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Dave Thompson pocketed a cool $1.75 million a couple of days after the Ontario government released details about its greenbelt and Thompson learned that his land sat just outside its borders. Four years from now, he’ll receive the balance – another $1.75 million earned from the sale of his 40-hectare dairy farm in Caledon, a rural area northwest of Toronto. Thompson’s grandfather, father and his brother once tilled this fertile soil, but it’s hard to fault Thompson for accepting the $86,000 per hectare ($35,000 per acre) paid by the developer. Who wouldn’t?

It took a century, but energy-rich Alberta has finally replaced Ontario as the wealthiest province in Canada. While economic indicators suggest this to be true, social and environmental indicators tell a different story. They prove the old adage may be right: You can’t buy happiness.

Alberta’s Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) was first developed by the Pembina Institute in 2001. At that time, it was as a pioneering research effort to develop a new system for measuring Alberta’s well-being.