Healthy, Wealthy and Wise

The report analyzes four Canadian environmental regulations—Coal Phase-Out, Clean Electricity, VOC, and Methane—finding they provide between $18 billion and $21 billion in direct health benefits by 2050. It argues that these savings could be used to address healthcare shortages, such as hiring 2,200 to 2,500 doctors, and cautions against the use of discount rates that undervalue the health of future generations.

• Four federal environmental regulations—the Coal Phase-Out Regulations (2012), the Clean Electricity Regulations (2024), the Volatile Organic Compound (VOC) (2025) Regulations, and the Methane Regulations (2018)—are estimated to provide between $18,000,000,000 and $21,000,000,000 in direct health benefits by 2050.
• Based on 2022-23 median doctor wages, the health savings from these four regulations could potentially fund the hiring of 2,200 to 2,500 doctors over the 36-year total analysis period.
• The Coal Phase-Out Regulations (2012) are estimated to produce undiscounted health savings of over $9.4 billion over a 21-year period (2015-2035), primarily from reduced emissions of ozone, PM2.5, and mercury.
• The Clean Electricity Regulations (2024) are projected to result in undiscounted healthcare savings of over $5 billion in a low-NOX reduction scenario and over $8 billion in a high-NOX reduction scenario between 2024 and 2050.
• The VOC Regulations (2025), focusing on oil and gas facilities, are expected to reduce VOC emissions by approximately 487,000 tonnes over 21 years, resulting in over $1.5 billion in undiscounted direct health savings.
• The Methane Regulations (2018) are expected to reduce VOC emissions by 773 kt over an 18-year period (2018-2035), yielding an estimated $468 million in undiscounted health and environmental benefits.
• The report argues that the use of 'discount rates' in government cost-benefit analysis is problematic for environmental policy because it reduces the present monetary value of future benefits, effectively discounting the health of future generations.

APA

Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (n.d.). Healthy, Wealthy and Wise. https://cape.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Healthy-Wealthy-Wise-Full-Report.pdf

Chicago

Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment. Healthy, Wealthy and Wise. n.d. https://cape.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Healthy-Wealthy-Wise-Full-Report.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment |title=Healthy, Wealthy and Wise |url=https://cape.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Healthy-Wealthy-Wise-Full-Report.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{canadianassociationofphysiciansfortheenvironmentndhealthy, author = {{Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment}}, title = {{Healthy, Wealthy and Wise}}, institution = {Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment}, url = {https://cape.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Healthy-Wealthy-Wise-Full-Report.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }