From Spontaneity To Autonomy: On The Community Development In Canada

Community in Canada is not only a place for residents to live, but also their participation in space activities. Canadian community has now established a relatively perfect system through the development of more than one hundred years. In essence, community is a regional community-based society, in which people are the main body, and by relying on these people up in the geographical sense of belonging, or feelings of a common relationship, they form a community in the context of a specific time. Generally speaking, the development of Canadian community can be divided into five stages.Initially, some regions in Canada emerged cooperatives or credit unions and other community forms which were formed by the residents spontaneously in order to survive or to seek a better way of life. In the 19th century, farmers on Prince Edward Island started their own bank which helped the poor to save and to obtain low interest loans, and the Nova Scotia Acadian established the cooperative against fishing monopoly. In two to three decades on behalf of the twentieth century, three early community development ventures wrote the history of adult education as well as that of community development.In five or six decades on behalf of the twentieth century, the Canadian government began to intervene in community development, there were a interaction between the government and community. The government saw communities as an elixir which led the social change and development, as a cheap, safe way of tackling rural and Indian development problems. Indian Affairs launched a community development program to encourage self-help on the reserves. Provincial governments also started to set up community colleges. The community development appeared with "top-down" intervention in this period.In the early seventies, the government began to doubt about development of the community. When communities became too competent, governments began to worry that things were getting out of control. Thus, communities of interest prevailed. Some of them were temporary, which people formed around a specific threat or issue. The other were the institutional group which had continuity, stable leadership and wide membership. The government and some communities reached an agreement that the community came forward to tackle the problem which government faced and had difficulty to solve, funded by the government or aid. Some communities looked to the government for support for their activities, worked together with the government, even turned into lap dogs.The eighties was the era of community economic development. With the deteriorating economy and the failure to increase employment, governments began to promote community economic development as the solution to the problems of slow growth, high unemployment in Canada. There were two types of community-based economic development organizations, community development corporation and community economic development corporation. In this period, government in Canada suddenly discovered the volunteer ethic, in other words, people to enjoy social welfare in society must take part in public welfare services for others, the volunteers appeared.After four stages of development, till the nineties the community of Canada has eventually finished their own definition, from cooperatives which were formed by residents initially to the partner of government. In addition to the participation of government agencies, the community maintains independent functioning, and plays an important role in social services. Canadian community developing to this stage is not the loss of autonomy, but from spontaneity to autonomy.