1. Methodology
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Vitality is a collective aspiration as well as the product of individual activity. The study of the English-speaking community of the Lower North Shore followed a participatory approach by giving community leaders and stakeholders an opportunity to influence the design and implementation of the study. As in previous community studies engaging three French-speaking communities outside Quebec,8 we relied heavily on active community participation in the study to describe the target sectors. A provincial steering committee composed of eight leading community stakeholders (two from each region), representatives of the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages and the Qu’anglo Communications consulting team was created.
An orientation session with the steering committee was held to present an overview of the project, invite general input from each of the communities, and determine the timing and manner through which the consultations would be completed in each of the communities. During this orientation session, the steering committee members selected four sectors to best reflect the priorities of their respective communities, and these became the focus of consultation in each community. The steering committee was also asked to participate in the creation of task forces for each of the chosen sectors, specifically in developing selection criteria for the task force members and in the identification of potential candidates.
This study provided each of the three English-speaking communities with the opportunity to choose its own four priority sectors. It was therefore possible to see how the process and resulting logic model are adapted to different community circumstances. In the Lower North Shore, members of the steering committee chose the following sectors of activity:
| Sectors Selected for Study – Lower North Shore |
|---|
| Youth – Create the conditions conducive to attracting young people to remain on or return to the Lower North Shore to pursue their career and family aspirations. |
| Health and Social Services – Provide essential health care and social services on ‘the Coast’, and ensure access, outside of the Lower North Shore, to those services not available locally in the English language. |
| Community Renewal – Re-build the region’s human and social capital after several decades of demographic decline. |
| Economic Development – Generate employment opportunities and economic wealth that provide the foundation for engaged individuals, self-sufficient families and sustainable communities. |
For the community consultation on the Lower North Shore, a task force of leading community stakeholders was created, composed of 21 participants who were active community members or experts in a certain sector. These individuals were selected for their ability to describe the community development activities, short- and long-term results, best practices and the needs of their community. Despite the remote nature of the Lower North Shore communities, the task force for the region was the largest of the three and reflected the keen desire of these communities to participate in a collective development process when given the opportunity.
The community task force session was held at the Municipal Building in Blanc-Sablon on May 24, 2007. The session was in workshop format and included a general discussion on the concept of vitality as well as a structured discussion on the main elements of vitality and indicators, and how they apply to the activity sectors identified by the community. The community task force session was followed by validation sessions with subgroupings of the task force held at the offices of CJAS community radio station in St-Augustin on August 7, the offices of the Coasters Association in St-Paul’s River on August 9, and the office of the Centre local de développement in Blanc-Sablon on August 10, 2007.9 These were supplemented by
e-mail and telephone contributions to the session findings.
Notes
8 Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages, Vitality Indicators for Official Language Communities 1: Francophones in Urban Settings, Ottawa, 2007.
9 The validation process was conducted with sub-groupings as a practical consideration related to the remote nature of the communities, which are not all connected by road. The consultant visited the three locations and met with small groups of some of the task force participants rather than bringing them all back to one location by air transport.
