A flawed yardstick, but a start

It was the increase in the number of underweight babies, pinpointed by social planning councils, that caught my eye. Across Ontario, between 1990 and 1994, the number jumped by 18.9 per cent. In Hastings and Prince Edward counties, which include Bancroft, Tweed, Trenton, Picton and Belleville, the increase was 36.4 per cent. In Halton Region, which includes Burlington, Oakville and Milton, it was 21 per cent. In Kingston, 51 per cent. In Peterborough, in an exception to the general trend, there was a 17 per cent drop in low-birth-weight babies. The low-birth-weight figures pop up in quality of life indexes published by the Ontario Social Development Council and by social planning councils in Ontario municipalities. Low birth weight can indicate many things. It can point to poverty and family stress. It can indicate poor health. It's a fairly reliable predictor that children will have difficulties in school, which can result in everything from poor academic performance to trouble with the law. The connection to poverty is important to overall sustainability because, as the World Summit for Social Development declared in 1995, "The problem of environmental degradation has social roots, and poverty alleviation is a prerequisite for sustainable development." The Ontario council produced the first index last October. Since then, several municipal social planning councils have produced local indexes. The intent is to encourage a continuing dialogue by publishing indexes every six months. The Ontario council recently released its second index, but noted that no new data were available on low birth weights. So, all we still have to go on are the 1994 figures - and this highlights one of the problems with the indexes. The choice of the 12 indicators that make up the indexes was restricted. That's because some municipalities don't collect data on certain indicators. And publishing every six months requires indicators that are based on data that are frequently collected. Low-birth-weight figures are an exception to the frequency rule. But they are so important, they couldn't be ignored. The other 11 indicators are: people receiving social assistance, children in the care of children's aid societies, people on waiting lists for social housing, the local unemployment rate, the proportion of the local labour force working, the number of bankruptcies, the number of suicide deaths, the number of elderly on waiting lists for long-term care, air quality, the number of toxic spills and the number of tonnes of waste diverted from landfills by blue boxes. Two of the environmental indicators are especially unsatisfactory. Blue box figures could mean things are getting worse, not better, as the figures rise. It could mean we are producing more waste, not that we are reducing what goes to landfills. And toxic spills are accidental, which says nothing about cutting back on continuing emissions of the kind that have afflicted the Great Lakes. But even with their problems, the indexes are vital, because they certainly do offer a focus for dialogue. Indexes are a single number calculated from the 12 indicators, and 1990 was chosen as the base year and given a value of 100. The provincial index in May stood at 90.1, a 10 per cent decline in quality of life. In Kingston, the index was 41.12, a decline of 58.9 per cent. That's astonishing, and should spark some anxious soul searching. The number of people receiving social assistance went up by 258 per cent. The number of people waiting for social housing was up by 138 per cent. The unemployed had risen by 21 per cent. Air quality had worsened by 117 per cent. The Peterborough index, on the other hand, stood at 98.45. But that's deceptive, because the unreliable environmental indicators were so positive. Blue-box tonnage went up 119 per cent. And toxic spills went down 41 per cent. Subtract them, and Peterborough is around the provincial average. And so, the indexes provide lots to talk about. And that's a great beginning.

Cameron Smith is an author and environmentalist living in Lansdowne, Ont.