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The upcoming Ontario election on February 27, 2025 offers an opportunity—an opportunity for concrete ecological action in Ottawa and our province more generally.
In developing these planks, we selected issues in a range of ecological categories and with high impact, but that can nevertheless be enacted simply and inexpensively. We heartily thank those who submitted their suggestions to us. Many of you will recognize your ideas below!
Ecology Ottawa’s Planks
Enact the ban on food and organic waste in landfills formulated in 2018.
Over 60 per cent of Ontario’s food waste goes to landfills. As it decomposes, it produces methane, a greenhouse gas over 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide over 20 years. In Ottawa, 8 per cent of our GHG emissions come from waste. Banning food and organics from landfills, as proposed in 2018, would therefore substantially help us reach our GHG mitigation targets. Such a ban should be paired with education and investments in “food rescue” and composting initiatives.
Electrify Ontario’s 20,000 school buses.
Every day, 830,000 kids take the bus to school in Ontario. The diesel emissions they are exposed to have been linked to higher rates of lung cancer, cardiovascular disease, and cognitive impairment. Electrifying the school bus fleet would eliminate 4 million tonnes of GHGs and toxins over its life cycle. Faced with a looming trade war, investing in electric buses can shore up domestic manufacturing and create more good, unionized jobs.
Implement Green building standards province-wide.
Green Building Standards embed sustainability in buildings in a variety of ways, such as insulation, building materials, heating, or bird-friendly standards. The Ontario Building Code’s energy efficiency requirements have not been updated since 2017 and do not address greenhouse gas emissions. Yet 24 per cent of Ontario’s emissions—and 45 per cent of Ottawa’s—are from buildings. Ontario has committed to building 1.5 million homes by 2031, and Ottawa to building 151,000 homes. Green building standards offer a major opportunity to reduce emissions, curtail energy costs, ease demand on the electrical grid, and ensure that buildings are constructed to withstand extreme weather events.
End highway expansion and construction, and restore the 50/50 funding model for municipal transit operations.
Expanding highways not only doesn’t relieve congestion, it increases the number of vehicles on the road (induced demand), which increases emissions and often destroys greenspace and wildlife habitat. This will be true for two recently proposed provincial highway construction projects. For Ontarians to travel quickly, affordably, and sustainably, investments in sustainable transportation—like public transit—are necessary. Currently, the federal and provincial governments fund only capital investments for transit (vehicles, construction, etc.). But municipalities need funding above all for daily operations, as Mayor Mark Sutcliffe has sought in his transit-funding campaign. The province used to share municipal transit operations costs 50/50, but in 1995 abandoned this arrangement. Rather than spend billions on projects like Highway 413, Ontarians should have reliable, affordable transportation solutions.
Repeal Bill 212 and develop a fund for municipalities to accelerate their active transportation plans.
Create incentives for preserving forests and wetlands in rural areas.
Forests and wetlands offer immense environmental and health benefits to the entire region, yet often landowners gain more financially from removing these natural features—whether for development or agriculture—than from planting trees or maintaining existing forests and wetlands. The administrative burden of the existing Managed Forest Tax Incentive Program disincentivizes uptake. A similar incentive—or others, including carbon credits, grants, or other resources—should be applied to all privately owned wetlands or forests to reflect their benefit to the public and encourage their conservation.
Restore Conservation Authorities’ powers and wetlands protections.
The provincial Bill 23 passed in 2022 undercut conservation efforts by stripping Conservation Authorities’ powers and reducing wetlands protections, among other measures. With the first, the bill limited the aspects that Conservation Authorities can cite in commenting on development and passed some of their responsibilities to municipalities, who are less equipped for such assessments. With the second, wetlands can no longer be protected from development because of species at risk using them, and their value must be assessed not in larger complexes, but piecemeal, meaning they are less likely to qualify for protection. (See this Ottawa example.) These measures must be repealed to ensure our precious natural systems are protected from development.
Stop Suburban Sprawl.
Pass a Climate Change Superfund Act that requires fossil fuel companies to contribute to climate change adaptation costs.
Several US states have recently passed laws requiring fossil fuel companies to pay into funds to mitigate climate change adaptation costs. These laws reflect a “polluters pay” principle: the idea that companies that profited from burning fossil fuels should contribute to the climate change adaptation costs that taxpayers are currently shouldering. Ottawa has experienced multiple extreme weather incidents in recent years, including tornadoes, storms, and flooding, and these events will multiply as the climate crisis accelerates. A provincial Climate Fund Act would support projects to boost the resiliency of Ottawa and other Ontario communities to impacts from these extreme weather events, and ease the burden on Ontario taxpayers.
Permit four storeys per lot by right and single exit stair construction for up to four storeys.
Several of the Province’s Housing Affordability Task Force’s 74 recommendations will not only help mitigate the housing affordability crisis but also help meet our climate emissions goals. Permitting four storeys per lot by right will help densify existing neighbourhoods without unduly straining infrastructure, and altering the Building Code to permit single-staircase construction for up to four storeys will reduce costs of new buildings and help densify neighbourhoods.
We will be inviting candidates to adopt these planks in their platforms. We also encourage you to ask candidates about them at the doorstep or events or by email.
You can support these planks by adding your name to our petition for them. This will strengthen our campaign by demonstrating public support for the planks.
Please stay tuned for further activities to centre ecology in this election!
