The Rural Development Council was a community empowerment organization which originated in the mid-sixties as a small loosely structured group of community leaders who were concerned with the decline of traditional Prince Edward Island rural comunities and were strongly influenced by the Antigonish Movement led by Monsignor Moses Coady which promoted community based adult education and economic cooperation. The group, comprised of Rev. David Barwise, Rev. Frank Lacey, Mrs. Jean Mutch, Fr. Allan MacDonald and Ken MacLean first met officially at the Queen Hotel in 1964. Shortly thereafter they were joined by Rudi Dallenbach who had come to the Island under the federal Agricultural Rehabilitation and Development program (ARDA).

The first seminar organized by the group entitled "The Rural Economic Problem" was held in February 1965 and a Rural Development Committee was formed to plan future meetings. Three more seminars followed quickly, two in Charlottetown and one in Alberton. The Community Schools Program was inaugurated in the winter of 1965/66 with three schools in Tignish, Kensington and Mt. Stewart. By 1985 there were schools in 38 localities with over 5000 participants. It had become a movement unto itself.

A meeting of the Committee on 19 January 1966 called for formal organization as of a Rural Development Council and at the founding meting Ken MacLean and Jack Rodd were chosen as Co-Chairs, Eric Kipping as Vice-Chair and Frank Lacey as Secretary. The proposed objectives of the new Council were to understand more clearly what is meant by community development, to be a forum for debate on community development concepts and to promote and foster leadership, education, and training programs of all sorts and at all levels of Island society. Three-day long seminars held in each of the counties, in Charlottetown, Summerside, and Cardigan provided a forum for the presentation of a discussion paper by Father Allan MacDonald entitled "The plan for community development".

At this stage the RDC, outside of the Community Schools Project, was best known for general counselling and the dissemination of information on specific matters and issues. The Council was also involved in a constant questioning of its role and relationship to the provincial government, particularly in view of the imminent Federal-Provincial Comprehensive Development Plan. The Council felt that public participation could best be facilitated by a "voluntary coordinating body" such as itself but did not directly propose this. In August 1967 Bob Blakely of the Economic Improvement Corporation began attending RDC meetings as liaison officer between the government and the Council and in October of that year offered financial support to RDC programs if the Council broadened its membership, undertook a systematic evaluation of its effectiveness relative to the objectives of the Comprehensive Developent Plan, and became legally incorporated.

The federal-provincial Comprehensive Development Plan was ratified in March 1969. On 20 March 1970 RDC formally agreed to administer the Counselling, and Community Resource Development functions under the Public Participation component of the Plan, a move which had been recommended by EIC in 1968. In addition the Council undertook responsibility for Voluntary Institute Support Services and Community Development and Program Planning with the Lennox Island Indian Band.

Government's perception of the role of the Council under the Comprehensive Development Plan was to make the population in general aware of the opportunities and provisions of the Plan and to aid individuals and groups to organizations in making adjustments to their social and economic improvement. Within RDC the role of the community development workers was perceived as establishing rapport with individuals, families and groups in the community, then assisting in identifying and prioritizing problems while the choice of solution was left to members of the community. The community development worker would then assist in getting funds. Counsellors were more directive and goal-oriented, active in providing individuals with leadership training, identifying problems and working with the community to develop solutions.

The definitions and duties of the CDP programs operated by the Council were vague and philosophical differences between the two programs soon led to confusion and internal conflict. Both Directors resigned in 1971 and the RDC considered terminating its government contract. Instead, the Board of Directors drafted a policy statement on reorganization which included a reexamination of the RDC's community development philosophy and an admission that the Council had not fulfilled the terms of its contract with the Government. Counselling and Community Development Programs were merged under a Director of Field Services, Leo Bradley who preferred the more directive approach to community development and implemented a more structured reporting system for his staff.

RDC field staff were involved in working with individual fishermen and farmers and with their respective associations. They worked with commodity boards and assisted in the establishment of cooperatives. They undertook a housing project and initiated the Head Start Program and the Home Helper Program. Many senior citizens clubs were organized under their direction and various youth organizations and Home and School activities received their assistance. From 1972 to 1975 the Council championed the idea of Area Planning Councils in each of thirty Island communities which would be "responsible for every sector of activity in that community from industrial development through education, health, social services, finance, and planning".

By 1974 the Rural Development Council ressembled a small government department with two dozen employees and an annual budget of $400,000. But all was not well between the Council and the Provincial Government. RDC had intervened in several controversial issues including the East Point Park proposal, the school consolidation process in Unit 2, the Rusk affair, and the Island Telephone Company proposed rate increase. Internally the Board of Directors was concerned that it had little imput into the work of the Council, that the Council was failing to broaden its membership, and that it was becoming increasingly difficult to keep it's reputation unsullied while being funded by Government.

Also in 1974 an external evaluation of the RDC was carried out by J.D. McNiven of the Institute of Public Affairs of Dalhousie University as part of a series of studies of the effectiveness of programming under the Comprehensive Development Plan. Although McNiven felt the Council had failed to initiate and maintain the public's interest in the concept of community development by failing to serve as a public forum he nevertheless gave RDC a generally satisfactory performance rating and recommended that the contract be renewed. The Council had also been subject to an internal evaluation throughout 1970 to 1974 by Rudi Dallenbach. These reports had been generally negative criticizing the RDC for not including more people in its decisions, for not integrating Community Schools with the rest of its programming, and for becoming too bureaucratized and refusing to let people participate in planning and decision making.

On 30 June 1975, the Provincial Government announced that the RDC's contract would not be renewed. Although the Council fought to regain its government funding by forcing a meeting with the Deputy Minister of Development Gordon Fairfield and making a presentation to the Liberal MLAs as well as soliciting membership, political, and public support, the termination stood and by July 1975 all of the RDC staff positions had been terminated with the exception of Managing Director, Harry O'Connell.

Over the next two years an attempt was made to return to the grassroots concepts and enthusiasms of the mid 1960s with the main focus to "stimulate thought and action to enable individuals, groups, and communities to gain more control over their own affairs" but no real concensus could be reached on the future role, financing or structure of the Council. In 1976 Father Allan MacDonald took over the post as President replacing Mrs. Jean Mutch and Harry O'Connell resigned as Executive Director. He was replaced by Fred Eberman who remianed until December of 1977. At this time the RDC decided to vacate its Queen Street offices and in January 1978 relocated its operations at the University of Prince Edward Island. The last meeting of the RDC Board took place on March 20, 1978, ten years to the day from its incorporation.

Since that date the Extension Department and the Institute of Island Studies of the University of Prince Edward Island have been involved in trying to document the history of the Rural Development Council. This has taken the form of a film and a book on the Community Schools Program, a series of interviews of persons involved in and with the Council and in the production of Michael O'Grady's "From grassroots to grim reapings" from which much of the information in this sketch has been taken.