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Events

The National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy (NRTEE) is holding information sessions across the country to stimulate discussion among municipal leaders, experts and community stakeholders on how to improve the environmental and economic performance of Canada's cities. Securing our Wealth: Investing in the Environmental Quality of Canadian Cities will provide a forum for participants to hear about the Round Table's recommendations.

Early in his term as Finance Minister, Martin set up and worked with the Task Force on Economic Instruments and Disincentives to Sound Environmental Practices. Every indication was that he fully understood that sound environmental practices can coexist with healthy economic performance, but it soon became clear that he was unable to convince senior Finance Department officials of the opportunities available to build environmental performance into a federal plan for economic growth.

His leadership bid has provided an opportunity for him to restate his ambitions for the environment. His campaign promises include using new environmental indicators to ensure that government programs and policies include environmental realities and adopting a new set of budget indicators that consider environmental impacts in measuring growth. These are approaches that both the Task Force and many sustainable development proponents have been putting forward for a decade.

Although opponents of Kyoto tried hard to woo Martin to their cause, his platform makes his support for Canadian ratification explicit. He is opposed to buying credits from other countries and insists that Canada adopt technologies and practices that will not only lower our own emissions but will provide solutions to developing nations trying to do the same. His approach includes transparency and predictability as well as giving MPs of all parties a leading role in linking citizens to government throughout the Kyoto process. His strong commitment to greatly increased consultation with ordinary Canadians suggests that business will need to improve its capacity to engage in effective public discussion about Kyoto and many other environmental matters.

In several recent speeches Martin has focussed on the new economy, which he defines as the parts of the Canadian economy "that are based on the potential of transformative technologies which are going to be the real economic engines of the years to come". In Montreal recently he said that Canada has barely scratched the surface in the area of environmental technology and proposed investing part of the proceeds from the sale of the government's share of Petro-Canada in Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC), to ensure the country becomes a world leader in development and use of advanced environmental technologies.

Martin introduced the Sustainable Development Technology Fund in his February 2000 budget. SDTC was subsequently set up as an arm's-length foundation. Since beginning operation in November 2001, it has made two rounds of funding awards to support environmental technology projects (ELW July 14-21).

Speeches and policy positions presented during the leadership campaign can be found at www.paulmartintimes.ca

Colin Isaacs, head of the CIAL Group, reports on environment-related trends in policy (government and corporate) and legislation for ELW. Comments may be E-mailed to cisaacs@compuserve.com.

By Monsebraaten, L.- Toronto Star

Ontario - The annual fall road trip to the edge of Greater Toronto to pick apples and pumpkins is no
longer a leisurely drive through farmers' fields and vast open spaces. It's becoming a stop-and-go traffic tour of suburbia and its cookie-cutter homes

When and where will it end?

And he is proposing a greenbelt for the Golden Horseshoe to contain growth and permanently protect environmentally sensitive areas such as the Niagara Escarpment and the Oak Ridges Moraine.

The Liberals' anti-development stance in three ecologically important hot spots across the GTA — in Oakville, Richmond Hill and Pickering — saw the Tories defeated in every case. And the upcoming municipal elections will probably see similar upsets in these communities.

A report from the David Suzuki Foundation released this week bolstered the belief that a more informed public will force politicians to protect our vanishing open space and engender a more healthy kind of suburban development that encourages walking, cycling and public transit over the automobile.

"People are so busy," said Oakville's Renee Sandelowsky, a 46-year-old mother of three who has been leading local residents in opposing her town's plan to urbanize some 2,500 hectares of environmentally sensitive countryside between Dundas St. and Highway 407.

"They notice when bad things happen. But by the time that happens, it's too late. Many people don't even know where the urban boundary is," she said.

She acknowledges that cash-strapped cities feel compelled to approve more subdivisions to fund local services. But many urban researchers are finding that uncontrolled growth is actually a drain on city revenues, and local politicians need to understand that.

Sandelowsky has become so passionate about the issue she is running for one of two Ward 4 seats in the Nov. 10 municipal elections. A record 64 candidates are seeking election to the 13-member Oakville council, and many have made protecting the environment and fighting sprawl key planks in their campaign platforms.

She was thrilled earlier this week when Suzuki, the internationally renowned scientist and environmentalist, urged the new Liberal government to act on sprawl. And she welcomed Suzuki's report and citizen's tool kit to help community activists keep up the pressure on governments at all levels.

"To have someone of David Suzuki's stature support what we have been doing for the past several years on our own has been a huge boost," she said.

Communities are starved for information and help in this area, she added.

Former Metro planner David Gurin, who wrote the Suzuki report, says even he has had trouble finding out where municipalities have set their urban boundaries.

"It's extremely important for the public to know," he said. "If it's a secret or not well known, it really puts the public at a disadvantage when it comes to marshalling a response to development."

Developers have made it their business to know exactly where they can build. Municipal planners and councils all have easy access to this information. The public, however, is too often in the dark, Gurin said.

In addition to knowing where the current boundary lies, the public must have access to information about what areas might come under future pressure. Currently, there is no central government clearinghouse for that information, and that has to change, Gurin said.

The privately endowed Neptis Foundation was set up six years ago to fill the gap in knowledge on the regional level of urban centres. But executive director Tony Coombes agrees with Gurin that this is more properly the job of the provincial government.

He thinks the Liberals should set up a regional body similar to the metropolitan planning organizations in the United States and Australia that collect information on growth, employment, transportation and other urban issues, so that the public and politicians have an accurate picture of what is happening in their cities.

These bodies are compelled to keep this data because senior governments make it a prerequisite for obtaining federal cash.

In the United States, for example, municipalities can't get their federal share of the gas tax for road construction if they don't provide the development data, Coombes said.

"The province should establish for the Greater Toronto Area an information service that is comprehensive and consistent and require all municipalities to provide the data," he said. "And it should make any provincial and federal funds contingent upon it."

Newly elected Liberal MPP Kevin Flynn says his attempts to preserve the environment and fight sprawl as an Oakville councillor for 18 years resonated with voters. He looks forward to working in a provincial government that has promised to make environmental protection in urban areas a priority.

"Let's put the environment first and then find out where we can put the housing — instead of planning the housing and trying to fit in the environment later," Flynn said.