to the Man and Resourses Con- ference . ‘ '

Fred von Dreger U.P.E.I. ‘

Prince Edward Island has been undergoing a process of social and political "underdevelopment" or , \ gg-development" which is at least-as if not in fact much more compre- hensive, much more mean— ingful and therefore mud1 broader and greater in its importance than sim— ply the "standard of living", in purely econ-‘

_omic terms. So even if the "standard of living", the average personal in— come of Islanders with respect to other areas of Canada, were "going up", that alone would evidently be a poor and completely inadequate measurement of Island "development". Unfortun— ately, even that is not the case. Only on some absolute purely quant— itative basis of the amount of money which Athe Islander today can spend on "goods and. services" in comparison to the amount he or his father had years ago, cansone establish any positive correlation. And even this applies Only to Islanders "on the average", while there are clearly a number who have/gained more and many who have lost ground in relation to their fathers and fore- fathers.

On the social and polit-' ical levels, the losses arelvery evident and very serious. I need not.

reiterate these in de-‘

tail but simply point to some of the symptoms and examples: partiC1— pation in municipal

' ,‘C‘ifile'nl’u :r igi

ANotes for the P.E.I. Delegates

Rahal“

politics: the lack of citizen participation at the grass—roots level

referred to by so many individuals and organi— zations including\the R.D.C., the Brothers and Sisters of Cornelius Howatt, and several re* cent speeches by our Provincial Premier: cf. particularly Community Eartnsrshin, March 15. 1973: and Between Two ‘Cultures, May 28, 1973 the "revised budgeting" in the first amendment to the P.E.I. Development Plan which cut the "Pub— lic Participation and , Involvement" budget rough- ly in half: the "pass- ive.spectatorV attitude during political speeches at local meetings compared to the active questioning of years ago: the "we- they" dichotomy between ‘ people and their govern— ment which is appropriate to authoritarian but not _ liberal-democratic‘systems. On the broad cultural, ethical and human level: the losses are enormous, devastating and critical. (It may soon be appro-

flpriate to declare a "pro—

vincial emergency"!) Under-development and "de- development" perhaps do their worst not in the economic, but in the cult- ural destruction of the hinterland. On the Met—

" ropolis - Hinterland thesis

and its impact on the economy and society of the Maritimes in particular, see respectively Peter Usher, Metropolis and Hinterland (mimeographed) and Bruce Archibald, "Atlantic Regional Under- development and Socialism" in L. Lapierre et al, . Essays on the Left, Toronto

\ V

THE CADRE, TUES;, OCT. 30/73

(I Saciql Value;

6

Page 5

1971.

Cultural disintegration and the decay of values are insiduous and treacherous processes which manifest themselves in both social and personal terms in re— lation to a way of life, a set of values, and a code of ethics. Again, I

_ can refer only to some symptoms and examples: Foremost, perhaps, is the fact that be omes a mere commodity to e sold to the highest bidder: the land dunes and beaches be come money-makers in the tourist industry: educat- ional programmes are cal-

-culated in terms of econ- omic "efficiency": and work is only something you do to make money or to gain econ— omic advantage over someone else. By the same token, human beings who are not capable of making their own way or of keeping up with the race for the dollar are classified as "dys- functional" (sic!) people: the individual who contrib- utes of his time and talentq

.for any other reason than solely that of "making money" is probably consid— ered stupid, at.best "nai— ve", and certainly suspect: (there must be something

.wrong with you if you're

‘willing to "work for noth— ing": and "nothing" here clearly means "no money");

:Values such as dignity, respect, integrity and trust - insofar as they

bring no monetary return - become strictly — speaking

."worthless". Agriculture is only one way of making

_money, not a way of life. Identical box houses in

‘sterile "sub—divisions" or expanding in monotonous ribbons from town deep into

countryside are the least- expensive containers for lpeople, with little or no consideration for the aes— thetics of architecture and ~the landscape, for social

.and community planning, or

for the psychological de- mensions of human space. The terms of what these are worth to the tourist in— dustry in terms of dollar income: in their own right the values inherent in the work that creates that pat- tern of land, the sense of

-sharing and-common purpose

that form communities, and the feeling of responsibil— ity and pride that Islanders feel for their own province, become "discounted" and dis— carded as outmoded remnants of a "backward" past.

Under such conditions, Is- landers react in different ways: some adapt themselves to the economic competition and become "functional"; some others "go under" and become "dysfunctional".

Acon'ton pg.9