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Published on June 24, 2021
Canada gains new momentum toward a wellbeing economy
During World Wellbeing Week (June 21-30), Canada and sovereign Indigenous nations announced the launch of the latest WEAll hub.
“The current economic system was borne out of the Second World War, and it served its purpose at the time, which essentially was to prevent another war,” said Yannick Beaudoin, Innovation and Ontario director with the David Suzuki Foundation and lead facilitator with the WellBeing Economies Alliance for Canada and Sovereign Indigenous Nations (WEAll Can).
“But our lives now are about more than preventing war. Instead of just focusing on material growth forever, we need an economy whose purpose is to deliver on all aspects of wellbeing.”
“It’s not about being anti-growth, anti-business, anti-anything. It’s about being pro wellbeing,” Beaudoin said.
“That’s a big difference. And it’s going to make a big difference to all our lives, and to the future of the planet, if we can get it right.”
WEAll Can will work to co-create an economic model and supportive systems that nurture wellbeing for people and planet. It emerges from an acknowledgement of pre-settler economies, where Indigenous Peoples prioritised wellbeing among each other and with nature for millennia. WEAll Can will also begin to track for the first time Canada’s progress toward a wellbeing economy.
“White economics informed by a reductionist western world view have dominated the scene for too long,” Beaudoin said. “We need to go back to the table, to sit with Indigenous knowledge keepers, change actors from underrepresented communities, women and youth. We need to rethink, together, what we want our economy to deliver and how we know that we’re getting there. It’s already being started in other countries. It’s about time we started here too.”
Learn more about the Well-Being Economies Alliance for Canada and Sovereign Indigenous Nations at www.weallcanada.org
For more information or to arrange an interview, please contact:
Stefanie Carmichael, David Suzuki Foundation: scarmichael@davidsuzuki.org, 437-221-4692
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