Ecology Ottawa presentation to city council on draft 2008 budget

December 3, 2007

Thank you. My name is Trevor Haché, and I am a member of the Steering Committee of Ecology Ottawa. We are a volunteer organization that wants to make Ottawa the green capital of Canada. We believe that Ottawans want a sustainable community and care about public transit, pollution, greenspace, climate change, renewable energy, waste disposal and recycling.

Ecology Ottawa takes issue with the proposed 2008 Budget: it marginalises the city’s commitment to improving air quality and fighting climate change in a variety of key areas: it is poised to undermine basic attempts to keep the city’s greenspace healthy by cutting pruning programs and shrub maintenance; it proposes to raise fees for public services including transportation and sports; and it proposes reductions in snow removal and salt sweeping that will directly affect the pedestrians of this city. It is a budget that favours cars over transit and pedestrians, where the urban centre will bear much of the burden of service reductions, and the effect will be to lower the quality of life of Ottawa. This budget would take this city in the wrong direction.

Let me be specific. Where greenhouse gasses are concerned this budget would propose increases, despite evidence that links greenhouse gas emissions to climate change and high public health costs. With Option 14 and cuts to the trees and forests maintenance program you admit that the city’s overall forest health will decline. This, coupled with options to reduce existing programs such as option 40 (eliminating community forest maintenance), option 43 (reducing pruning and trimming service by 20%), or option 46 (eliminate maintenance of shrubs in parks), shows that the City proposes to balance its books at the expense of trees and plants. As the Ottawa Citizen showed two weeks ago, trees increase property values. If you cut trees and tree programs, then you reduce property values and you lower your tax revenue. It hardly seems that cuts in this area would yield lasting savings. More likely the opposite. It’s long-term pain for short-term gain.

The budget cuts will hit pedestrians and transit users hard. Of proposed service reductions, Option 53 would eliminate supplementary snow removal on sidewalks, option 56 would eliminate roadway sweeping, and Option 58 would reduce residential roadway and sidewalk plowing, salting, ice and snow removal operations. Not to mention proposed transit fare increases. The savings amount to almost $4m, but the city itself acknowledges that the measures may lead to increased risk of pedestrian and vehicle accidents, and reduced pedestrian mobility.

Ecology Ottawa recognises that this council has, in the last year, addressed eight motions that dealt squarely with the environment and in most cases such as introducing organic waste collection or incentives for LEED buildings, the decisions have been progressive. We are watching you. In fact, this week Ecology Ottawa will release its first Environmental Report Card on Mayor O’Brien’s City Council together with the Sierra Club Ottawa Group. Whatever you have done, we are sure you can, and want to do better.

Ecology Ottawa and its supporters believe that Ottawa can and should contribute to solutions for climate change and issue that is important to all Canadians.

The City Council should be looking ahead at the Ottawa of the future and asking itself whether today's proposed cuts will be worth the price paid by the next generation of Ottawa's citizens. Ecology Ottawa needs you to understand that in light of the science on climate change and the demand from the public for urgent action, that any budget that pulls money away from programs designed to enhance our urban canopy; increases public transportation fares, and; does not fully invest in a comprehensive air quality and climate change management plan, is a budget that is irresponsible and ultimately immoral.

And, it is a budget that won't have our support.

Thank you.