What Economic Growth looks like on the Ground

Newfoundland and Labrador (NL) is currently positioned for economic growth with large-scale projects on the horizon. From the possibility of a Churchill Falls agreement that promises $1 billion annually to massive hydro development, creating an estimated 9,500 jobs.  These mega projects, plus infrastructure funding for Housing, Community Building and Capital Works is flowing into communities all across the province, and this growth has me reflecting on what happens when economic growth outpaces community capacity, especially in rural areas.

I live in a community of approximately 350 people on the East Coast of NL, a 3-hour commute from St. John's. Port Rexton has one all-grade school with approximately 100 students. We're part of Trinity Bight, a collection of 12 small communities on the Bonavista Peninsula. We have one grocery store after our second store, Port Rexton Foodex, closed last June. RBC has a bank in Trinity with limited hours of operation. There is no gas station, taxi or public transportation. A handful of small businesses support the seasonal and tourism-focused region in this tiny town. However, we're experiencing the same growth pressures as larger centres, just with a fraction of the infrastructure to respond.

Port Rexton isn't unique. Similar patterns are playing out across rural communities throughout the province. From cultural theatres to creating world-class food and cultural events and receiving the UNESCO Global Geopark status, like other successful tourism regions across this area, it has now created a housing crisis. 

Vacation rentals outnumber long-term housing options. Workers who want to stay year-round can't find anywhere affordable to live. Young families are priced out.  Employers can't attract new workers because workers can't find affordable houses to rent or buy. The very success we were working toward has made it nearly impossible for the people who built that success to remain in the community. Tourism is extending the season and filling seats beyond capacity, and the government promotes these beautiful, pristine places, while locals are left navigating roads in deplorable condition.

When one grocery store closes because there's no succession plan, a community of 350 loses half its food security infrastructure overnight. That's not just an inconvenience. That's a systemic vulnerability that economic development strategies don't account for, and when strategies need community buy-in, we are often already at capacity. And communities are responding. 

In Port Rexton, that response is Otter Housing Association, founded in 2021 as one of NL's first rural housing associations. It is an initiative led by an inspiring young leader, Olivia White, and a few dedicated directors. Together, they are working with the municipality to address houselessness caused by tourism and trying to develop affordable units serving seniors, young adults, newcomers, and people experiencing homelessness. When they held their first information session, over 40 community members showed up - that’s more than 10% of this tiny community and a place where everyone already volunteers for the fire department, recreation programs, and school councils. This is grassroots capacity-building at its best. This is what's possible when young leaders step forward, and communities rally behind them. 

Many volunteer communities across the province have similar stories - they are holding consultations about housing, coordinating community networks, delivering social services, managing and maintaining hiking trails, keeping recreation programs alive, and navigating multi-funder complexity for economic growth in initiatives, most with full time jobs elsewhere and non-profits with one or two staff members doing the work of five - all while raising additional funds to their nonprofits operating.  

Here's a pattern I've witnessed throughout my career working inside municipalities, nonprofits, and national programs: when strategies get developed, the conversations tend to centre around opportunities that can feel designed for somewhere else.

Meaningful community engagement takes time, trust, and relational work. It's not a checkbox on a funding application. It's an ongoing process. But funding timelines don't accommodate that reality. Application deadlines don't pause for relationship-building. So rural communities face an impossible choice: rush through engagement that doesn't actually bring the community along, or miss the funding window entirely. And when projects do move forward without genuine community buy-in, that's when you see resistance, delays, and initiatives that never gain the momentum they need to become sustainable.

This is a pivotal moment for rural Newfoundland and Labrador. Unprecedented funding is creating genuine opportunities, but we need to be honest about what’s required for change to actually stick. If that funding flows through systems that weren't built for rural realities, if it demands capacity that doesn't exist, if it requires engagement without resourcing that engagement as real work, we risk watching opportunity create burnout instead of momentum.

The communities stepping forward deserve partners who understand what sustainable change actually requires. Leaders like Olivia deserve support that strengthens the systems around them, not just celebrates their individual effort.  Economic growth means nothing if communities can't shape it, if rural voices aren't genuinely part of the conversation, if the people doing the work burn out trying to deliver someone else's vision of what growth should look like.

So the next time a rural municipality receives infrastructure funding and needs community engagement, ask yourselves who does that work? Is it a non-profit?  When housing projects require wraparound services, who delivers those? When economic development initiatives need community buy-in, who builds that? And remember, the growth opportunity creates cascading demand on organizations already operating at or beyond capacity.

I believe we can get this right. But only if we're willing to be honest about the gap between funding and implementation, and only if we're willing to invest in the organizational capacity that turns opportunity into lasting changes.  

For more on the work Olivia and her friends are doing in Port Rexton, check out this Case Study for Table 8 Cooperative