Demographics, Social Change and Outmigration on Digby Neck

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Demographics, Social Change and Outmigration on Digby Neck Learning to stay: Demographics, social change and outmigration on Digby Neck Submission to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency Environmental Assessment Panel Whites Point Quarry and Marine Terminal Project June 27, 2007 Michael Corbett Acadia University Introduction In our last submission to the panel Tony Kelly and I critiqued the methodology of the socioeconomic analysis presented in the Bilcon Environmental Impact Study (EIS). We raised several concerns, none of which was addressed in any follow-up material from Bilcon that I have seen. It is my hope that the panel will take very seriously our critique of the social science methodology. I am resubmitting this document because it fits together with the analysis contained in this piece. I continue to believe that the social science components of the Bilson EIS are deeply flawed. Since this critique is already a matter of record, I would like in this presentation to present some data and analysis from my own surveys and from Census Canada microdata. Reference to the slides in this presentation should be cross-referenced with the Power Point document that I have included with this presentation. All references, tables and the framework of my analysis here come from my book Corbett (2007a). I submitted a copy of the book to the panel at the time of my presentation. I should also like to point out that this study has also been documented in a number of peer-reviewed education and social science journals which I can provide to the panel upon request (Corbett, 2001, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007b, 2007c). 1 Demographic change on Digby Neck The general nature of the socioeconomic argument in the Bilcon EIS is fairly simple to summarize. Digby Neck is in permanent decline due to the collapse of the fishery. There is no analysis of this phenomenon, it is presented as a fact of life. The argument then continues with the claim that this basket-case rural economy could be rescued by the Bilcon quarry project. Then finally, and this is the bulk of the EIS documentation, Bilcon argues that things will all be fine and the project will result in virtually no significant environmental damage that cannot be mitigated. So, nature will be protected, and the plants, trees, animals, fish, ground water, etc. etc. will be just fine. As for the people, things will be much better because they will be put to work. (Slide 1) However, the demographic changes on Digby Neck are not quite as simple as Bilcon suggests. The population of Digby Neck overall was relatively stable from the 19th century until the early 1980s when it began to decline. Slide 1 shows village level population change between 1951 and 1991 when Census Canada ceased publishing the Bulletin detailing population counts for unincorporated places. My questions were: who left, who stayed, why, and where they go when they left? I expected to find that by the 80s and 90s when the crisis in the fishery was the news story about coastal communities, that most young people would be long gone. (Slide 2) Well yes and no. What I found is that from the early 1960s to the late 1990s that while only about 30% of people who grew up on Digby Neck remained there, a little more than 60% overall remained living within 50 km of where they were born. It is indeed a fact that Digby Neck, like many other parts of rural Canada, has undergone a radical transformation in the past half century. (Slide 2A) Part of this change has been a change in the numbers and types of people found in the communities. A number of factors are in play here including the list on the slide on the screen. These transformations have indeed had demographic implications. People no longer tend to live in the communities in which they were born. New people arrive from other places. Jobs are created and others are lost. Each of the above forces has created new challenges and new opportunities. In some ways, there is nothing new here. The Stirling County Study found the same pattern in the early 1950s when outmigration was a principal concern for the people of Digby County. It is still the case today. (Slide 3) To connect my analysis to these historical transformations I separated the 36 graduating classes I studied into 3 cohorts. These cohorts represent three distinct periods in the modern socioeconomic history of the community from the point of view of local people. The cohorts reflect the transition from a primarily small boat fishery (early 1960s through early 1970s) through the industrialization of the fishery (mid 1970s to the late 1980s) through to a period of decline in the ground fishery (late 1980s and 1990s). 2 What I found is that throughout the period a cadre of “survivors” remained on Digby Neck. (Slide 4) In terms of raw demographics, I have found this group to be a minority, but an important and resilient one. Surprisingly, the size of this group actually grew from 26% in Cohort 1 to 33% in Cohort 3. This core group has been augmented by another group with which the panel has become acquainted. These people are known locally as the “summer people” and some of them have actually become full-time residents of Digby Neck. Like the resilient 30%, this group of people defends the way of life and the natural beauty, peace and quiet that drew them to the Neck in the first place. There is a third group representing another 30% of the population I studied. (Slide 5) These are people who no longer live on Digby Neck proper, but who remain living within 50 km of the Neck. Combined with the 30% core, approximately 60% of the total group I studied still lives within 50 km of where they were born, mostly in and around the town of Digby. In fact, the cohort of the 1980s and 90s is actually less likely to migrate further than 50 km than older cohorts. In the youngest cohort I studied, those who reached high school graduation age between 1987 and 1998, more than ¾ of males were still living in the 50 km zone. I resurveyed this group in 2005 and found that this percentage was around 74%. So while there is outmigration, much of it has been quite localized, particularly in recent years. To me this does not suggest a broken economy, but rather, one which has transformed spatially from a highly localized village-centric fishery to a more dispersed regionalized one. Parts of this economy have grown in parallel with the expansion of government and private sector services. Health care workers, teachers, social services people, insurance people, accountants, and others whose work is concentrated in the regional service centre of Digby have been part of this demographic. In terms of actual population, Census Canada provides the most complete picture available. Before sharing Census Canada microdata I want to show you how these data are constructed. (Slide 6) The smallest demographic unit available is what is now known as the census dissemination area (enumeration area in 1996). I want to issue a caution here because the dissemination area I call western Digby Neck, which includes the communities most directly affected by the quarry project, also includes part of Long Island. You can see the actual boundaries on the map. In this area, it is difficult to separate Digby Neck from Long Island. (Slide 7) In the case of Digby Neck, Census Canada microdata provide a picture of a community that is declining in terms of population like most of rural Nova Scotia. This should be expected. Family size has decreased and the number of people employed in the fishery has declined. As I pointed out above, due to the transformation of the local economy, many services and jobs have now migrated to Digby and three-quarters of the men in the youngest cohort and 55% of the women remain within 50 km. 3 Actual population in the villages adjacent to the quarry is really a matter of speculation, at least from the point of view of the data I have been able to gather. So let’s assume that half of the population in what I’m calling Western Digby Neck is living on Long Island between Tiverton and Central Grove. The other half is living on Digby Neck between Mink Cove and East Ferry. My guess is that more people actually live on the Digby Neck side given that there were 467 people living in the villages of Mink Cove, Little River, Tiddville, Whale Cove and East Ferry in 1991. Given my assumptions, this would mean that about 956 people are now living on Digby Neck, about 10% fewer than the 1055 living there in 1991. This is a significant decline but not a precipitous one for an isolated community in rural Nova Scotia. It is one thing to say that people have survived. (Slide 8) But how well have they survived? The panel has heard conflicting testimony about this. Some of this testimony fits in with the general discourse of rural decline that is very familiar in the media. But I think most of the testimony you have heard comes from people who seem to feel as though things are not totally desperate on Digby Neck. This slide illustrates average individual incomes for each of the three subregions of Digby Neck. As you can see, average incomes for men in Western Digby Neck are well above those of the town of Digby and the West Nova federal riding which encompasses everything from Argyle on the South Shore to Waterville in the Annapolis Valley.
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