The Rural Voice, 1991-08, Page 27"It seems to me we should be
decentralizing back the other way to
provide a stronger economic and pop-
ulation base in some of our local com-
munities," Shamley adds. Instead,
removing necessary services from
small towns, combined with poor re-
turns from farming, is forcing more
people to leave the country.
"We need to protect our farm
families so that we don't need to
rely on other countries to provide
food."
"I think we need to protect our
farmland and protect our farm families
so that we don't need to rely on other
countries to provide the foodstuffs in
our grocery stores in the coming
years," says Shamley.
One of the paying jobs Shamley
holds is teaching part of a rural social
work course at King's College. A
recurring issue in that course is the
debate over centralized versus decen-
tralized services.
"There's a good portion of the
class that thinks people should come
to the city for services because you
can provide better services, you have
better facilities, you attract a higher
quality professional staff in cities ..."
"I have always maintained that
those of us who live in small towns
and rural communities have every bit
as much right to quality services
where we live, as the people who live
in urban areas, and only when that's a
generally recognized philosophy will
we begin to look at the other issues
that are there for rural people."
When Shamley returned to Wards -
vile a decade ago, she applied for
unemployment insurance. "Basically,
I was told that as long as I chose to
live in a rural community, I wasn't
serious about a job search." Because
she wouldn't move to London or buy a
car, she was penalized with a six-week
suspension of benefits.
"I tried to explain to the counsellor
that I had no money to buy a car and
no money to move to the city. Does
everybody who lives in a rural com-
munity have to go through that?" she
asks.
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