SENATORS’ STATEMENTS — Protect Our Winters Canada

Honourable senators, I wish to extend my congratulations to my colleagues.

Colleagues, I recently met with members of Protect Our Winters Canada, an organization that brings together outdoor communities to protect the places they love the most.

The delegation included some of Canada’s accomplished Olympians and Paralympians. They shared inspiring stories, but also a deep concern: Climate change is already transforming the landscapes that shaped their careers. As glaciers retreat and snow seasons shorten, these athletes are watching their training grounds disappear.

Their message was clear. Nature is not a sector. Our economy and our society exist within it, and draw their value from it.

This week, the world marks World Environment Day with a global call for climate action, a reminder that the places we cherish are also the foundations of livelihoods and communities.

Protect Our Winters Canada recently released a very interesting report called The Outdoor Recreation Economy in Canada, a first-of-its-kind report from a University of Waterloo research team. The findings are striking.

Canada’s outdoor recreation economy contributes an estimated $101.6 billion every year and supports nearly 1.1 million full-time-equivalent jobs. That makes it larger than the pharmaceutical, fisheries, agricultural and even forestry sectors. It is especially important for rural and Indigenous communities seeking diversified, sustainable opportunities.

This is a clear example of what economists call double materiality. The impact runs in two directions. When glaciers vanish, forests burn, or snow becomes unreliable, the cost is felt not only in ecosystems but also by businesses, workers and communities. And our economic choices, in turn, shape the health of those same natural systems.

But we cannot manage what we do not measure. In the United States, the Bureau of Economic Analysis has accounted for this sector for years through a dedicated satellite account.

I therefore encourage Statistics Canada to explore the creation of an outdoor recreation satellite account so we can better measure, support but, mostly, protect this vibrant sector and the natural systems on which it depends.

Meegwetch. Thank you.