A diverse group of Quebec leaders in business, labour and other sectors is urging policy makers to look past gross domestic product as a measure of well-being and adopt a broader view of prosperity, as Canada confronts unprecedented health and environmental crises.
Heads of the Conseil du patronat and the Fédération des chambres de commerce, two of Quebec’s biggest business groups, are joining leaders from 16 other organizationsin calling for a rethink of living-standard metrics. They say gross domestic product and job creation are no longer enough on their own to properly represent the development and progress of a society in a rapidly changing world.
Members of this group, known as the G15+ collective, have assembled their own set of 51 economic, social and environmental indicators they say more accurately measure well-being in Quebec. They say while other countries, such as New Zealand and Scotland, are well ahead in making such indicators available to their political decision makers, the collective’s own project is the farthest anyone has pushed this idea in Canada.
“Governments follow different indicators [on things like] inequalities, environment. It’s not that they don’t have anything but it’s just that it’s in silos. There’s no comprehensive approach,” said Mia Homsy, head of the public-policy research group Institut du Québec and a co-leader of the initiative.“What we realize more and more these days, especially with the effects of the pandemic and the environment, is that it’s all interdependent.”
Political leaders have relied on GDP, which is the total value of all goods and services produced in an economy, as their main guidepost for policy making since the 1940s. The measure is widely considered to be reliable, timely, internationally comparable and highly relevant to public finances.
But as critics have long pointed out, the indicator also has its limits, including an inability to account for environmental impact. Some have set about searching for alternative societal yardsticks. Economist John Helliwell at the University of British Columbia, for one, has spent years researching ways of developing models that track happiness and well-being.
Now, that largely academic thinking is working its way into the mainstream. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, the International Monetary Fund and the United Nations have all done work on incorporating quality-of-life measurements into public policy. Last year, Canada’s Department of Finance produced its own 34-page report on the issue.
Titled Toward a Quality of Life Strategy for Canada, the Finance Department document was created in part, it says, “to seek input into a new approach the government is developing to define and measure success and make better use of data and evidence to improve its decision-making.” The report says the COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated that what matters most to Canadians is not always easily measured or described in economic or financial terms.
Ottawa’s move in this direction is “a very significant step,” said François Delorme,a G15+ member and former senior economist with the federal government who now teaches at the Université de Sherbooke. He said various government departments and agencies are involved in developing this new approach, including Statistics Canada and the Privy Council.
“It takes a lot of co-ordination and they are going there, but very slowly,” Mr. Delorme said. He added that he and other members of the G15+ collective have met with various government officials on this issue. “Given that we have done the exercise, I think they will probably feel the support that they have to go faster and forward.”
Mr. Delorme said he believes that in five years there will be a new set of indicatorsin use at the federal and provincial levels, backed by official statistical agencies.
In the meantime, the collective will work to update and expand its own 51 indicators.The group’s leaders have said this is the first time actors as diverse as the David Suzuki Foundation, the Conseil du patronat and the FTQ labour union are working together on common benchmarks to evaluate Quebec’s well-being.
Among the group’s key findings: The economic integration of immigrants in Quebec improved significantly between 2015 and 2019 as more of them found jobs, narrowing their unemployment rate gap with the broader working-age population. But over the same time, the gap in average weekly pay between men and women grew.
The group’s environmental findings include that the number of poor air-quality days fell by 34 per cent in Quebec over five years through the end of 2019. On the flip side, greenhouse gas emissions increased by 6.5 per cent over this period.
Whether in terms of per capita income, productivity, capital investment, job insecurity, the dynamism of new business creation or public debt, Quebec’s economic indicators have generally improved in recent years, according to the group. But several economic trends suggest the need for corrective action, the group found, including the stagnation of secondary and postsecondary graduation rates.
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OTTAWA – Canada’s unemployment rate held steady at 6.5 per cent last month as hiring remained weak across the economy.
Statistics Canada’s labour force survey on Friday said employment rose by a modest 15,000 jobs in October.
Business, building and support services saw the largest gain in employment.
Meanwhile, finance, insurance, real estate, rental and leasing experienced the largest decline.
Many economists see weakness in the job market continuing in the short term, before the Bank of Canada’s interest rate cuts spark a rebound in economic growth next year.
Despite ongoing softness in the labour market, however, strong wage growth has raged on in Canada. Average hourly wages in October grew 4.9 per cent from a year ago, reaching $35.76.
Friday’s report also shed some light on the financial health of households.
According to the agency, 28.8 per cent of Canadians aged 15 or older were living in a household that had difficulty meeting financial needs – like food and housing – in the previous four weeks.
That was down from 33.1 per cent in October 2023 and 35.5 per cent in October 2022, but still above the 20.4 per cent figure recorded in October 2020.
People living in a rented home were more likely to report difficulty meeting financial needs, with nearly four in 10 reporting that was the case.
That compares with just under a quarter of those living in an owned home by a household member.
Immigrants were also more likely to report facing financial strain last month, with about four out of 10 immigrants who landed in the last year doing so.
That compares with about three in 10 more established immigrants and one in four of people born in Canada.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
The Canadian Institute for Health Information says health-care spending in Canada is projected to reach a new high in 2024.
The annual report released Thursday says total health spending is expected to hit $372 billion, or $9,054 per Canadian.
CIHI’s national analysis predicts expenditures will rise by 5.7 per cent in 2024, compared to 4.5 per cent in 2023 and 1.7 per cent in 2022.
This year’s health spending is estimated to represent 12.4 per cent of Canada’s gross domestic product. Excluding two years of the pandemic, it would be the highest ratio in the country’s history.
While it’s not unusual for health expenditures to outpace economic growth, the report says this could be the case for the next several years due to Canada’s growing population and its aging demographic.
Canada’s per capita spending on health care in 2022 was among the highest in the world, but still less than countries such as the United States and Sweden.
The report notes that the Canadian dental and pharmacare plans could push health-care spending even further as more people who previously couldn’t afford these services start using them.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.
As Canadians wake up to news that Donald Trump will return to the White House, the president-elect’s protectionist stance is casting a spotlight on what effect his second term will have on Canada-U.S. economic ties.
Some Canadian business leaders have expressed worry over Trump’s promise to introduce a universal 10 per cent tariff on all American imports.
A Canadian Chamber of Commerce report released last month suggested those tariffs would shrink the Canadian economy, resulting in around $30 billion per year in economic costs.
More than 77 per cent of Canadian exports go to the U.S.
Canada’s manufacturing sector faces the biggest risk should Trump push forward on imposing broad tariffs, said Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters president and CEO Dennis Darby. He said the sector is the “most trade-exposed” within Canada.
“It’s in the U.S.’s best interest, it’s in our best interest, but most importantly for consumers across North America, that we’re able to trade goods, materials, ingredients, as we have under the trade agreements,” Darby said in an interview.
“It’s a more complex or complicated outcome than it would have been with the Democrats, but we’ve had to deal with this before and we’re going to do our best to deal with it again.”
American economists have also warned Trump’s plan could cause inflation and possibly a recession, which could have ripple effects in Canada.
It’s consumers who will ultimately feel the burden of any inflationary effect caused by broad tariffs, said Darby.
“A tariff tends to raise costs, and it ultimately raises prices, so that’s something that we have to be prepared for,” he said.
“It could tilt production mandates. A tariff makes goods more expensive, but on the same token, it also will make inputs for the U.S. more expensive.”
A report last month by TD economist Marc Ercolao said research shows a full-scale implementation of Trump’s tariff plan could lead to a near-five per cent reduction in Canadian export volumes to the U.S. by early-2027, relative to current baseline forecasts.
Retaliation by Canada would also increase costs for domestic producers, and push import volumes lower in the process.
“Slowing import activity mitigates some of the negative net trade impact on total GDP enough to avoid a technical recession, but still produces a period of extended stagnation through 2025 and 2026,” Ercolao said.
Since the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement came into effect in 2020, trade between Canada and the U.S. has surged by 46 per cent, according to the Toronto Region Board of Trade.
With that deal is up for review in 2026, Canadian Chamber of Commerce president and CEO Candace Laing said the Canadian government “must collaborate effectively with the Trump administration to preserve and strengthen our bilateral economic partnership.”
“With an impressive $3.6 billion in daily trade, Canada and the United States are each other’s closest international partners. The secure and efficient flow of goods and people across our border … remains essential for the economies of both countries,” she said in a statement.
“By resisting tariffs and trade barriers that will only raise prices and hurt consumers in both countries, Canada and the United States can strengthen resilient cross-border supply chains that enhance our shared economic security.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 6, 2024.