GPI Atlantic
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Press Release

INCLUSION INTO WHAT?

Ronald Colman, Director, GPI Atlantic

We are very familiar with the costs of exclusion. For example, we know that high poverty rates among single mothers produce high rates of child poverty and high social costs in poor health, poor employment opportunities and poor educational outcomes among youth, which in turn are associated with higher crime, drug use and delinquency rates. We also know that poverty and exclusion are costly. For example, low-income women have a 75% higher rate of hospitalization than women with adequate incomes.

But the language of "exclusion-inclusion" implies that we want to move from A to B. We know the problems and costs of "A", but do we know what we mean by "B"? Do we know where we are headed? What is the society in which we want to "include" people? Is that society defined by higher incomes? Stable, secure, full-time employment? A university education? A ranch house in the suburbs with a car (maybe two) in the driveway?

BUT the over-consumption, overwork, and questionable education that increasingly characterize the lives of our "included" suburbanites may be a highly misguided model that by definition excludes future generations as well as millions of the world's poor. For example, if everyone in the world were to consume at the rate of the average "included" New Brunswicker, we would need four more planets earth to provide the necessary resources and to absorb the waste that our consumption produces. If our measure of inclusion is based on consuming more, then we may be excluding our children and our children's children by leaving them a poorer, depleted natural world.

Just as the current generation is paying now (with higher student tuition, increased debt, and reduced government services) for our overspending in the 1970s and 1980s, so we are now accumulating an environmental debt for which future generations will pay. We are already seeing that debt being paid in the collapse of the Atlantic ground-fish stocks, the degradation of our forests and soils, the loss of species, global warming, higher rates of child asthma, and new environmental illnesses that were unknown 20 years ago.

The earth's resources and waste absorption capacities are finite. It is an illusion to think that more production and more growth will "lift all boats" on an ever "rising tide." In nature, which thrives on balance, on equilibrium, and on limits to growth, there is no such thing as an ever rising tide. The only organism that emulates our current economic dogma and thrives on limitless growth is the cancer cell.

If by "inclusion" we mean our current materialist, consumer society, then we will satisfy our desires either at the expense of future generations, or else we literally need millions of the world's citizens to live in poverty. We cannot in good conscience speak of alleviating poverty without also talking about curbing the excess consumption of our "included" citizens. From the perspective of a world of limited resources, the issue is one of distribution and a need for greater equity rather than ever more production. For some to meet their basic needs, others need to exercise restraint. We cannot speak of overcoming "exclusion" without profoundly reexamining current patterns of "inclusion."

We may ask the same question about our model of inclusion in the realm of employment. According to Statistics Canada, we are working longer and longer hours to make ends meet, to make payments on our house and car, and to maintain our present lifestyles. We are getting more and more stressed out and burned out. Rates of time stress are rising across the country and, according to a new Statistics Canada study, producing adverse health outcomes. Long work hours are associated with higher rates of overweight and smoking, poor diets, and lower rates of physical exercise.

We are spending less time with our own children and farming them out more and more to strangers. As a household, the average dual earner couple with children today works longer paid plus unpaid hours (134 hours) than families a hundred years ago (114 hours). Our overwork is literally squeezing out volunteer work time, which has declined by 8.7% across the country since 1992 alone. Is this typical dual-earner model our vision of an "inclusive" society?

And we can extend the question to education. We conventionally measure progress by the number of graduates per capita and other quantitative production-line measurements. But what is the quality of education today? What is really going on inside the classroom? Are we producing a wiser, more knowledgeable, more tolerant, aware and compassionate citizenry?

And we may ask whether our fast-track, high-wage, suburb-and-car model has come at the expense of community? Today in New Brunswick we are three times more likely to be victims of crime compared to 30 years ago. We are more likely to lock our doors. A recent poll in the USA found that most people had more possessions, higher income, and "better" jobs than their parents, but less than half classified themselves as "happier" than their parents. If we define "inclusion" in materialist terms, we may be creating a questionable model for those currently "excluded."

In short, just as the notion of "development" sometimes assumes that the "underdeveloped" or "developing" nations are going to become more like the "developed" nations (i.e. the west), we have to be very careful in our use of "exclusion" and "inclusion". We know the costs of exclusion very well - it is pointless to romanticize poverty. But are there not also profound costs of inclusion, if by inclusion we mean our conventional income, employment and housing patterns? And might those costs not be paid by future generations as well as by citizens of the world at far distances?

What I am suggesting is that our discussions on exclusion and inclusion must incorporate a profound critique of current (and widely accepted) social patterns and a deep questioning about the kind of society in which we want to include people. Otherwise we may be perpetuating a problem rather than solving it. At a very minimum, we cannot talk about alleviating the poverty and exclusion of the "have-nots" without also talking about curbing excess consumption among the "haves" and promoting greater equity. This is not a matter of ideology and politics, but of a simple description of available resource availability and use.

We may wish to seek our inspiration in models of development that are quite different from the current society in which we now want to include people. If we keep measuring how "well off" we are as a society according to how fast our economy is growing and how much we are spending, our direction will be seriously skewed.

A fundamental purpose of the Genuine Progress Index is to measure our wellbeing and quality of life in terms that go beyond the pervasive materialism of our society - that measure progress towards stronger and more caring communities, towards greater equity, towards greater livelihood security (rather than material accumulation), towards better health and greater wisdom, towards environmental quality and natural resource health.

If we can begin to define our "inclusive" society in those more "inclusive" terms, our work can have a clearer purpose and direction. We will not only be certain about the barriers of exclusion we need to overcome. We will also have a clearer sense of vision of where we want to go.

We will likely find powerful models of inspiration among the very "excluded" people we want to assist. To end with one concrete example: The Pictou Landing First Nations band in Nova Scotia decided in 1993 to reverse centuries of forest clearcutting and degradation by adopting restorative forest practices that would gradually bring the resource back to the conditions enjoyed by their ancestors. The forest has become a focal point for restoring the health of the community and bringing band members back to their ancient culture.

The Pictou Landing forest recently became the first woodlot in Nova Scotia to receive international Forest Stewardship Council certification for sustainable forest practices, and has become a model for its neighbours and other bands. It should (and it can) become a model for the whole province.

Among the people with whom we work, -- often the most "excluded," -- we will find many other shining models of the kind of society we want to create. Who knows? Maybe many of those currently "included" will find they have a lot to learn! And our new "inclusive" society may look very different from the current model of those conventionally considered to be fortunate. Certainly it will have to be very different if we want do not wish to exclude our children and our children's children from a healthy and sustainable future.

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