Some twenty employer, union, environmental, social and philanthropic organizations have agreed on some fifty indicators to be used to go beyond gross domestic product (GDP) alone as a measure of progress and well-being in Québec.
Yes, GDP and job creation are useful economic measurement tools, observed in a virtual interview at Duty, last week, the economist of the University of Sherbrooke François Delorme, “but everyone will agree that well-being is not limited to that. And if the main measurement tools we refer to are too narrow, it means that our policies also risk reflecting too narrow a vision”.
Like other experts, the economist joined some twenty organizations from civil society to jointly design a “dashboard”, which they unveiled on Tuesday and whose 51 indicators must paint a more complete picture of the reality of Quebec, particularly in economic, environmental and social matters. Grouped within the G15+ collective, the organizations in question are as diverse as the Conseil du patronat du Québec, Équiterre, Fondaction, the Chantier de l’économie sociale, the Institut du Québec and the Foundation of Greater Montreal.
This quest for less narrow measures of the progress of societies has been seen all over the world these last years, agrees the director general of the Chantier de l’économie sociale, Béatrice Alain. “What makes the added value of our approach is that it is not limited to a theoretical exercise, but that it has aroused the support of organizations from such diverse backgrounds, which represent large sections of the Quebec society and who are now calling on governments, in particular, to take these indicators into account. In addition, she says, out of the multitude of possible indicators, we have sometimes sought to favor those that could be of greater interest in Quebec, such as culture, social entrepreneurship or housing.
More complete dashboard
The fifty or so indicators finally selected cover three major themes. On the economic side, we find, for example, GDP per capita, productivity and job quality. In social matters, we cover, among other things, income inequalities, housing and the weight of culture in the economy. On the environmental front, it is a question, of course, of greenhouse gas emissions, but also of drinking water consumption, the number of endangered species and the number of vehicles in circulation.
All these data come from credible sources (such as the Institut de la statistique du Québec), are produced regularly (which makes it possible to observe their evolution over time) and are widespread throughout the world (making comparisons possible with other data). other companies), welcome the authors. In their first versions, they only cover the five years preceding the COVID-19 pandemic, but we intend to continue to update them, as well as to go back further in time and to start comparing them. to Ontario and the Canadian average.
What makes the added value of our approach is that it is not limited to a theoretical exercise, but that it has aroused the support of organizations from such diverse backgrounds, which represent large sections of society. Quebec and who are now calling on governments, in particular, to take these indicators into account
What we can already see is that Quebec has made progress in terms of per capita income, productivity and the creation of new businesses, but that graduation rates are stagnating and that investment in research and development is declining. On the other hand, while wealth disparities and poverty have decreased, the situation has deteriorated in terms of access to housing and mental health. The environmental portrait is also “half-hearted” in addition to being full of holes due to the lack of indicators.
Lucidity and political courage
The G15+ exercise logically leads to a call for governments to ensure that their statistical agencies produce the data that is still missing. “Just take the example of adaptation to climate change,” says Fondaction CEO Geneviève Morin. It doesn’t make sense that in Quebec we don’t yet have all the tools necessary to measure our progress. »
But we would also and above all like governments to base their policies and actions on a broader foundation, as New Zealand and Scotland have begun to do and as the Canadian Department of Finance seems to be considering. . “It should not remain an academic exercise. This broader and more complete overview must be incorporated into the arbitrations made by governments, it must become their daily bread”, hopes François Delorme, who himself worked for a long time in the federal public service and who knows the weight that the introduction of new indicators can have when they are accompanied by targets and become performance evaluation criteria. “It’s a question of lucidity and political courage. »
Just take the example of adaptation to climate change. It doesn’t make sense that in Quebec we don’t yet have all the tools necessary to measure our progress.
The timing couldn’t be better, says Geneviève Morin. “There is still a way out of the pandemic to organize, and a transformation of society and its economy which is to be done. We are going to grow the GDP just as much by increasing oil production as by increasing the production of renewable energy, but it is clear that we would not be doing the same thing. In addition, if we want to be able to carry out this economic transformation, we must broaden the range of what we look at as data in order to then be able to act on more than a single factor. »