Well-being Economies Alliance for Canada and Sovereign Indigenous Nations
The Well-being Economies Alliance for Canada and Sovereign Indigenous Nations (WEAll Can) is a dynamic network dedicated to reimagining the economy to enable systems that deliver well-being for all people and the planet.
WEAll Can is a hub of the Wellbeing Economy Alliance (WEAll), the leading global collaboration of organizations, alliances, movements and individuals working together to transform the economic system into one that delivers well-being for all, on a healthy planet.
WEAll Can operates as a distributed action network. A collaboration of allies from all levels of the economic system lead the work of radically reimagining the purpose of our economic system to prioritize people and the planet.
Well-being in Canada at a glimpse
Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
Largest economy in the world.
Of Canadians reporting difficulty in paying expenses related to housing, food, transportation and clothing.
Of adults meeting the physical activity target recommended in the Canadian 24-hour movement guidelines.
Canadians have or have had a mental illness by the time they’re 40.
Place for child and youth well-being among wealthy countries.
Why do we need WEAll Can?
The economic system, and its deeply flawed assumptions, is connected with and shapes all aspects of our lives. Society, the economy and nature are complex adaptive systems with multiple interdependent and connected elements.
The crises of poverty, climate change and mental health are not stand-alone issues or entirely under individual control. They are failures of the economic system’s design. These failures are a result of a misalignment of the purpose of the economy with the lived values of the diversity of people living in Canada.
The global pandemic has made the faults in our economic system impossible to ignore. A small group of people created the economy we have today – and that means we can recreate it. Rebuilding after the pandemic presents an opportunity to redefine the purpose of the economy so problems are not created in the first place.
With this in mind, WEAll Can advocates for a new, “life-centered” economics, making the purpose of the economy to deliver well-being for all people.
ITo deliver well-being for the diversity of people living on our shared lands, we must collectively define what we mean by “well-being” and advocate for this to be the purpose of economic policy.
Our mission
WEAll Can brings allies together to collaboratively redefine and realign the purpose of the economy to the lived values of the diversity of people living in Canada.
Our vision
WEAll Can envisions that within a decade, the economic system in Canada will have been reimagined by a diversity of voices and given a new purpose: to deliver, maintain, and enhance just and equitable well-being for all on a healthy planet.
Our values
Collaboration, inclusivity and pluralism, solution-seeking, empowerment and interconnectedness are the values we bring forward.
Theory of change
WEAll CAN seeks to facilitate the transformation of economic purpose in Canada via three action pathways:
Head:
Share and support the application of well-being economy principles at the federal, municipal and community scale, to not only secure lives and livelihoods, but also to build resilient, ecologically safe and socially just communities.
Heart:
With knowledge of well-being economy principles, we open a space for sensing and connecting with the emotional aspects of our decisions and ways of being. The hub will engage people throughout our shared lands to join in collaboratively redefining the purpose of the economy so that it reflects the diversity of their lived values.
Hands:
This greater emotional awareness better empowers our intuition and agency, helping us to “re-reprogram” the default western mindset of skipping the co-creation process in finding solutions to problems. WEAll Can will create spaces to collaboratively imagine and enable actions toward a purpose-led economy, in a more qualitative, emergent manner.
What WEAll Can is trying to solve
Problem
The economy is not delivering well-being for all people in Canada because the economic system is not designed to do so. We need economic system change. The federal government has all of the levers to determine the purpose of our economy. They are the ones we need to influence.
Gap
We need a critical mass of people/organizations from across the economic system explicitly working on economic system change, to create the vision and pressure we need to influence government.
Solution
WEAll Can is a network dedicated to economic system change, bringing together different kinds of actors.
Problem
The vision for a reimagined purpose for the economy needs to come from all people throughout our shared lands. The current economy has been defined by only one cultural viewpoint.
Gap
Need to get inputs from all Canadians and Indigenous Nations on what a collectively reimagined purpose for the economy should be.
Solution
WEAll Can provides a platform to listen to, learn with and elevate a plurality of voices that speak to a diversity of ways of knowing.
Problem
People are dissatisfied with the outcomes of the current economic system that affect them.
Gap
People need to be empowered to act to influence the government to make economic system change, but currently don’t know or care about the economy and economics. They cannot get involved if they do not know how to get involved or what exactly they are influencing.
Solution
WEAll Can empowers people with information, tools and an active community of peers, so everyone can collaboratively reimagine the purpose of our economy.
Problem
We are told repeatedly by arts and culture, schools, media, government and business that other people are selfish (they value wealth, public image and success over compassionate values like helpfulness, equality and protection of nature). Research shows people who hold this belief about other people feel less responsible for their communities and significantly less positive about getting involved. They also report greater social alienation and are less likely to feel that they fit in with wider society.
Gap
We need “communities of belonging,” in which people feel trust, understanding, belonging, mutual concern, mutual aid and support.
Solution
WEAll CAN empowers people with information and tools and diffuses power so everyone can collaboratively redefine economic purpose.