Ontario Agriculture Minister Jeff Leal spoke to over 200 local youth and community leaders Wednesday in Stratford at the Rural Ontario Summit.
The summit is part of a dozen round-table meetings across the province on the subject of attracting and retaining youth to rural communities.
Leal stated that rural Ontario is an ideal location for many newcomers to the country who have extensive experience in agriculture from their countries of origin.
"We could create immigration portals in smaller communities in Ontario to make sure, as peoples from around the world they contact our Canadian embassies they contact our consulate general’s office to make sure that those portals, that that information is available to clearly give new Canadians coming in the choice to look at rural communities," he says.
Broadband connectivity has also been an ongoing issue in rural communities where private companies lack the financial incentive to extend service.
"Broadband connectivity of the 21st century, was the same as the transcontinental railroad of the 19th century and one of the ways we can build the country and build Ontario as we’ve been doing in making key investments in broadband connectivity, broadband infrastructure," says Leal. "We still have gaps and I think between the private sector entities the government of Canada and the province of Ontario we want to make sure that that infrastructure is in place because you can run an international business now from anywhere if you have that kind of capacity."
The summit highlighted key factors for reinforcing vibrant rural communities like broadband connectivity and government infrastructure investment.
Information from the summit can be found on Twitter using the hashtags #ROS16 and #RuralON.
Rural Ontario Forum in Stratford Wednesday, June 29th. (photo by Victor Young)
