GPIAtlantic Genuine Progress Index for Atlantic Canada / Indice de progrès véritable – Atlantique
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Atlantic Canada Sustainability Initiative

Agriculture - Soil Quality

Agriculture - Farm Viability

Air Quality

Community GPI

Cost of Chronic Disease

Fisheries and Marine Environment

Forests

Gaming

Genuine Progress Index

Greenhouse Gases

Housework & Child Care

Income Distribution

Obesity

Physical Inactivity

Smoke-Free Workplaces

Solid Waste-Resources

Economic Value of Civic and Voluntary Work

Media Coverage

Decline in volunteer numbers puts extra burden on those who still give their time
June 4, 2004, The Daily News, Truro, Nova Scotia ~ Jason Malloy
“ And one of the areas volunteers do much of their work is in activities which lead to healthier communities. Whether it is with after school programs or with hockey or soccer teams volunteers help make children's lives healthier reducing the costs to health care budgets across the country. ”

Sunday January 20, 2002, The Halifax Herald ~ Silver Donald Cameron

The fun sector

Dividing our economy into two sectors ignores an important third component
“ The main obstacles to progress usually lie between our ears. Job creation and "development" provide a prime example. We are told that job-creation is driven by the "private sector" - privately-owned enterprises, motivated by profit. The role of the government - the "public sector" - is to assist the private sector. If the private sector succeeds, it will create a light rain of jobs, falling on the parched population. ¶ This seems an oblique policy at best. The private sector fundamentally has no interest in job creation. Its objective is profit, and jobs are merely a byproduct. The fewer workers it can hire, the happier it is. Worse, this simplistic public/private model completely overlooks a powerful third sector which is neither private nor public, a sector which seems invisible to theory and is constantly ignored by policy-makers. ”

November 26, 2001, The Cape Breton Post ~ Steve Macinnis

Premier defends record on volunteers

Premier puts the record straight in luncheon address on his government's commitment for volunteers
“ “Our democratic system cannot function without volunteers,” said Hamm, noting he wouldn't even be premier if it weren't for the hoards of volunteers who manned his political campaigns. Nova Scotia is counted as the leader in Canada when it comes to volunteerism in contributing 43 per cent more than the national average in volunteer work. ”

Saturday, November 17, 2001, The Cape Breton Post ~ Tanya Collier Macdonald

Value of volunteers pegged at $1.9 billion

“ If volunteers In Nova Scotia stopped helping others for one year, the province would lose $1.9 billion worth of service. ¶That is what upward of 150 delegates attending the conference Celebrating Volunteers learned during the sessions keynote address Friday at the Canadian Coast Guard College. ¶Ron Colman, director at Genuine Progress Index Atlantic, reported Nova Scotia benefits from 140 million hours of volunteer work each year, more than the amount of paid work by all government employees within the three levels of government including the Armed Forces. ”

Nova Scotians spend more of their time volunteering
Feb 24, 2000, The Chronicle Herald & Mail Star ~ Davene Jeffrey
Nova Scotians have more heart. “ A report released Wednesday shows that Bluenoses devote 43 per cent more of their time to helping others than the national average. ”

May 1, 1999, Halifax Daily New & Mail Star ~ Rachel Boomer

Burnout Plagues Volunteers

“ Nova Scotia's nonprofit groups say they're stressed out, tapped out, and fed up after years of doing more with less. ¶ "Like all nonprofits, we're expected to produce firstrate programming with a second-rate budget," Yvonne Manzer, of the Youth Alternative Society told a roundtable conference on volunteering in Halifax yesterday ¶ Poorly paid staff are working through their breaks and burning out, while nonprofits spend more time fundraising and less time serving the community she added. ¶ "Something's got to give." ”

Volunteers Stretched To The Limit
Feb. 12, 1999, The Chronicle Herald
“ A sharp drop in the hours most Nova Scotia have to volunteer is costing at least $60 million annually in lost services to the poor, elderly and sick, a new study has found. The study's author says the hundreds of thousands of Nova Scotians who care daily for society's most vulnerable are hardly to blame. ”

Volunteers Dwindling - StatsCan
Friday, February 12, 1999, The Daily News ~ Angela Forgeron
“ For more than 23 years, Cynthia Burney has worked up to 30 hours a week performing a multitude of duties, such as serving evening tea, raising funds, working as a gift shop attendant, book keeping and cleaning—all for free. ¶ But according to a report released yesterday, she is part of a dying breed. Nova Scotians are clocking fewer volunteer hours than in the past. ”

July 24, 1998, The Chronicle-Herald ~ Ralph Surette

Volunteers Constitute A Powerful, Invisible Force

“ A RECENT STUDY came up with some eyepopping figures: Nova Scotians contribute 134 million hours a year in volunteer and civic work in virtually every aspect of social life, which would be worth $2 billion if calculated at $13 an hour, the average rate paid health and social workers. ¶ Per person, it amounts to three hours and 23 minutes of volunteer work per adult per week, nearly an hour more than the Canadian average. If volunteerism died "our standard of living would decline dramatically" unless replaced at enormous cost, states the report by a nonprofit company called GPI Atlantic. ”

Thumbs Up
July 19,1998, Sunday Daily News, Halifax
“ Thumbs up to the GPI project, which offered up its first report last week. GPI is the Genulne Progress Index, a more comprehensive measure of social and economic health being offered as an alternative to indices such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Saint Mary's University is highly involved in this. Report No. 1 (of 20 in all) found Nova Scotians are tops at volunteering. ”

Volunteers R Us
July 15, 1998, The Daily News ~ Stephen Bornais
Nova Scotians lead the nation in helping others “ Nova Scotians volunteer far more than anyone else in Canada, a new economic survey has found. ¶ The survey found Bluenosers give an average of three hours, 23 minutes a week to voluntary work—the highest rate among the provinces and well above the national average of two hours, 40 minutes. ”

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

Nova Scotians Volunteer $1.9 Billion

Province Has Highest Rate of Volunteer Work in Canada
“ 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. ”

Economic Value of Civic and Voluntary Work 2003 Update
January 2003	Time Use
Authors: Ronald Colman, Ph.D
Outlines work trends in Nova Scotia and Canada over the past two decades, and estimates the economic costs of unemployment and underemployment.
Press Release 2003	2003 Update 5 pages 832K PDF
Press Release 2000	2000 Update 5 pages 164K PDF
Press Release 1999	1999 Update 14 pages 164K PDF
Abstract	Executive Summary 48 pages 388K PDF
ISBN 0-9689923-7-4	1998 Full Report 62 pages 4.1MB PDF
	Media Coverage

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ReThinking
Development
The Second International Conference on Gross National Happiness
Antigonish, June, 2005
Conference Proceedings
Conference Outcomes

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