Press Release — July 15, 1998
Nova Scotia Department of Economic Development and Tourism

Nova Scotians Volunteer $1.9 Billion

Halifax, Nova Scotia, July 15, 1998. A new study shows Nova Scotians give more of their time to volunteer work than any other Canadians. Last year they gave an estimated 134 million hours to helping those in need, caring for their environment and contributing to their local communities. It's the highest rate of voluntarism in the country.

The civic and voluntary work figures were released today in the first report of the Nova Scotia Genuine Progress Index (GPI), a new measure of sustainable development. The Nova Scotia project is one of the first fullscale applications of new accounting methods, and has been designated by Statistics Canada as a pilot for the rest of the country.

The project is funded by the Nova Scotia Department of Economic Development and Tourism and the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency under the CanadaNova Scotia COOPERATION Agreement on Economic Diversification. It will eventually integrate 20 social, economic and environmental indicators into an overall index of progress for the province.

This is an innovative way of looking at a region's worth," said Senator Al Graham, Leader of the Government in the Senate and Minister responsible for Nova Scotia, on behalf of the Honourable Fred Mifflin, Secretary of State for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency. The report draws attention to the generosity and strong civic consciousness of Nova Scotians."

Volunteer work was worth nearly $2 billion a year to the provincial economy in 1997, the equivalent of 81,000 jobs, and nearly 10% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), but was not reported or measured in any of our economic accounts.

When you consider that the real value of volunteer work averages $2,500 a year for every adult in the province, it's very impressive," said Economic Development and Tourism Minister, Manning MacDonald. "The GPI report gives a rounded view of the province's economy." In addition, to volunteer work, Nova Scotians give another $100 million a year in donations to registered charities.

GPI Atlantic, a nonprofit research group, used Statistics Canada's timeuse surveys to estimate total volunteer hours and then calculated what it would cost to replace these services in the government and private sectors. "If this voluntary contribution was withdrawn," states the report, ~ our standard of living and quality of life would decline dramatically, and we would lose critical services on which our economic and social health depend. Yet this contribution remains invisible and unvalued in our current measures of progress."

"By explicitly valuing voluntary work, the GPI raises its profile from isolated individual acts of charity to the arena of policy discussions on the economy, so that volunteerism will receive the attention, assistance and support it needs to continue providing vital services to society."

The GPI grew out of a recognition by many economists that current measures of progress like the gross GDP provide inadequate and often misleading information to policy makers. The GDP ignores nonmarket production and unpaid work, fails to value our natural resources, masks growing inequality and longer work hours, and is incapable of distinguishing economic activity that causes benefit from that which causes harm.

For example, increases in crime, divorce, toxic spills and gambling all contribute to the GDP. Fish and timber exports add to the GDP, but depletion of the fishery and forests on which that wealth depends goes unrecorded in economic accounts. The GPI remedies these flaws by valuing unpaid work and natural resources, and by subtracting social and environmental costs like crime and pollution from the valuations rather than adding them. It accounts for changes in income distribution and it assigns a value to leisure time as well as work time.

The Nova Scotia GPI grew out of pioneering work undertaken by international organisations like the World Bank and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), by national statistical agencies including Statistics Canada and by leading economists throughout the world.

It is anticipated that other provinces will follow Nova Scotia's lead in developing more comprehensive measures of progress. An interprovincial conference on the Nova Scotia GPI is planned for Halifax early in 1999.

The Canada/Nova Scotia COOPERATION Agreement on Economic Diversification is managed by the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency and the Nova Scotia Department of Economic Development and Tourism.

GPI Background Facts

On average, every adult Nova Scotian devoted 3 hours and 23 minutes a week to voluntary work, the highest rate in the country, and well above the Canadian average of 2 hours and 40 minutes a week.

One in three Nova Scotians work for nonprofit volunteer organisations, and threequarters volunteer informally, visiting the sick, caring for the elderly, shopping and cooking for the disabled and providing other vital social services.

Volunteers also answer help lines, fight fires, provide youth services and special education programs, clean up beaches, staff shelters, support the arts and culture, and protect neighbourhoods against crime.