Ecology Ottawa addressed a meeting of Council's Public Works and Infrastructure Committee on Thursday to oppose a report recommending against protecting pedestrians and cyclists downtown with a ban on Right Turns On Red. This report was full of problems: the complete omission of research literature, wholly inadequate statistics, and an acquiescence to dangerous driver behaviour.
The City of Ottawa released the results of a Tree Canopy Mapping last September. So what is this, and why is it important? And above all, how is our urban tree canopy doing? Our Council Watch Intern Kristen Busby breaks it down.
Ecology Ottawa delegated to City Council's Environment and Climate Change Committee meeting today to support a proposed new funding stream for community waste diversion initiatives and urge several improvements. This new funding responds directly to advocacy by Ecology Ottawa dating to 2024. Over 250 people signed the petition, and Committee members explicitly cited community input as influencing this proposal.
Ottawa City Council’s Planning and Housing Committee and Agriculture and Rural Affairs Committee met on December 17 in a joint meeting to discuss the final draft of Ottawa’s new Zoning By-law. We learned that staff had proposed undoing some of the gains made on bike parking, which is of course critical to transitioning our city from car dependency to sustainability. Please read our delegation!
"I wanted to make sure I was mimicking the Ecodistrict Ottawa is a part of, which is the St. Lawrence Lowlands. Another thing we wanted to consider was the type of plants. We wanted plants that 1) were drought resistant, 2) staggered blooms (spring, summer and fall) and 3) co-planted well together..."
The City describes its draft 2026 Budget as pursuing affordability—usually with reference to keeping property taxes low. But does this approach really yield affordability? Ecology Ottawa, with its partners in the Peoples Official Plan coalition, submitted a letter to Mayor Sutcliffe and the rest of City Council challenging this approach.
Ecology Ottawa was at Environment and Climate Change Committee to speak to the City’s 2026 budget. While the City is investing in a variety of measures to reduce GHG emissions and strengthen climate resiliency, these measures don’t go far enough. We propose that the City better engage the community, as they committed earlier this fall.
The Waste Audit is part of Ottawa’s Solid Waste Master Plan, which was approved by City Council in June 2024, as a guide for Ottawa’s waste management over the next 30 years. The information collected from the Waste Audit is meant to identify areas for improvement and trends within waste diversion and management efforts.
With an over $900M operating budget, our transit system continues to be both expensive and yet unreliable. It’s hard to square the budget’s stated theme of affordability with yet another fare increase, and the so-called “historic investments” with the fact that most money in the budget is for the LRT lines and debt service payments. Trains are expensive, but they do not in themselves constitute a good transit network.
City staff presented the draft 2026 OC Transpo budget to the Transit Committee on Monday November 25th. We delegated in order to highlight several major issues with the budget, which was ultimately passed by the committee by 8-1. Several promising provisions were deferred to City Council’s December 10th meeting.
Ecology Ottawa recently joined other Ottawa organizations to express our opposition to the provincial government's Bill 60, and omnibus bill that—among other things—would prohibit installing bike lanes in Ontario municipalities if this involved removing car lanes. This sort of reconfiguration is essential for us to meet our goals of shifting from car-oriented travel patterns to sustainable, person-oriented travel. Please read our remarks.