Media Clipping — July 19,1999, The Daily News, Halifax

Myths shattered by new economic study - author

By Stephen Bornais

Some myths will be overturned for Nova Scotians when the results of a study of the real costs of crime on the province's 900,000 residents are released in midSeptember, says the study's author.

Ron Colman, director of GPI Atlantic, said researchers were caught off guard by their findings.

"There are some materials that we have collected and tabulated which have actually surprised us and given us results we did not expect when we set out," he said.

The nonprofit research group is in the midst of an ambitious datarelease schedule as part of its mission to devise a madeinNova Scotia Genuine Progress Index, a new way of calculating whether society is advancing or regressing.

Using the traditional measurement of the economy, a rising crime rates would show as a gain.

Colman said the GPI instead views these as an indication society is going in the wrong direction. A jump in the sales of alarms, for example, shows a population living in fear.

"The (Gross Domestic Product) doesn't distinguish between economic activities that cause benefTts from those that cause harm, it just adds them all together," he said. "Crime is a liability; it detracts from social wellbeing."

Some of the items to be measured will be money spent on hospitalization of victims, loss of productivity, and property damage. Colman said the survey should be able to show how much could be saved with a reduction in crime.

The crime survey and a review of how much time people spend on unpaid housework are to be released next. Last week a survey of volunteer rates showed Nova Scotia had the highest participation rate in the country, which Colman's group said amounted to about 10 per cent of the province's GDP, but is not accounted by it.

Surveys on unpaid household work and childcare, unpaid overtime, and the reduction of leisure time are forthcoming.

Colman said the research on unpaid household work, to be released in September, found a disturbing statistic: during the last 35 years, participation by women in the paid workforce has increased by 50 per cent but their share of unpaid housework hasn't moved. "There are real issues here in terms of women's free time, which is being squeezed as never before," he said.

The group will also examine income distribution. Work is under way on "natural resources accounts"—fisheries, soils and agriculture, forestry, wildlife, and greenhousegas emissions, as well as a transportation cost analysis.

He said Atlantic Canada is "more ripe" for naturalresources accounting than any other region in Canada. "We've experienced, full blown, the consequences of not counting, and not measuring, the depletion of a natural resource," he said.

Colman said the project is to be completed by late 1999. An interim progress report will be presented early next year.

The Nova Scotia GPI has been designated a national pilot project by StatsCan, which provided much assistance in data collection, analysis, and support staff.

Funding has come through the provincial Department of Economic Development and Tourism and the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency

Colman said the province will get a new way of looking at itself, and hopefully a new appreciation of what makes the place worth a home. There has not been any official reaction from the province on the findings of the first survey

What is GPI?

The Genuine Progress Index is intended to go beyond traditional measures of economic development, such as gross domestic product, which is simply the value of all the goods and services in a country

GPI, by contrast, assigns positive or negative values. Under GDP calculations, an increase in crime causes increased spending (more police, security systems, and jail construction). Under GDP, they would show up as an increase in society's production. Under GPI, these costs would be deducted.

The Nova Scotia GPI will be made up of 20 modules, each of which wil1 measure many aspects of the province's economy and people.

Copyright © 1999, The Daily News