Make the environment a municipal election issue

Will the politicians you elect value protecting clean water, air and urban green spaces?

Years ago, I was in Ottawa to participate in a forum about banning lawn pesticides. Marlene Jennings, a federal member of Parliament at the time, shared her perspective on the difficulty of changing regulations at the different levels of government. Federally, she said it was like trying to turn around an ocean liner; municipally, it was more like trying to turn a canoe. It was a good reminder that local, municipal governments are the most accessible level of government for active citizens to put issues on the political agenda and create the kind of communities we wanted.

Whether you live in an urban or rural area, the results of the upcoming municipal election will help determine political priorities, and where our tax dollars are spent. Voter turnout tends to be low, particularly with municipal elections. The average voter turnout in 2014 in our area was only 32 per cent. But seats, at times, are won by a handful of votes, so your vote does count.

Understandably, wading through a laundry list of names to elect a regional chair and councillors, mayor, ward councillor and school trustees is daunting. It is time-consuming, especially without party affiliations, to consider every candidate’s reasons for running. But we cannot be complacent about political priorities. We saw how swiftly the new Ontario government eliminated Ontario’s Climate Change Action Plan.

For the first time in 33 years, we will elect a new regional chair, as Ken Seiling retires. There is no doubt that the new chair will bring his or her priorities to the table, but it is critical that sustainability is high on the list. The regional government has at times offered a carrot when I thought a stick would be more effective, but I applaud a number of progressive initiatives including the protected countryside line, which was recently celebrated at the second annual Hold the Line Festival. The decision to shift to bi-weekly waste pickup has also vastly increased green and blue bin use and is extending the life of the Erb Street landfill site while decreasing greenhouse gas emissions.

But municipal governments are the creatures of the provincial government. What powers do they actually have to protect and enhance our natural environment?

The environmental commissioner of Ontario, Dianne Saxe, addresses this question. Municipalities can now use “their general power to control an activity authorized by the federal or provincial governments,” she writes in a commentary on the Supreme Court of Canada’s 2001 decision in “114957 Canada Ltée (Spraytech, Société d’arrosage) v. Hudson (Town).” This landmark case means that municipal governments now have broader authority to pass regulations to address local issues that are a potential threat to human and environmental health.

Although this authority has rarely been exercised in Canada, that authority isn’t necessary for municipalities to model best environmental practices. Waterloo City Hall has a green roof that helps manage stormwater and cools the building; Waterloo Region Public Health provides tap water in pitchers in meetings, saving the horrendous waste and pollution from individual water bottles; the City of Kitchener operations facility has the largest solar panel array in Canada; and Cambridge City Hall is LEED-certified with a living green wall inside that improves indoor air quality.

We cannot have the luxury of not voting when we’re faced with runaway climate change, when we need municipal and regional politicians who are committed to protecting our precious drinking water. We need to elect politicians who understand that having a Bee City designation is just as important and urgent as fixing a pothole, having a balanced budget, or dealing with homelessness and providing safe injection sites.

To this end, several local environmental groups and networks in Waterloo Region are hosting a public forum for all municipal and regional candidates to share their environmental vision for our corner of the universe. We don’t expect all 200-plus candidates to attend due to scheduling conflicts, but we want to implant in every candidate’s brain the importance of processing all their actions and decisions through an environmental screen.

Even if you cannot attend the public forum on Thursday from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at 675 Queen St. S. in Kitchener, do your research, ask questions, read candidates’ websites and think really hard about the kind of community you want to live in. Will the politicians you elect value protecting clean water and air and the urban green spaces for you, your children and your grandchildren?