60% urban. And this, despite the increased occupation of new peripheral areas, particularly in the Amazon. Quebec is an eloquent example in this regard. Covering more than 80% of the national territory, peripheral regions represented 7% of Quebec’s population in 1851. This ratio rose to 17% in 1961, before subsequently falling to 10% in 2021. This declining population will reach 7% in 2050, despite the strong indigenous population.
However, the peripheries are clearly increasingly exploited in their reserves of accessible resources. According to a United Nations working group (Izabella Teixeira and Janez Potocnik), the extraction of natural resources from planetary peripheries has more than tripled over the last five decades. But the job was not up to par.
In this regard, note that in 2021 only 10% of the 89,000 agricultural workers recorded in 1940 remain in Quebec. The trend is similar for all sectors of traditional activities in the periphery, despite the increase in volumes extracted from raw materials. For example, the delivery of one million tons of iron required 459 workers in 1950, 153 in 2010 and only 51 in 2020.
This decreasing human work in operations that have become technological no longer justifies the construction of human establishments which formerly generated local socio-economic takeoffs and the retention of part of the wealth created in the operating areas. From now on, we are setting up sophisticated platforms like those that pump oil on the high seas. We welcome migrant workers on a so-called “work-study” basis. fly-in fly-out » coming largely from large urban centers, where we draw on various expertise to fill the shuttles. The extracted resources are delivered in or near raw state.
In Quebec, the hydroelectric production of the La Romaine River offers a perfect illustration of this dislocation between extraction and valorization of the resource. With the use of artificial intelligence, there is no doubt that this new regional model will become more established compared to that of old boom towns such as Val-d’Or, Fermont and other Chibougamau.
In reality, the development of raw materials only takes place very little in the outskirts, even though they have a quality living environment at great expense. However, for this purpose, the classic repelling factors such as the distance to be covered and high labor costs are much less imposing than before. In addition and not least, many young families want to settle in quality places with access to excellent education, health, cultural and leisure services.
The outskirts of Quebec offer these hospitable conditions. All that remains for the government is to direct the development of resources within the regions where they are extracted. The rule to be enacted could be included in the very current planning of the immense renewable energy production project which will largely take place in the outskirts.
In the contemporary context of changes and transitions, Quebec requires a new regional vision that will take into account real trends concerning the natural environment, accessibility and mobility, indigenous and non-indigenous populations, integration factors in the global market. Such a futuristic vision could inspire new interventions to assist public, private and collective decision-makers to grasp, classify and gauge regional priorities lacking a truly ambitious but realistic overall community project.
Comments or suggestions for Ideas in Review? Write to Dave Noël: [email protected].