11   Integrated Action and Community Empowerment

Building Relationships of Solidarity in Magog, Québec

Jacques Caillouette

In this chapter, I explore the question of how small cities develop into genuine communities. Drawing on examples from a municipality in Québec, I argue that a greater degree of cohesion among local actors will enhance the capacity of small cities to take charge of their future. In practice, then, a crucial challenge for such cities is to succeed in developing a sense of community that will allow these various actors to engage in collective action. My argument does not assume that small cities inherently constitute communities. On the contrary, as in the case of larger centres, small cities can experience several forms of breakdown. Social fragmentation can undermine cohesive action, as can the marginalization of certain social groups. Similarly, tensions among groups of actors who hold competing interests or visions can discourage the development of collaborative projects. This lack of cohesion is especially apparent in top-down, bureaucratic approaches, founded on a business model, that leave no scope for citizen participation and pay no attention to local communities, thereby undermining their vitality.

For a municipality to become a community, however, more than simply a process of integration is needed: a process of inclusion must occur as well. In many cases, certain groups are marginalized, and these marginalized populations, as well as organizations working in close contact with them, need to be included in the community. In the context of their model of integrated community development, Frank Moulaert and Jacques Nussbaumer (2008, 103, 109) refer to the need to build local relationships of integration through “actions in support” (“actions en faveur”) of the active participation of marginalized populations. Aside from efforts to improve government assistance programs, what matters is to move beyond the fragmentation of local spheres of activity caused by the presence of multiple organizations and by management procedures designed with specific sectors in mind. I agree with Jean-Eudes Beuret and Anne Cadoret (2010, 153), who argue, with regard to France, that an urgent need exists for the “defragmentation” of local areas, with the goal of moving beyond a “mosaic-like” approach to management.1 In short, the challenge is to arrive at an experience of community as a “shared social reality” (Day 2006, 154) constructed through the actions of all those who reside in a given area.

To illustrate my comments, I turn in what follows to the small city of Magog, which is located in the regional county municipality (RCM), of Memphrémagog, one of six RCMs in Québec’s administrative region of Estrie. I focus specifically on two examples: first, the cross-sectoral interventions developed by the city and its RCM in response to massive job losses in the community in the early 2000s and, second, the more recent adoption by Memphrémagog’s Centre de santé et de services sociaux (CSSS; Centre for Health and Social Services) of an internal policy pertaining to the role of the CSSS in the development of the communities it serves.2 These illustrations will then enable me to tackle community cohesion as an issue central to the vitality of small cities, both in the province of Québec and elsewhere.

Integrated Action in Response to Job Losses in Magog

The RCM of Memphrémagog is located at the western end of the administrative region of Estrie, which encompasses most of the area formerly known as the Eastern Townships. In addition to the city of Magog, the RCM includes the town of Stanstead and eight municipalities, among them Eastman and North Hatley (see figure 11.1). Covering more than 1,300 square kilometres, Memphrémagog is noted for its numerous lakes and mountains. At the time of the 2011 census (when this research was completed), roughly 48,500 people lived in the RCM, more than half of them (25,358) in Magog, a city that serves as the economic, commercial, and industrial hub of the region.

Figure 11.1. The Memphrémagog RCM and environs

Since the early 2000s, Magog’s industrial sector has largely been dismantled. In May 2005, the Olymel plant, specializing in the processing of deli meats, announced that it would permanently cease operations by the end of the year, and over the following months the company laid off more than five hundred employees. These layoffs came on top of other job losses, with a total of 1,746 manufacturing jobs vanishing between 2003 and the end of 2005 (Caron 2010). Given Magog’s total population of about 23,000 at the time, this meant that a large proportion of its population was affected by the layoffs. Other massive job losses occurred between 2007 and 2009, following the Olymel shutdown, the most noteworthy being the permanent closing of a textiles manufacturer, CS Brooks (500 jobs), GDX Automotive (400 jobs), and the Québecor printing plant (400 jobs) (Caron 2010).

News of the layoffs sent a shock wave throughout the entire Memphrémagog RCM. The implications were especially grave for the city of Magog, which faced the loss of numerous quality jobs for its residents. Commenting on the magnitude of the situation, a spokesperson from the Memphrémagog CSSS stated: “The loss of more than a thousand jobs in a city of a little over 20,000 people—that’s huge. There’s a risk that our working class, which is basically our middle class, will fall apart.”3 Spurred by a feeling of urgency, economic and social, the various stakeholders in the region joined forces in response to the crisis.

Even before the Olymel plant officially ceased operations, cross-sectoral links were created, in this case between the employment and social services sectors. The Human Resources Department of the Olymel plant contacted the manager of the Community Services Program at the Memphrémagog CSSS to request that support be provided within the plant prior to its shutdown, thereby affording the CSSS an opportunity to develop an approach based on locating services within the workplace itself. A social worker was assigned to the Olymel plant, articles were produced for the local newspaper dealing with the various problems that could be experienced as a result of job loss, workers were provided with directories of community resources, and information booths were available at mealtimes on all shifts.

The Comité de soutien au milieu

Immediately following news of the impending layoffs at Olymel, the mayor of Magog called upon various community stakeholders to establish an economic recovery committee for the region—the Comité de relance économique. Apart from the representative from the Memphrémagog CSSS that was quoted above, most of those mobilized were drawn from the economic sector, including the Centre local d’emploi and the Centre local de développement, as well as Développement économique Québec and the Economic Development Agency of Canada. The roughly twenty members of the committee also included representatives from the school board and the municipal government, as well as a number of elected officials (municipal, provincial, and federal). The committee began by establishing a plan of action that gave priority to the creation of new employment opportunities, to compensate for the jobs lost.

In June, another committee—the Comité de soutien au milieu (Community Support Committee)—was created. This committee, which was coordinated by a community organizer from the Memphrémagog CSSS, set three objectives for itself (CSSSM 2005, 1). The first was to develop an understanding of the psychosocial needs of those who had been laid off in order to identify collaborative strategies that would help these workers cope with the stress of job loss. The willingness to engage in collaborative action was integral to this first objective, and the other two objectives reaffirmed this direction. The committee’s second aim was to ensure that all those involved viewed the current situation from a holistic perspective, economic as well as social, and its third was to establish links between partners from the social services sector and those working in other areas, such as the Comité de relance (Recovery Committee) and the subcommittee the Comité d’aide au reclassement (Employment Transition Committee). As these objectives illustrate, in its efforts to provide support for unemployed workers, the Comité de soutien au milieu embraced an integrated vision that was global in nature as opposed to narrowly sectoral.

The makeup of the Comité de soutien au milieu was likewise strongly cross-sectoral. In addition to the mayor of Magog, it included representatives from the Memphrémagog CSSS, the local MP’s office, the municipal housing office, the education sector, and several community organizations, including the Corporation de développement communautaire (Community Development Corporation). According to members of the Comité de soutien au milieu, interaction among the various participants was conducive to mutual understanding and to learning how to work collectively from a broad perspective, rather than in isolation. As one member observed:

As members of this committee, the various participants have an opportunity to talk to each other, to learn about their respective missions and about what they do. They might say: “Ah! So that’s what you do. I could refer people to you . . .” And that’s extremely important because one of the major challenges in developing partnerships involves knowing what’s in place and what all is being done.4

Although the Comité de soutien au milieu focused on social needs, it was closely linked to the Comité de relance économique, whose mission was essentially economic. This linkage enabled actors from the social services sector to demonstrate the relevance of their own field of action to economic matters.

As members of the Comité de soutien au milieu, those from the field of social services had the opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge and practical skills and were thus able to enter more effectively into dialogue with those from the economic field, a process that served to validate both their expertise and their way of approaching problems. As one member of the committee, someone, not from CSSS, who represented a coalition of community organizations, put it:

I am a firm believer in partnership, especially socioeconomic partnerships. If people from the social and economic fields don’t come together, no real solution will ever be found. [. . .] I think it’s very important that stakeholders from these two fields learn to interact and discover that, in many ways, they are very much alike. [. . .] The very fact that the Comité de soutien au milieu existed meant that discussions didn’t just focus on an economic recovery plan; social concerns were addressed as well, and social stakeholders also had a role to play.5

These crossovers between the social and economic spheres helped to foster relationships that, in the medium term, were integral to the development of coordinated interventions on the part of multiple actors, that were more holistic in nature and comprehensive in scope.

All in all, the job losses in Magog seem to have driven local agencies and organizations to develop new structures and innovative ways to deal with the crisis. The result was an approach that, through the partnerships it fostered and upon which it also drew, contributed to the consolidation of a community capable of mounting an integrated response.

The Guide de l’aidant

One of the initiatives of the Comité de soutien au milieu was to develop a guide for the families and friends of those who had been laid off. Titled Guide de l’aidant: Comment soutenir une personne qui vit des difficultés reliées à une perte d’emploi (MRC Memphrémagog 2006; A Guide for Those Who Care: How to Support Someone Who Is Experiencing Difficulties as a Result of Job Loss), the guide outlines the basic principles of a helping relationship, as well as offering advice about how to react appropriately and safely to potentially aggressive behaviour. In the description of a Memphrémagog CSSS staff member, the guide “provides basic ideas about how to listen to a distressed person for those who are not members of a helping profession but are rather a neighbour, a brother, or a colleague who used to work on the same assembly line.”6

The Guide de l’aidant well illustrates the power of the process of network construction made possible through the work of the Comité de soutien au milieu. The guide is addressed not to individuals who have lost their job but rather to members of their support networks. In other words, the guide is not aimed directly at people in their role as the beneficiaries or consumers of social services but rather as active players in community affairs. Its fundamental goal is to provide people with the tools they need to engage actively and collaboratively with their fellow citizens and to reinforce and empower the networks that support persons who have lost their job. As a member of the Memphrémagog CSSS staff put it:

What was innovative about this project is that it allowed us to reach out to all those in the community who were personally affected by the problem—affected not because they had lost their job but because they knew a neighbour or friends who had. In that sense, while the guide helped to enable all community members to support those who had lost their jobs, it also enabled organizations to make a contribution over and above their involvement in the Comité de soutien au milieu.7

As a result, the Guide de l’aidant allowed community members to transition from the user mode, in which an individual is viewed as a client who consumes services, to one of engagement, in which individuals become citizens capable of acting together in solidarity. Both through what it proposes and where—people helping people, in the ordinary settings of daily life—the guide aims to strengthen community cohesion and to nurture relationships that will enable these communities to become spaces within which their members can find support and grow. Speaking about the guide’s impact, a member of the Memphrémagog CSSS’s managerial staff commented:

I am thinking of my hairdresser, who told me how much she appreciated having such a tool, since she didn’t know how to react when people started discussing their problems. Now people are able to make a response. In that sense, it empowers all those many people who want to help others, even if, at times, they’re still not quite sure what to do.8

All in all, the Guide de l’aidant—in the way that it was produced, circulated, and used—encouraged the formation of social bonds. Not only did it contribute to the forging of relationships among actors from various sectors, as well as between residents and the resources locally available to them, but it also created bonds of solidarity among community members themselves.

The Guide de l’aidant is but one illustration. The Comité de soutien au milieu designed other interventions as well, which, if space allowed, could likewise be used to demonstrate how certain strategies work to promote integration among the various actors within a community. But let us turn instead to another example, one that reveals how, in a small city such as Magog, a public agency can strengthen local cohesion by revising its mode of operation.

A Policy of Support for Local Self-Direction

Any public agency or institution has the potential to help build the capacity of local communities to assume control over their own affairs. In April 2011, the Memphrémagog CSSS adopted an internal policy (CSSSM 2011) pertaining to its role within the communities it serves, one founded on an emerging perception of itself as an agency rooted in local territory and fundamentally cross-sectoral in nature. In accordance with this policy, in its work within these communities the CSSS presents itself as one among many local actors who interact with one another. In positioning itself in this way, the CSSS seeks to ensure that its actions will contribute to the empowerment of the communities that fall within its jurisdiction.

The approach adopted by the Memphrémagog CSSS rests on what might be described as a “territorial” vision. In Québec, a “regional county municipality” (RCM) is generally home to a number of specific municipalities, each of which in turn contains multiple communities. Moreover, because the term community is applied at a variety of territorial scales, a “community” can in fact encompass a great many local communities. This understanding informs the policy developed by the Memphrémagog CSSS, which defines the organization’s “territory” as consisting of numerous communities with which it is brought into association in the course of its work. As the policy recognizes, the planning process can occur either at the local level (a municipality or even a specific neighbourhood) or at the supralocal level of the RCM itself. In other words, stakeholders act and interact at various territorial scales. By reframing the populations it serves as its territorial affiliates, the Memphrémagog CSSS positions itself as an agent capable of enhancing the power of those communities to take action on their own behalf.

The policy adopted by the Memphrémagog CSSS identifies three modes of action, one structural, one cross-sectoral, and one relating to reinforcement. In its structural activities, the Memphrémagog CSSS assumes a dynamic role in the life of the territory it serves, seeking to contribute to its overall vitality. This is particularly the case in the area of economic growth, where the CSSS views itself as a partner in the creation of jobs and economic opportunities for local residents and businesses. By developing home-based services, social housing projects, and specialized clinics, for example, the CSSS aims to help “shape the local environment and increase its appeal, while at the same time creating jobs” (“à structurer le milieu de vie et à le rendre plus attrayant tout en créant de nombreux emplois”: CSSSM 2011, 3).

In its cross-sectoral activities, the Memphrémagog CSSS works to foster new partnerships among the various stakeholders within its territory. The CSSS seeks to play a proactive role in planning by remaining on the lookout for approaches that contribute to the development of communities as a whole—approaches that involve citizen participation and that “call upon all the sectors of activity within a given milieu (economic, educational, community-based, and so on)” (“interpellent l’ensemble des secteurs d’activités du milieu [économique, éducatif, communautaire, etc.]”: CSSSM 2011, 4). In addition, in establishing a network of health and social services within its territory, the CSSS aims for a more local understanding of existing needs, one in keeping with a cross-sectoral orientation and that also provides scope for community participation. Its goal is to forge cross-sectoral partnerships and to remain responsive to the needs of the community members who use its services.

In its reinforcing role, the Memphrémagog CSSS seeks to adopt a nonbureaucratic approach that will serve to strengthen existing community networks. By engaging in actions that more closely resemble the way that people naturally operate within local networks, the CSSS hopes to reinforce the power of these networks. As the policy indicates, in its interactions with families, schools, daycare centres, seniors’ residences, medical clinics, community organizations, and the like, the CSSS aims to conduct itself in a more spontaneous manner, a way that allows for “more spontaneous actions (at the very moment when needs become apparent and an intervention is first undertaken), while at the same time working to decrease the cumbersomeness of bureaucratic response mechanisms” (CSSSM 2011, 5: “des actions plus spontanées (au moment où le besoin et la mobilisation se manifestent) tout en diminuant la lourdeur des mécanismes bureaucratiques de liaison/référence”). The goal is to increase the capacity of those whom it serves “to cope with problem situations on their own and take charge of their own direction” (4: “de prise en charge endogène des situations problèmes et du développement”). The CSSS thus seeks to develop supportive interventions that, from both the emotional and the functional perspective, will strengthen the bonds between people and their loved ones, their networks, and the community as a whole.

In adopting this policy, the Memphrémagog CSSS deliberately situates itself as an active member of the local communities in which it is involved. Its aim is not simply to provide services to these communities but to enhance their capacity for autonomous action. By recognizing its embeddedness in the territory within which it operates, this public agency is able to join with other local actors to form a community.

Acting in Concert: The Collective Construction of Community

Graham Day’s (2006) conception of “community” can help us grasp the difficulties faced by small cities as they strive to develop into true communities. According to Day, a group of people who reside in the same area do not necessarily constitute a community. A community results when people succeed in coming together despite their diverse backgrounds and differing interests. A community is not a static location or an enduring state of affairs but instead emerges from “the accumulated decision-making processes of many social actors” (2006, 115). A community is thus more aptly understood as an ongoing process—a socially constructed, lived reality the creation of which rests on the ability of its members to join together to engage in concrete actions. This definition of the concept demands that linkages be established among various interests, groups, and civic institutions, with a community developing from a constantly evolving combination of diverse elements. As Day observes, such a definition “resonates better with contemporary concerns to do with cohesion, ‘development,’ and regeneration, rather than maintenance and preservation of an existing state of affairs” (117). Building on analyses by Zygmunt Bauman (2001), Day points out that “rather than being taken for granted, community becomes increasingly fought over, and subject to choice and intention” (122).

My own analyses of the evolution of communities align with this perspective. In terms of lived experience, a community is much more a matter of social cohesion than an objective reality frozen in time. Moreover, I suggest that, by virtue of their interventions, public service agencies number among the actors who together create the social reality of community. In fact, as we have seen, by viewing themselves as locally embedded, government service agencies can enhance the capacity for collaborative action within a given area.

To complement this dynamic understanding of community, it is useful to link the concept to the notion of “territoriality,” in the sense of belonging to a specific place. The term territory generally has legal connotations: it refers to an area of land over which a specific group of people claim ownership and thus exercise formal jurisdiction. As a result, territoriality tends to connote an attitude of possessiveness, a desire to maintain control over one’s territory and prevent the incursion of outsiders. However, the term can be understood more inclusively, as referring to an awareness of place as the locus of common bonds—to “a collectively experienced sense of commitment to a given territory” (Caillouette, Dallaire et al. 2009, 14: “le rapport engagé et collectivement vécu à ce territoire”). If community is a process, then one could argue that territoriality is what makes it possible for people to engage in that process: it is what allows a territory to come alive as a community. Acting to foster the development of true community thus means working to create a space within which people, even in the face of their diversity, feel a shared sense of investment. Through their concrete actions, they are able to forge ties based on a sense of belonging, mutual appreciation, and the spirit of collaboration.

Beuret and Cadoret’s understanding of local territories as sites of concertation seems to tally quite well with this perspective. As they define the term, concertation is “the collective construction of visions, objectives, and common projects with a view to joint action or decision making” (Beuret and Cadoret 2010, 18).9 Such a process, they argue, requires that synergies be created among three categories of stakeholders: government organizations, local elected officials, and community members who come forward with projects. The examples presented above—the integrated response to job losses in Magog and the policy adopted by the Memphrémagog CSSS—both demonstrate how such synergies can serve as the basis for the building of community relationships.

Local Roots and Extraterritorial Resources

Too often, public institutions and agencies regard the people they serve as their “clients,” without recognizing that these supposedly passive consumers have a vested interest in the area in which they live. As Denis Bourque and René Lachapelle (2010, 49–50) point out, services are typically delivered in a rigid, top-down manner that leaves little room for community initiative. In contrast, public agencies should work to foster relationships that encourage community participation and a sense of solidarity, as well as an atmosphere of sociability and mutual respect. In fact, the vertical configuration of public services, which relates to the delivery of programs by agencies that target specific sectors, needs to dovetail smoothly with their horizontal configuration, which encompasses community participation and cross-sectoral action founded on a sense of shared territory.

As I see it, by encouraging social participation across a given territory, public agencies, such as Centres de santé et de services sociaux, will in fact be able to carry out their public duties more effectively. Contrary to a fragmented vision, in which problems are viewed in terms of specific populations who are then keyed to specific programs, approaches that are grounded in a sense of shared territory support the coming together of a genuine community. As I and my colleagues argue elsewhere,

It is a shared sense of territorial identity that enables those involved in specific projects to move beyond their institutional, sectoral, or purely professional identities and to explore the practical realities of partnership. . . . Partnerships allow their members to emerge from their isolation, perhaps even their self-centredness, and acknowledge one another as parts of a ensemble that lies at the heart of the experience of both community and territory. (Caillouette, Garon et al. 2009, 19)10

The response to job losses in Magog in the early 2000s and the policy adopted in 2011 by the Memphrémagog CSSS fostered the emergence and consolidation of a true sense of community in the region. In both cases, the strategies that were designed enabled a diverse array of actors to build the practical capacity to work in concert, which facilitated the emergence of collective actions at the local level. As a result, both the city of Magog and the Memphrémagog RCM became more than abstract spaces within which action can occur: they came to constitute spaces within which people joined together to build a community.

Beyond the immediate benefits they bring, collaborative actions make it possible for both specific stakeholders and the public at large to see themselves as involved in a common cause, namely, that of the community to which they belong. This recognition helps to build the foundation for a collective sense of self-confidence, which in turn supports social relationships, the ability to take action, and the creative pursuit of new projects. However, even though these community activities are grounded in the local, it would be a mistake to think of them as a form of withdrawal. While endogenous, local enterprises are necessarily linked to the outside world—that is, to broader systems of action. Denying this relationship to external realities only impedes the capacity of people to innovate at the local level. Rather, it is by turning to these broader sources of support and successfully mobilizing them that local communities are able to expand their capacity for collective action and thus reinforce their internal cohesion.

A neighbourhood, a village, a city, and an RCM are territories that people, with the support of their public agencies and institutions, must claim as their own in order to take action. But if such communities are to fully realize their own capacities, they must embrace broader associations and forms of solidarity. In order to identify effective avenues for action at the local level, for example, an RCM needs to draw on its entire network of connections at the regional level—and, beyond that, at the national level. Indeed, especially in conditions of crisis, a government must mobilize all the means at its disposal to come to the support of local action.

At the same time, these external sources of support must be prepared to rise to the challenge of working at the local level. Claude Jacquier and Dominique Mansanti (2005) call attention to the issue of competing frames of reference specifically in connection with approaches to community development. “It is particularly difficult,” they write, “to build partnerships between stakeholders and professionals who operate within sectoral policy frameworks that are unrelated to one another, even if, in many cases, the purposes of these policies and the populations to which they apply happen to be the same” (22).11 Partnerships between outside organizations or agencies and local community actors may likewise be complicated by differing frames of reference, which may in part reflect differences in territorial scale.

In emphasizing a sense of rootedness in territory as a key factor in defining one’s identity, I do not, of course, mean to suggest that it is the sole dimension of identity, whether for individuals or for organizations, institutions, and public agencies. Rather, territory constitutes but one point of reference among many others, all of them interrelated and sometimes in tension. Organizations and public agencies whose identity rests in part on their territorial affiliation can legitimately reinterpret or find ways to rationalize their sectoral mandate, but they cannot entirely set it aside. It is therefore not a matter of designating territory as the sole anchor of institutional identity but rather of viewing that territory as a significant point of reference relative to belonging, meaning, understanding, and the production of self. Like that of individuals, a public agency’s identity derives from various sources and may even shift somewhat depending on the projects undertaken. Yet, in defining their identity, public agencies typically ignore their embeddedness in territory. As a result, they come to function like branches of a service delivery operation, with no ties to the specific dynamics of the communities they serve.

Conclusion

Beginning in the 1980s, public policy in Québec gradually grew more decentralized, with the province recognizing, if at times hesitantly, that citizen participation constitutes a driving force for local and regional development. This trend accelerated in the early 2000s, with reforms that reflected a desire to move beyond sectoral approaches and to enhance the capacity of local areas to engage in self-determination. One thinks, for example, of the creation, in 2003, of the Conférences régionales des élus (CRÉs), regional bodies made up of elected representatives who were involved in municipal planning and functioned as liaisons with the provincial government, and of the consolidation (also in 2003) of existing health and social service agencies into local CSSSs, which became the central agents in the provision of health and social services.12 One thinks as well of Québec’s Politique nationale de la ruralité (National Policy for Rural Affairs), which has unfolded in three phases (inaugurated in 2001, 2007, and 2014) and has done much to promote the vitality of local communities. The same pattern could be observed in the education sector, in the field of child care, and among organizations that provide social services and economic aid, all of which demonstrated a willingness to put down roots in local territories. These various reconfigurations of power provided us with a glimpse of the potential for new relationships among local actors, relationships that would enable communities to see themselves as agents able to exercise a measure of control over their own development.

In the wake of the provincial elections of 2014, however, health and social services policies in Québec, including those that bear on local development, have undergone a major change of direction under the influence of the neoliberal discourse of austerity (see Bourque 2017). Reforms enacted by the new government have either abolished or diverted from their original mission numerous elements of the participatory model put in place in Québec over the preceding decades (Klein 2016, 1). These reforms have included the elimination of CRÉs and an overhaul of the structure of Québec’s health and social services network that has abolished CSSSs as autonomous entities by merging them with other institutions, particularly the hospitals in their region.13 In the area of rural policy, the government has reconfigured its relationship to RCMs by eliminating Rural Pacts, as well as cutting funding to Solidarité rurale du Québec.14 In short, the Québec government appears to have abandoned its commitment to consultation with civil society organizations and to the co-construction of public policies.

One recognizes, of course, that the shift to local action does not necessarily mean that newly emerging solidarities will result in the inclusion of marginalized populations. Nor does decentralization guarantee more robust state assistance to local communities in trouble. On the contrary, celebrating local capacities for action may mean that communities facing difficulties will be left to fend for themselves. Far from encouraging broader and more inclusive forms of solidarity that promote community cohesion, granting greater authority to the local level could in fact tighten the hold of traditional local elites, thereby serving to weaken inclusive principles of governance. However, while we must be alert to the possible reentrenchment of local powers, such an outcome was not seen in my analysis. As I have tried to show, from both a theoretical and a practical perspective, small cities can enhance their capacity to guide their own development by investing in local spaces as sites of cohesion and collective self-affirmation.

In closing, I would like to come back to the integrated response to the massive job losses suffered by the small city of Magog in the early 2000s. What impact do such collaborative strategies have in the context of a small city? While, in the case of Magog, it would be difficult to argue that the strategy contributed significantly to the creation of new jobs, the work of the Comité de soutien au milieu, with its emphasis on cross-sectoral partnerships, served to consolidate a sense of community solidarity. We can thus infer that such integrated approaches, if adopted consistently over time in connection with various issues and projects, will help to build and sustain a local democracy that allows much greater scope for community engagement, while at the same time contributing to the development of administrative models that support projects of the sort that emerge from local collaboration.

In order to build community, a small city needs to foster feelings of belonging and mutual respect among local residents and provide them with opportunities to express their solidarity with other members of the community, thereby empowering them to assume an active role in the economic and social development of the territory in which they live. In other words, the process of community building serves to increase the confidence and sense of cohesion felt by local residents, as well as their capacity for action, both individually and collectively. The forging of concrete links founded on cooperation, both among residents themselves and between residents and locally based agencies and organizations, is fundamental to the development of projects that, in the longer term, will contribute to the creation of a more democratic society, one capable of overcoming the challenges it faces. This, in short, is the most important consequence of the integrated strategy employed in response to the crisis in Magog—the capacity to build, through concrete actions, forms of solidarity that not only liberate the powers of expression, action, cohesion, and creativity that community members already possess but also enable them to exercise those powers in collaboration with those who live and work beside them.

References

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Beuret, Jean-Eudes, and Anne Cadoret. 2010. Gérer ensemble les territoires : vers une démocratie coopérative. Paris: Éditions Charles Léopold Mayer.

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Bourque, Denis, and René Lachapelle. 2010. L’organisation communautaire en CSSS. Québec: Presses de l’Université du Québec.

Caron, Richard. 2010. “Mobilisation contre les pertes d’emplois à Magog.” Paper presented at the Colloque du Réseau québécois des intervenantes et intervenants en action communautaire (RQIIAC), Ottawa, 3–5 June.

Caillouette, Jacques, Nicole Dallaire, Ginette Boyer, and Suzanne Garon. 2009. “Territorialité, action publique et développement des communautés.” Économie et solidarités 38 (1) (special issue: Solidarité, économie sociale et développement local, edited by Jacques L. Boucher and Pierre-André Tremblay): 8–23. http://www.ciriec.uqam.ca/pdf/numeros_parus_articles/3801/ES-3801-02.pdf.

Caillouette, Jacques, Suzanne Garon, Nicole Dallaire, Ginette Boyer, and Alex Ellyson. 2009. Étude de pratiques innovantes en développement des communautés dans les sept Centre de services de santé et de services sociaux de l’Estrie : analyse transversale de sept études de cas. Montréal: Cahier du Centre de recherche sur les innovations sociales (CRISES), no. ET0903. http://crises.uqam.ca/upload/files/publications/etudes-theoriques/ET0903.pdf.

CSSSM (Centre de santé et de services sociaux de Memphrémagog). 2005. Présentation du comité des partenaires en support au milieu face aux pertes d’emplois annoncées à Magog.

———. 2011. Politique concernant le rôle du CSSSM en développement des communautés. 26 April.

Day, Graham. 2006. Community and Everyday Life. London: Routledge.

Jacquier, Claude, and Dominique Mansanti. 2005. Le développement social local, vol. 2: Les acteurs, les outils, les métiers. Dossiers d’études no. 70. CERAT—Pôle villes et solidarités, Institut d’études politiques de Grenoble.

Klein, Juan-Luis. 2016. “Le territoire dans la construction d’une vision alternative de développement.” Revue vie économique 8 (1): 1–9.

Moulaert, Frank, and Jacques Nussbaumer. 2008. La logique sociale du développement territorial. Québec: Presses de l’Université du Québec.

MRC Memphrémagog. 2006. Guide de l’aidant : comment soutenir une personne qui vit des difficultés reliées à une perte d’emploi. Magog, QC: Centre de santé et de services sociaux de Memphrémagog.

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1 Beuret and Cadoret (2010, 153) argue that “the demands of local defragmentation give rise to critically important demands for collaboration among the actors called upon to move beyond a mosaic-like management of the area” (« les besoins de défragmentation du territoire engendrent des besoins de concertation très importants entre des acteurs appelés à dépasser une gestion en mosaïque du territoire »). Here, as elsewhere, translations are my own.

2 These examples, and others like them, are described in greater detail in Caillouette, Garon et al. (2009), Étude de pratiques innovantes en développement des communautés dans les sept Centre de services de santé et de services sociaux de l’Estrie.

3 « Plus de 1000 pertes d’emplois pour une ville qui compte à peine plus de 20 000 habitants, c’est énorme. C’est notre classe ouvrière, qui est quand même de la classe moyenne, qui risque de s’effriter. » Quotations, here and throughout this chapter, are drawn from interviews conducted in Magog in late 2005 and early 2006 with members of Memphrémagog’s Comité de soutien au milieu.

4 « En étant sur ce comité-là, tous les intervenants, provenant de divers milieux, se parlent et apprennent sur les missions des autres et sur ce qu’ils font. Ils se disent : Ah oui, tu fais ça. Je pourrais t’envoyer des gens... Et ça, c’est super important parce qu’un des gros défis, pour bâtir des liens de partenariat, c’est de connaître tout ce qui existe et tout ce qui se fait. »

5 « Moi, je crois énormément au partenariat et à un partenariat au niveau socio-économique. Si les acteurs sociaux et les acteurs économiques ne s’assoient pas ensemble, on ne trouve jamais de véritable solution. […] Je trouve que c’est bien important que les acteurs de ces deux secteurs apprennent à se parler et à découvrir que quelque part, ils se ressemblent beaucoup. […] Le fait qu’il y avait le Comité de soutien, ça a permis qu’on ne parle pas uniquement d’un plan de relance seulement économique, mais qu’on parle aussi de toute l’autre partie sociale, que les acteurs sociaux soient aussi greffés. »

6 « [C’est un guide qui] donne des notions de base quand on écoute quelqu’un qui vit une situation de détresse mais qu’on n’est pas un professionnel de la relation d’aide, alors on est plutôt le voisin, le frère, le collègue qui a travaillé sur la même chaîne de montage. »

7 « Ce qu’il y avait d’innovateur avec ce projet, c’est qu’il nous permettait d’aller trouver toutes les personnes dans la communauté qui se sentaient touchées par le problème; pas touchées au sens qu’elles perdaient leur emploi, mais touchées parce qu’elles connaissaient un voisin ou des amis qui avaient perdu leur emploi. Alors dans ce sens-là, autant on a donné plus de pouvoir à tous les citoyens pour aider les gens qui perdaient leur emploi, autant on a donné plus de pouvoir aux organisations pour contribuer, par le Guide, d’une part, mais aussi par leur participation au sein du comité de soutien. »

8 « Je pense à ma coiffeuse qui m’a dit qu’elle était vraiment contente d’avoir un outil comme ça parce qu’elle ne savait pas quoi faire lorsque les gens lui parlaient de leurs difficultés. Là, les gens peuvent donc donner une réponse… Dans ce sens-là, ça donne du pouvoir à beaucoup de monde qui ont cette volonté-là d’aider d’autre monde, mais qui, parfois, ne sait pas quoi faire. »

9 « [La concertation désigne un processus de] construction collective de visions, d’objectifs, de projets communs, en vue d’agir ou de décider ensemble. »

10 « C’est cette participation à une identité territoriale qui permet aux acteurs, dans des projets spécifiques, de sortir de leur identité institutionnelle, sectorielle ou strictement professionnelle et d’expérimenter de réelles pratiques de partenariat. […] Les partenariats permettent aux acteurs de sortir de leur isolement, voire de leur repli sur eux-mêmes, pour se reconnaître mutuellement comme partie d’un ensemble commun au fondement d’une réalité de communauté et de territoire. »

11 « Il est particulièrement délicat de construire des collaborations entre des acteurs et des professionnels inscrits dans des champs de politiques sectorielles étrangers les uns aux autres même si, le plus souvent, les objets et les populations dont ils traitent sont les mêmes. »

12 CRÉs were created by Bill 34, Loi sur le Ministère du Développement économique et régional et de la Recherche, and CSSSs by Bill 25, Loi sur les agences de développement de réseaux locaux de services de santé et de services sociaux. Both bills received final assent on 18 December 2003.

13 The elimination of CSSSs was accomplished by the passage, in February 2015, of Bill 10, An Act to Modify the Organization and Governance of the Health and Social Services Network, in Particular by Abolishing the Regional Agencies, which came into effect on 1 April 2015: see http://www.assnat.qc.ca/en/travaux-parlementaires/projets-loi/projet-loi-10-41-1.html. On the decision (effective 31 March 2016) to abolish the CRÉs, see « Foire aux questions – Dissolution des conférences régionales des élus (CRÉ) », Québec, Affaires municipales et Occupation du territoire, 2018, https://www.mamot.gouv.qc.ca/developpement-territorial/gouvernance-municipale-en-developpement-local-et-regional/pour-plus-de-precisions/foire-aux-questions-dissolution-des-conferences-regionales-des-elus-cre/.

14 Bruno Jean and Bill Reimer, Québec’s Approach to Regional Development: An Historical Analysis, 23 February 2015 [text of webinar], Rural Policy Learning Commons / Communauté d’apprentissage des politiques rurales, http://billreimer.net/research/files/JeanReimerRPLCWebinarReQuebecPolicy20150223V06.pdf, 13.