Media Clipping – July 16, 2004, The Chronicle-Herald

For better or for worse:
Who decides what’s what?

By Leah Sandals

DURING last month’s election, we heard a lot of promises. Promises about jobs, promises about health care, promises about the environment. Optimists wonder whether these promises will be kept. Cynics, of course, have already decided. But either way, how do we really know if we’re making (or losing) progress on issues that matter to Canadians?

Many of the indicators we use to measure progress are outdated – and have been so for years. As early as 1968, senator Robert F. Kennedy noted that "Gross National Product (grows with) air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage... it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile."

That’s the kind of recognition driving people like Ron Colman. Colman is executive director of GPI Atlantic, a seven-year-old, non-profit organization that develops new ways of assessing progress. "The front page of the paper this week says ’Alberta slays its debt’," Colman says. "That’s the way our politicians judge themselves and the way journalists judge things - according to those very narrow indicators."

While Colman agrees that slashing debt can be a positive move, he and his colleagues have developed a more comprehensive index, integrating 22 different components. This Genuine Progress Index (GPI) includes work hours and income distribution, population health and greenhouse gas emissions.

"What we measure is a sign of what we value in our society," he says. "If you measure the right things, you change the whole policy agenda."

GPI Atlantic’s latest report on solid waste, for example, shows how Recycling saves Nova Scotia taxpayers $31 million per year in energy use and landfill replacement. Old accounting methods focused on basic operating costs, neglecting even obvious outlays like the $10 million paid to Sackville residents for landfill-related quality-of-life losses.

In its brief history, GPI Atlantic has generated groundbreaking studies on everything from the costs of obesity and smoking to the viability of farming and forestry – and others are taking notice. Vancouver’s and Montreal’s municipal governments help fund GPIA’s projects, and eight provinces contracted GPIA to conduct regional obesity studies. Roy Romanow is a big fan, and is helping a national consortium of GPI groups launch a Canadian Index of Well-being this fall.

The GPI approach has local implications as well. Glace Bay and Kings County have each developed their own Community Progress Index (CPI), and this summer, Halifax’s north end is joining them.

The north end’s CPI project is currently distributing 1,000 surveys to residents of the area bounded by Cogswell, Agricola, North and Barrington. Questions on the survey range from "How many hours did you work at your main job last week?" to "How safe do you feel in your neighbourhood?" to "What temperature do you keep your thermostat at?"

The goal of the project is to assess quality of life in the north end according to the concerns of the people who live there, providing a baseline for further study. "What I really like about the GPI methodology is that it’s a real measurement of quality of life as well as hard stats," says CPI co-director Carolann Wright-Parks. She also likes that all data are available to the community afterwards, rather than stored in inaccessible research labs.

To fellow CPI co-director Gail Wilson, it’s an opportunity to identify strengths as well as weaknesses. "There’s a lot of wealth here," says Wilson, "there’s a great community. But it’s often not demonstrated in a way that’s credible to the rest of society. For me, it’s enabling the community to be able to speak up for themselves."

Initial research results, including data on community involvement and shared values, will be tabulated with the assistance of Dalhousie University this fall.

No matter where Canadians live, GPI has something to offer. "If you have good indicators, you can really have a vision of where you want to be," Colman says. "What kind of Canada, what kind of Nova Scotia do we want for our children? You don’t really hear that question asked in Canadian politics because there’s been no way of saying we’re doing better here, we’re not doing so well there."

No way, that is, until now.

For more information, check out GPI Atlantic at www.gpiatlantic.org, or call CPI at 902-422-3685.

Leah Sandals is a freelance writer living in Halifax.