Workforce Development & Preservation:

Data-Driven, People-Powered

The HEAR Initiative

Western Ontario Municipal Conference

October 17, 2025

Let’s get things started …

How much of your respective budgets, over the last two years, was spent on:

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• Consultants
• Data purchase/acquisition
• Data analysis

One more …

How much capacity do your respective employees have for:

• Local data collection
• Data analysis
• Integrated comparative analysis

Some background about me

• From Corbeil and now live in Fergus
• 20 years of research on rural-focused research
• Expertise in research methods, data collection, knowledge mobilization, advanced analytics
• Led large (24,000 responses) project on rural experiences related to COVID-19
• Was catalyst for where I am now

A Changing Rural Canada

• Rural communities are experiencing demographic, economic, and environmental transitions.
• Challenges differ across geography and ecosystems.
• Yet rural data remain fragmented and often invisible.

Seeing the Big Picture

• Understanding rural resilience requires integrated data.
• GIS connects social, economic, and environmental systems spatially.
• HEAR was created to unify these perspectives.

Introducing the HEAR Initiative

• Health, Economy, and Adaptation in Rural Communities (HEAR).
• National research platform to understand rural well-being and adaptation.
• Evidence for policy, partnerships for practice, and data for communities.

Three Foundations of HEAR

1. HEAR Survey: Community-level data capturing local realities.

2. HEAR Research Database: Spatial and socioeconomic data harmonized across Canada.

3. HEAR Dashboard: GIS-enabled tool for exploring rural resilience.

The HEAR Survey

The HEAR Research Database

The HEAR Dashboard

• Central platform translating data into interactive maps.
• Enables comparison of rural communities across sectors and time.
• Built to evolve with new data and tools.

Sample: Toronto Well-Being Map

Mapping Rural Resilience

• Mapping reveals where resilience is working—and where it is not.
• Early insights show geographic clustering in vulnerability and opportunity.
• Provides new lens for rural policy and planning.

Building the Rural Data Infrastructure Canada Needs

A Shared Vision for Rural Canada

• HEAR makes the invisible visible—connecting data to place.
• Collaboration can ensure every rural community is seen and supported.
• Mapping Canada’s rural future—together.

Where are we?

Why am I here?

My ask:

The only way that the HEAR Initiative will be successful and impactful is through wide awareness and endorsement.

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I am asking to have the opportunity to speak directly with your various municipalities, organizations, and related groups to share this exciting initiative with representative from across rural Ontario.

Questions?

Contact:�Leith Deacon, PhD�Leith.Deacon@uoguelph.ca�HEAR@uoguelph.ca��

Place Matters – Lessons in Workforce Development

Ryan Gibson�23 October 2025

• Brief background
• Workforce Development Realities
• Share insights
• Insights from Addressing Labour Shortages
• Blue Prints to Prosperity
• Parting Comments

Road Map for Today

Ryan Gibson

• Settler on the traditional territories of the Dakota, Anishinaabeg, and the Red River Métis

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• Rural and economic geographer by training

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• Faculty member in Rural Planning and Development, University of Guelph (Canada)

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• Libro Professorship of Regional Economic Development

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“.. consists of one log house and stable, which in the distance might easily be mistaken for a snowbank“ (1882)

Title Goes Here

$1 million gift from Libro Credit Union and two rural families

• Rural economic development
• Community investment funds
• Immigration/newcomers
• Wealth and philanthropy
• Workforce development
• Rural policy evaluation
• Place-based development

Libro Professorship

www.ruraldev.ca

Workforce Realities

Future Outlook Over the next 12 months, Third Quarter of 2025

• Asset-based, community-centered and entrepreneurial

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• Regional collaboration

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• ‘Whole community’ approaches

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• Infrastructure and connectivity

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• Succession, wealth transfers

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• Differences between rural versus urban strategies

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Successful Workforce Strategies

Local Government Perceptions of Long-Range Change

Addressing Labour Shortages through Newcomer Attraction

Experiences of Businesses

Industries Experiencing Difficulties in Attraction and Retention Workers

Greatest Difficulties Experienced by Businesses

• Many innovative case studies in addressing workforce development issues already taking place in Ontario

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• Businesses and associations running their own training programs

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• Businesses providing housing, training, and education subsidies

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• Local government incentives

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• Welcoming community strategies

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Innovative Strategies

Blueprints to Prosperity

• to examine what can be learned from past ‘mega’ manufacturing investments,

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• to engage local governments, economic development practitioners, and community organizations to share lessons learned, transferability to Ontario, and build recommendations

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• to provide insights for future policies and/or programs

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• to facilitate knowledge transfer

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Goals of Project

• The project kicks off in late fall 2025

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• Project runs for 3 years

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• Open invitation for anyone interested to contribute and participate!

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Next/First Steps …

Take Away Messages

• Workforce challenges are not going anywhere
• Place matters!
• AI and automation are not silver bullets
• No one group is responsible for the solutions
• Data is important; action is critical
• Experiment, evaluate, share, & repeat
• Innovative approaches are taking place
• Opportunities for connection to post-secondary institutions

Parting Messages

Thank You

Ryan Gibson

gibsonr@uoguelph.ca

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www.ruraldev.ca