Press Releases

Authors: Linda Pannozzo and Ronald Colman

This user manual, prepared for policy planners and civil servants, provides - in 90 easy-to-read pages - a clear, succinct, and accessible overview of the principles, structure, and policy applications of the Nova Scotia Genuine Progress Index. An additional 47-page chapter (Ch.5) gives concrete case studies of the GPI full-cost accounting methods. The key purpose of this publication is to indicate the practical policy utility and relevance of the GPI.

Authors: Anthony Charles, Chris Burbidge, Heather Boyd and Amanda Lavers

The over-fishing that depleted many of Nova Scotia’s formerly abundant commercial fish stocks, and led to the infamous cod collapse of the 1990s, has left the province’s fishing industry vulnerable to the current economic crisis – as is being seen today in the lobster fishery. This is one of the key findings of a new report by GPIAtlantic, the Nova Scotia based non-profit research group that is developing new measures of progress for the province. The report, Fisheries and the Marine Environment in Nova Scotia: Searching for Sustainability and Resilience, highlights key ecological, socioeconomic and institutional aspects that should be monitored by government agencies and considered by decision-makers. The report updates and extends a previous 2002 report, with a new analysis of where the province’s fisheries and marine ecosystems are heading, based on nine “headline indicators”. Among the highlights is a new indicator showing that we are “fishing down the marine food web”, relying more and more on species low in the food chain. On the human side, a key indicator of resilience and overall health in the fishery, the age profile of fishers, shows a worrying trend; the average age of fishers has been increasing considerably over time, indicating that young people are finding it hard to enter the industry. Other indicators in the report include the size and abundance of fish stocks, the state of marine “species at risk”, the extent of shellfish closures along our coasts, the fishery Gross Domestic Product, and fishery employment. The report draws on all these indicators to lay out areas in which action is needed to ensure sustainable prosperity along our coasts into the future.

Authors: Linda Pannozzo, Ronald Colman, Nathan Ayer, Tony Charles, Chris Burbidge, Seton Stiebert, Dave Sawyer, and Colin Dodds

This comprehensive report provides Nova Scotia with its first integrated set of progress measures that assess how the Province is doing —socially, economically, and environmentally. The Nova Scotia Genuine Progress was developed as a pilot project for Canada, and is therefore also now ready for replication in other provinces and nationally.

This 2008 Genuine Progress Index for Nova Scotia—which updates and completes 12 years of intensive research and development—presents the most recent available evidence on all 20 components of the Nova Scotia GPI-—from trends in health, crime, education, wealth, income, economic security, employment, and volunteer work to greenhouse gases, air pollution, fisheries, forests, transportation, energy, waste management, agriculture, and water quality.

The report also updates all key GPI economic valuations—including the cost of crime to Nova Scotia, the economic value of voluntary work, and the benefits and costs (in dollar terms) of the Province achieving its greenhouse gas and pollution reduction targets.

By contrast, conventional GDP-based progress measures misleadingly count natural resource depletion, and crime, pollution, and greenhouse gas emission costs as economic gains, and they ignore the value of voluntary and other unpaid work.

In the past 12 years, GPI Atlantic—whose mandate is to develop new and better measures of progress, wellbeing, and sustainable development—has released nearly 100 separate reports on a wide range of different progress measures. This is the first report that integrates all these measures, and therefore for the first time makes it possible to answer the big question: How is Nova Scotia really doing? And are we really making progress towards sustainable prosperity?

This 338-page report—the last (and possibly most important) of six volumes in the GPI Soils and Agriculture Accounts developed over more than a decade—examines the contribution of agriculture to rural community viability in Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island from an economic, social, environmental, and community perspective.

The study looks at trends in wages paid by farms, ratios of wages to farm expenses and receipts, jobs in agriculture, age of farmers and potential for farm renewal, food imports vs purchase of local food, percentage of consumer food dollar going back to farmers, and the wide range of economic, social, and environmental contributions made by farms to rural communities in the two provinces. It suggests new indicators required to track progress towards a healthy farm and food sector in the Maritimes.

The report also examines the economic and social implications for rural communities in the two provinces if farms falter and if farming ceases to be viable. And it looks at the growth of farmers’ markets and other new forms of farmer-consumer relations developing outside the normal retail sector. The report is so comprehensive and far-reaching in its scope that it has the potential to become a blueprint for the future of agriculture in the region.

This report assesses trends in Nova Scotians’ free time and work hours. It also looks at which Nova Scotians are most time stressed, and at who has more free time and who has less. And for the first time, it puts a dollar value on Nova Scotians’ free time, based on the value that free time has as a buffer against stress and as a condition of physical and mental health and wellbeing.

The report also looks at how Nova Scotians spend their free time — how much time do they spend watching television, socializing, reading, playing sports, going to movies, and eating out at restaurants. And what are the trends in these activities? Are Nova Scotians watching more TV and reading more than they used to, or less?

The GPI study also breaks down free time hours and leisure time activities by sex, age, work status, marital status, age of children, and time of week to find out which groups are doing which activities and for how long. And it examines major changes over the last two decades in male-female work and free time patterns.

Free time is one of 20 core components of the Nova Scotia Genuine Progress Index because it is one of the most basic conditions of wellbeing and quality of life. According to Dr. Andrew Harvey, Department of Economics, and Director of Time Use Research at Saint Mary’s University, who is the report lead author, “free time is the only time we have to do what we want, not what we have to do—to pursue our interests and enjoy our lives.”

This report examines trends in household wealth since the 1980s—in Canada as a whole and in the Atlantic region. In particular it looks at trends in wealth distribution, including Atlantic Canada’s share of national wealth and in the portion of wealth owned by the top, middle and lower wealth groups.

The report examines financial security and trends in total household debt, and assesses how many Atlantic Canadians are so seriously in debt that they could not pay off their debts even if they sold everything they owned, including their homes. It undertakes a detailed examination of household borrowing patterns and of the different kinds of debt, including mortgages, student loans, vehicle loans, lines of credit, credit card debt, and payday loans, and looks at their implications for financial security. The report also includes additional sections on trends in bankruptcies and government debt.

Financial security is a key measure of progress and wellbeing in the Genuine Progress Index (GPI) because adequate wealth enables households to weather the unexpected financial crises that can result from job loss, sickness, or loss of an income-earning partner. They can also provide a reserve for house or car repairs that are suddenly required, or for other unanticipated financial outlays that would strain normal income.

Conversely, financial insecurity can seriously compromise wellbeing and cause a range of other problems including stress, anxiety, illness, and (in extreme cases) even crime and suicide. As well, sharp wealth and income inequalities can threaten social stability and cohesion, and undermine productivity and health. For these reasons, financial security is one of the 20 core components of the Nova Scotia GPI.

• Are farmers in Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island earning enough to stay in business?
• If not, how will the loss of farms affect jobs and income in rural communities?
• Do the prices farmers get for farm products cover their costs of production?
• And how do those prices compare to the cost of food in grocery stores?
• What, in short, is the future of farming in the Maritimes? — Is farming still a viable institution in the region, and can it survive?

• Net farm income
• Expense to income ratio
• Farm debt
• Total debt to net farm income ratio
• Solvency ratio (total liabilities or debt divided by total assets or capital value of farms)
• Return on investment

Sharp increases in global fuel and food prices, much higher transportation costs, and warnings of major commodity price fluctuations have increased insecurity about our food supply and forced many jurisdictions to look at reducing dependence on imported food supplies. Does Nova Scotia have sufficient fertile, good quality farm land to feed itself? That’s one of the provocative questions examined in this report on the province’s land capacity, which is the third section of Part 2 (Resource Capacity and Land Use) of the GPI Soils and Agriculture Accounts.

Part 1 of the GPI Soils and Agriculture Accounts is the Economic Viability of Farming, and Part 3 (to be released in August, 2008) is on Human and Social Capital in Agriculture. The previous two sections of Part 2 (Resource Capacity and Land Use) are: Soil Quality and Productivity and The Value of Agricultural Biodiversity. Summaries of those reports can be accessed here.

This new study also examines long and short-term trends in the province’s farm land and estimates the total real estate and productive values of that farm land in dollar terms. It also assesses the quality of Nova Scotia’s farm land, including its susceptibility to water erosion and compaction. The new report is particularly timely in view of public debates in the Annapolis Valley about whether prime farm land should be conserved for growing food. Compensating farmers for loss of development rights is an issue that is addressed in the report.