Your Earth

By Suzanne Elston:

The tragedy of the Quebec Summit was the failure of both sides to understand that they share a common goal. Essentially the protesters outside the barricades and the politicians within all want the same thing survival. What separates them was how they define that survival.

Our political leaders measure survival in economic terms balanced budgets and gross domestic product or GDP. But GPD is a poor way to measure value because it adds up everything that we spent money on, both good and bad.

According to Liberal MP Joe Jordan, "When pollution makes people sick, the cost of their medical care is added to the GDP. When stolen property is replaced, security equipment purchased and people tried in courts and put in jail, the GDP goes up. When the insurance industry has to repair or replace billions of dollars worth of property because of increasingly violent weather events, the GDP goes up. These things are added into the GDP where they are mistaken for progress. In each case, the expenses are incurred because we have failed to prevent problems. These expenses are a sign of distress, not increased well-being.

While the GDP includes things that don,t necessarily measure our economic progress, it also excludes externalities. These externalities, or costs of production that don,t directly impact the selling price, aren,t given a value. For example, a manufacturing plant that pollutes the air doesn,t have to factor the cost of cleaning up that air or the cost of treating people made sick by that air in its bottom line. Exotic species of tropical wood may not be afforded the protection needed because they have greater economic value as an expensive coffee table than they do as a living, breathing stand of trees. It,s a question of assessing something solely on its economic value and that misses half the point.

Mike Nickerson, coordinator of the 7th Generation Initiative, points out that one advantage of globalization is that companies can go to countries that don,t have as strict environmental or social regulations as we do. Cheaper child labor and lower environmental standards in one country means that multinational corporations can externalize more of their production costs. The result is cheaper finished goods for developed countries, and much needed revenues for developing nations. Since only GDP is the common denominator, everyone appears to win, until you factor in the overall costs of production.

What's truly needed is a system that allows us to expand how we evaluate all those things that we consider important our personal health and the health of our environment, the strength of our social network and our ability to provide for future generations. This idea of an expanded evaluation system is at the heart of The Canada Well-Being Measurement Act, or Bill C-268, which was drafted by Nickerson and introduced to the House of Commons by Joe Jordan (Leeds-Grenville) on April 5th, 2000.

"The Canada Well-Being Measurement Act aims to establish a measuring system that distinguishes activities which benefit people and ecosystems from activities which result in and from the degradation of our circumstances, said Jordan. Although the bill died on the table when the federal election was called last fall, it was recently re-introduced to the House of Commons on February 14th, 2001 by Quebec Liberal MP Marlene Jennings (Notre-Dame-de-Grâce Lachine).

The idea behind Bill C-268 is elegantly simple. According to Jordan, What we count and what we measure shows what we value. If passed, Bill C-268 would establish a set of measurements called the GPI, or Genuine Progress Index, to monitor the social, economic and environmental well-being of the people, communities and ecosystems in Canada. The GPI measures would be regularly reported through the Auditor General,s Office.

Unlike the GDP, the GPI would differentiate between positive and negative expenses. The GPI would also takes into consideration unpaid work, such as child-rearing, caring for elders and community work.

"We cannot assume that a growing GDP indicates that we are doing well, said Jordan. "We have to distinguish expenditures that truly benefit society from those that signal trouble.

In order for C-268 to become a reality, the voters of this country must ensure that their local MPs support it in the House of Commons.

"There is only one power available to citizens which does not require great wealth or the use of violence, said Nickerson. " It is the power of collective persuasion. It works on the subtle levels of thought and conversation and it works directly through democracy."

Let your voice be heard.

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

Phone, write or visit your local MP and ask him or her to support Bill C-268. Letters can be sent to House of Commons, Ottawa, ON K1A 0A6 (no postage required). For information about individual constituency offices, phone 1-800-622-6232 (or 1-800-o-Canada)

WEBSITES OF THE WEEK:

For information about the Canada Well-Being Measurement Act go to http://www.SustainWellBeing.net/index3.html, or e-mail enquires to sustain@web.ca. You can also write Joe Jordan, MP, House of Commons, Ottawa K1A 0A6 (again, no postage required.)