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Natural
Capital:
A Critical Foundation of Our Economy
Improving
the information base on natural capital
Summary:
The NRTEE's 2003 report
on national environment and sustainable development indicators
proposed three major sets of recommendations to ensure that
the information base for decision making on fiscal and other
policy accounts more fully for natural, human and social capital:
- Statistics Canada should publish annually
the six indicators of natural and human capital identified
by the NRTEE, and the Minister of Finance should incorporate
them in the federal budget statement in order to provide
Canadians with a better context for understanding the overall
state and potential of our economy.
- Statistics Canada should expand Canada's
System of National Accounts to include information on all
types of capital, including natural capital, and the interactions
among the various types of capital.
- The Government of Canada, through Environment
Canada's Canadian Information System for the Environment
(CISE), should improve the data structures and information
systems relating to environmental data.
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To begin the process of implementing these measures,
this budget submission sets out three recommendations:
Recommendation 1: That Statistics
Canada, Environment Canada and Natural Resources Canada be provided
with $5 million a year to continuously improve and regularly report
the recommended indicators of natural and human capital.
Recommendation 2: That Statistics
Canada be provided with $20 million a year to begin the process
of collecting and integrating the data needed to expand Canada’s
System of National Accounts so that it includes all types of natural,
human and, eventually, social capital.
Recommendation 3: That Environment
Canada be provided with $20 million a year to enable CISE to become
fully operational.
(Details
and Table of Recommended Measures)
Next
Helping rural and Aboriginal
communities
protect natural capital
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Investing in Canada's Natural Capital