Media Clipping – December 2001, Pictou County Evening News

In search of the 'actual' facts

A non-profit group takes close looks at the real cost of crime and other things that affect society

By John Ashton

From provincial issues like natural resources and water quality to the community level concerns on crime and volunteerism, GPI Atlantic is always assessing and reassessing the numbers to find out what the actual status is.

GPI Atlantic, a non-profit research group from Halifax, is developing Genuine Progress Indexes for provincial issues as well as a pilot project for two communities in Nova Scotia, said executive director Ronald Colman.

He said using the information from various sources including Statistics Canada and some provincial departments they are able to give people a more complete analysis.

"It just has to be brought together and put in a useable forum," he said.

The research group's first GPI was on the economic value of volunteer work which Colman said is "normally invisible."

Through economic growth factor "unpaid work counts for nothing." What they found was in Nova Scotia $1.9 million worth of service per year was done by volunteers.

The GPI is looking at a variety of things including health care, volunteerism, crime rates, and safety in two community pilot projects taking place in Glace Bay and Kings County.

Pictou county resident Dodie Goodmen Brown was a researcher involved in the King's County project who thinks it could work here as well.

"I think it would work everywhere," she said.

The idea is to try to get municipal leaders "to understand there is a cost and a benefit to every decision that is made," she said.

In putting together the survey she spent a month with residents of the county filling out between 22 and 303 questions depending on the people's answers. The survey would take between 45 minutes and five hours to complete. The people were randomly picked and no one's name was attached to the information provided.

"It's really going back to your values," Brown said. "You did a capsule of their lives."

Brown said there has to be a "fine balance" between utilizing the resources available to the province or community and over using it.

"We just can't deplete our resources."

Colman said people can use the information throughout the year and, as an added bonus, at election time.

"We can start to hold or leaders accountable or effective."

Copyright 2001, Pictou County Evening News
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