Ottawa needs to straighten out its tax and spending approach if Canada is to have healthy, wealthy cities
(Winnipeg Free Press)

Our cities are needlessly suffering environmental decline that has a direct bearing on quality of life and wealth creation – in good part because of Ottawa’s unfocussed approach to taxing and spending. That’s the message of a report being released today in Winnipeg at the annual conference of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities.

Ottawa’s influence on our cities’ development is largely unintentional and often runs counter to sustainability objectives. The result is misdirected government resources and programs that often under-perform.
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Let’s stop the fiction - GDP is not enough: Canada needs to adopt natural capital indicators to monitor the economy’s ecological foundations

Until today, Canada’s decision-makers had no way of measuring whether we have adequate ecological resources to maintain our current level of economic activity and prosperity into the future.

Because we haven’t kept track of our ecological resources, we don’t know if we are running down our stocks of this “natural capital” to the detriment of future generations’ prosperity.
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"An environment to stimulate and sustain innovation"
A Submission on the Innovation Strategy

In February 2002, the federal government released two policy papers, Achieving Excellence and Knowledge Matters, which outlined Canada's Innovation Strategy. The main point of this paper is that the Innovation Strategy, to achieve its economic objectives, must incorporate environmental objectives.
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The Way Forward -Integrating the Environment and the Economy

By David J. McGuinty, President and CEO, NRTEE

Ten years have passed since more than 170 countries agreed upon a blueprint for sustainable development called Agenda 21 at the Rio Earth Summit. The approach taken by the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy (NRTEE) - an independent advisory agency to the Canadian Prime Minister on how to achieve sustainable development - has been to view sustainable development as a direction rather than a destination, as a 100,000-piece jigsaw puzzle with no picture on the box to guide assembly.
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Brave New Economics: Hold all the Earth Summits you want, we'll never achieve sustainable development without developing new economics that value natural capital

By David J. McGuinty, President and CEO, NRTEE

The Prime Minister is being congratulated for his twin announcements at the World Summit on Sustainable Development at Johannesburg. Putting the Kyoto climate change agreement to a Parliamentary ratification vote and establishing 15 new national parks indeed establishes an environmental legacy.

As important as they are, the real legacy may be less in the two initiatives themselves than in what they represent - which is no less than the beginning of a brave new era in which we value nature and call it by its true economic name: natural capital.
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ADDITIONAL ARTICLES

Innovation for the Environment: A Trillion Dollar Market
(The Hill Times, Ottawa, Ontario, March 17, 2003)
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Brownfields: bounty from a $7-billion blue box
(The Globe and Mail, February 11, 2003)
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It’s the environment, stupid: Canada can’t afford
ecological deficit
News: climate change actually oozes with opportunity to harness market forces through emissions trading
(The Hill Times, Ottawa, Ontario, September 23, 2002)
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Overdraft at the Nature Bank
Earth summits won’t achieve sustainable development. We need to start a real accounting for the use of natural capital, says David McGuinty.
(The Globe and Mail, September 4, 2002)
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Infrastructure spending goes to heart of our country
Ottawa’s already helping to refurbish Main Street, now all three orders of government have to work together.
(The Hill Times, July 22, 2002)
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Cash-starved cities unable to compete: Canadian cities don’t have the same powers to raise revenues that their competitors in the U.S. and Europe enjoy
(The Toronto Star, Toronto, Ontario, February 25, 2002)
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Urban Salvation through Sensible Taxation
(Municipal World, February 2002)
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Climate Change: Treatment is affordable
Buying in: Today, corporations meet to talk about trading up to a healthier world by swapping emissions credits. Let’s encourage them, says David McGuinty
(The Globe and Mail, January 29, 2002)
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Society must preserve, wisely use natural capital
(Winnipeg Free Press, November 7, 2001)
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It isn't cheap, and it ain't easy
“We’ll have to work harder and spend more to guarantee safe water for the future”
(The Telegram, St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador - August 22, 2001)
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Role for privatization in achieving safe water
(Saskatoon Star Phoenix, August 17, 2001)
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If we build it, what will come?
Any northern natural gas pipeline must be balanced by investment in the regulatory system and the people, says environmental specialist David McGuinty
(The Globe and Mail, July 25, 2001)
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Aborriginal people looking for balance
Northern projects must include roles for local residents
(Edmonton Journal, June 4, 2001)
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We can’t hide behind sunscreen
Paul Martin is right, the GDP doesn’t adequately reflect reality, says economist David McGuinty.We’re forgetting about the environment.
(The Globe and Mail, May 25, 2001)
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If we want clean water, we must pay for it
(The Toronto Star, Toronto, Ontario, August 13, 2001)
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Carbon Trading
Unleashing market forces to battle climate change –
at a discount.
(Green Machine Magazine)
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