Ecology Ottawa

News Clippings

Doug Ford meets Andrew Scheer as carbon tax fight heats up

By Mike Crawley, CBC News, October 30, 2018

Ontario Premier Doug Ford will take another step in forging a national alliance against the federal Liberal carbon tax when he meets Tuesday with Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer.

It will be the first time Ford and Scheer have met since August, when the premier was greeted with wild enthusiasm at the Conservative Party of Canada convention.

With a fresh mandate as premier of Canada's largest province, Ford now plays a key role on the national political scene, and is inserting himself into federal politics with growing frequency as next year's election creeps closer. His primary targets are Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his carbon pricing plan.

Sidewalks. Can’t we do a better job?

By Kenneth Duff, The Review Letter to the Editor, October 26, 2018

I have a new soapbox. I think we can all agree that sidewalks are designed for pedestrians. So why are the pedestrians disadvantaged every time a driveway intersects with the sidewalk? For most people, this is not an issue but try walking a traditional sidewalk when you are using crutches, a cane, a walker or a wheelchair. Our population is growing older and more of our friends and relatives will be using these devices.

Why is it not possible for sidewalks to be built on one continuous level — as well as to accommodate vehicle crossing by pouring a concrete or asphalt grade adjustment where required. This would require less engineering and less execution time and therefore save money. This is how sidewalks are installed in Washington D.C. and other cities or parts thereof.

Deforestation: it continues

By André Perreault, The Review, October 22, 2018

Hello, yes it’s me. This letter is in response to Louise Sproule’s well-written article concerning deforestation and something that might happen in 2019. Judging by the past performance of our local, provincial and federal politicians I see nothing happening at all, especially since the government is solely responsible for orchestrating and sanctioning this mass deforestation as a means of making money by the destruction of all our natural resources.

Ontario, having lost manufacturing in the province, decided to go the way of Alberta and totally decimate our environment as a means of financial gain.

As for 2018, I firmly believe that mass deforestation will continue, unabated, till at least the year 2025. The only thing that will stop large cash crop farmers, more than likely financial from out of the country, will be a total loss of all trees, and nothing left to cut. After all, the farmers have had their way, the only trees left will be those between the highways and those land-holding and woodlot owners who are not farmers. Yes . . . you know us – people who have been putting our money where our mouths are for decades, yes – our money and our time planting saplings, clearing standing deadwood, trying to care for our forests both large and small, as best we can.

After 1 year, Ottawa man wraps up zero-waste experiment

By CBC News Ottawa, October 28, 2018

An Ottawa father wrapped up his zero-waste experiment this month after a whole year of not sending anything to a landfill.

From October 2017 to the same month in 2018, JP Torunski said he produced almost no trash. Instead, he kept almost everything he couldn't compost or recycle in two Rubbermaid bins in his basement.

"Ideally, I would avoid having any waste in the first place," he told CBC Radio's In Town and Out. "[But] certain things I'd allow myself to throw out, like anything [that] was dangerous."

Skelton: How small nuclear reactors can help save our atmosphere

By John Skelton, Ottawa Citizen, October 25, 2018

By 2009, smog in China was killing an estimated one million people a year – worse than the infamous London Smog of December 1952, when 4,000 were killed and more than 100,000 sickened. Just as in London, fear and anger gripped the Chinese populace and demands to do something rocked the nation.

The solution in London was to phase out domestic coal fires; in Beijing it provoked a sharp U-turn towards clean energy sources. Coal-fired power plants were scheduled for closure, new wind and solar farms were initiated, and large investments in hydro and nuclear power installations were announced.

A surprising outcome of this crisis was almost overnight support for small, clean nuclear.

Today's letters: Don't like the Liberal carbon plan? Then show us yours, Tories

By Penny Henderson and others, Ottawa Citizen Letters to the Editor, October 27, 2018

So show us your climate plan, Tories

Re: Can Justin Trudeau sell skeptical Canadians on a carbon tax? Oct. 24.

If the federal Conservative leader and the premiers of Ontario, Saskatchewan and Manitoba are unhappy with the carbon-pricing mechanism announced by the Liberal government on Tuesday, there is nothing to stop them from coming up with their own climate action plan. It would be good to see their energy turned to some positive action instead of this continual squabbling.

Ottawa's urban farming leverages appetite for locally grown food

By Christopher Guly, Ottawa Citizen, October 27, 2018

Neither heat-scorched drought nor record rainfall could dry up or dampen David Mazur-Goulet’s enthusiasm to be a successful urban farmer in Ottawa.

BeetBox, a one-acre co-operative farm he and two other eco-centric, sustainable-food-producing enthusiasts established last year on Davidson’s Side Road in Nepean, defied weather challenges to produce a bountiful crop of about 30 soon-to-be, certified-organic vegetables for 106 customers who paid in advance to receive weekly or biweekly baskets of fresh produce.

The urban micro-farm’s VegBox CSA (community-supported agriculture) program sold out this year, and earned Mazur-Goulet and his business partners, Jeremy Colbeck and Lise-Anne Léveillé, $38,000 in revenue in its first year of operation.

Trudeau’s carbon tax rebate is smart - but complicated

By Christopher Ragan, the Globe and Mail, October 24, 2018

Christopher Ragan is chair of Canada’s Ecofiscal Commission and director of the Max Bell School of Public Policy at McGill University.

The federal government announced this week that its carbon tax will apply in early 2019 to those provinces without their own – Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and New Brunswick. It also announced that most of the carbon-tax revenues will be returned through the income-tax system to households.

With this two-part policy, the feds have designed a smart package that will both reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and maintain most families’ purchasing power. But the government will need to carefully explain how both parts of the policy actually make sense.

Weather statement prompts NCC to close Gatineau Park parkways early this season

By Mike Vladveld, 1310 News, October 26, 2018

The Gatineau Park parkway network (Gatineau, Champlain, Fortune Lake and Philippe Lake parkways) is closing for the season.

The National Capital Commission will have gates up on the roadways as of 6 p.m., Friday.

The early closure is a result of the special weather statement issued Friday morning by Environment Canada, as its expecting a mix of snow, ice pellets and freezing rain to fall on the area over the weekend.

Cyclists, in-line skaters and pedestrians are asked to exercise caution.

Rubin: Ottawa's LRT — the secrecy continues

By Ken Rubin, Ottawa Citizen, October 25, 2018

Ironically, it was on municipal election day – when the public gets to exercise its democratic rights directly ­– that a City of Ottawa official confirmed to me there are yet more secret LRT records.

This time, it’s some 100,000 pages or reports since 2014 from Ottawa’s Transportation Services Directorate detailing its observations, including photos, of the delayed, multi-billion-dollar LRT project.

I found that these records existed when I recently pressed the city to reveal its own LRT-type monitoring or inspection reports.

LRT Phase 2 contract delayed to next year

By Joanne Chianello, CBC News Ottawa, October 25, 2018

'Lame duck' council not allowed to sign $3B-deal, but construction expected to start next summer

The contract for the expansion of the city's LRT system will be delayed for a second time now that a so-called "lame duck" council has been returned to City Hall after Monday's election. Originally, council was supposed to approve the $3.3-billion deal for Phase 2 of Ottawa's light-rail system last spring, but in March of this year, the short list of consortiums bidding for east-west and north-south expansions asked for more time to prepare the complex bids.

Why Ottawa's new council could give Jim Watson a rougher ride

By Joanne Chianello, CBC News Ottawa, October 23, 2018

(...)Some of the seven new councillors elected this week are more progressive than their predecessors — as well as Watson.

They include Theresa Kavanagh, an NDP activist who will replace Mark Taylor in Bay ward; Laura Dudas, who will take over from Jody Mitic in Innes; and Glen Gower, who beat Shad Qadri in Stittsville.

It's not a massive shift in outlook for council, but it boosts the ranks of the existing left-of-centre contingent — think Somerset's Catherine McKenney, Rideau-Rockcliffe's Tobi Nussbaum, Rideau-Vanier's Mathieu Fleury and Kitchissippi's Jeff Leiper — who often found themselves on the losing sides of votes to, say, freeze transit fares.