Ward 9 - Knoxdale-Merivale

Sean Devine

Yes. Whereas I realize that many people will react to the significant annual costs, I do believe that the long-term advantages and cost savings provide a greater benefit. With a growing population and a significant waste management crisis in the foreseeable future, Ottawa needs to respond boldly.

James Dean

No. The city of Ottawa currently has a debt of $3 Billion!!! It is costing $240 Million a year to service this debt. Once we get our current debt under control, we can start to plan on how we are going to afford a huge project like this. I am vowing to vote NO on any issues that will increase our debt any further. I will support any cost effect measures to help move us towards this goal but not if debt is involved.

Myles Egli

No. I believe in the basic principles of the Energy Evolution plan that was enacted in 2020. However, the cost to implement it is too great if the burden is carried solely by the residents of Ottawa. I would work with my counterparts at both, the provincial and federal level of government, as well developers and other industries to implement a plan that will spread the cost over a wider playing field. I believe that all the parties involved would benefit from this plan going forward.

Peter Westaway

Yes. My main long term priority is to save our environment so I am in favour of investing this time and money to improve our approach to dealing with climate change and improving our local environment.

Michael Wood

Yes. I am in full support of reducing the impact of climate change. In the Ward I am running in, the 2018 tornado and and the 2022 derecho should all have confirmed even in the most skeptical minds that climate change is real and something that is happening right in our own backyards. I believe that the Energy Revolution Plan will create new jobs in Ottawa and create a healthier environment. I will add that since I have not been on council before, I would like to fully review the plan and ensure that the money being spent is being spent in the right places. I would also like to review the plan in it's entirety to ensure all the of the key point the plan touches on will have the affect and impact we would all be hoping for. I would do this with the assistance of your organization so that we can ensure a safer, cleaner environment for all.

Peter Anthony Weber

Did not participate.

Joseph Ben-Ami

Did not participate.

Sean Devine

Yes. I am certainly an advocate of reducing urban sprawl and increasing intensification, but not only as a means of protecting against further climate change. Sprawl has been proven to have a detrimental impact on the livability of communities, where the increased car-dependency results in less community engagement and interaction.

James Dean

Yes. The city needs to update its short and long term plan to have a specific plan on intensification and utilize the many locations we currently have. There currently is very little middle development. We have a lot of land that can easily allow for duplexes, triplexes, 4-plexes and 6-plexes. It seems as though we are jumping from single family homes to high rise building and missing this valuable middle step. I am against Catherine McKenney and their slate of candidates plan of removing R1 zoning from the city completely. This will give the builders full control to piece meal intensification with little to no authority from the city.

Myles Egli

Yes. I am a firm believer in the 15 minute community; it is part of my platform that can be found at https://mylesegli4ward9.ca/. I believe it would not only benefit the environment but also those that live in these communities. The challenge will be developing these communities in the older neighborhoods. I would work with my counterparts to develop a working plan.

Peter Westaway

Yes. I want us to start developing ultra modern eco-towns in the large corn fields in the Ottawa Greenbelt. These will definitely each be 15 minute neighbourhoods, and will make any expansion of the urban boundary to be unnecessary.

Michael Wood

Yes. Ottawa has often been described as a big city with a small town feel. The idea of having walkable neighborhoods with mixed use development would be a natural fit and help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve livability. The plan will take some marketing and the delivery of positive messaging to encourage people to get out and I will be more than happy to help in delivering that message.

Peter Anthony Weber

Did not participate.

Joseph Ben-Ami

Did not participate.

Sean Devine

Yes. I am in support of this initiative, but only through a gradual and incremental implementation.

James Dean

Yes. This kind of decision is about 20 years too early. Let's make the transition as wisely as we can. Let's focus on we get around or heat our homes.  Another option would be to re-invest all money earned from our gas business into newer and greener technologies. We make billions of dollars from this now. This could fund all kind of new and better ways to travel and heat our homes. Money can speed up our green transition.

Myles Egli

Yes. I will work with my fellow councilors to prioritize conservation and efficiency over new, renewed or expanded gas infrastructure. I believe that we need to cost out a plan in order to move forward and ensure that the taxpayer is not overly burdened by these changes.  We need to strike a balance between protecting our climate/environment and the additional expense to the taxpayer. Many of our taxpayers are seniors and are not in a financial position to incur large increases to their monthly bills.

Peter Westaway

Yes. If our society has any chance of long term survival we must practice much better conservation methods, and we must keep working on making buildings and vehicles more energy efficient.

Michael Wood

Yes. I will commit to examining and reviewing the above. We have to ensure that major infrastructure projects don't see a reflection of cost transferred to the end user all while protecting the environment efficiently.

Peter Anthony Weber

Did not participate.

Joseph Ben-Ami

Did not participate.

Sean Devine

Yes. 

James Dean

Yes. 

Myles Egli

Yes. I would work with my counterparts at both the provincial and federal levels to ensure that there are programs in place to do this. The programs would help owners of older properties do the necessary retrofits at a reasonable cost. This will help us reach our net -zero emissions target without putting the burden on the tenants,

Peter Westaway

Yes. I am not sure we can keep the costs away from all tenants but it is important we invest now into making older buildings more efficient and any new building extremely efficient.

Michael Wood

Yes. I will commit to investigating the best ways to making housing more efficient. The challenge is the province of Ontario controls the maximum amount of rent increase and retrofits so things may be out of City Council's hands. At best we will be able to advocate for the those residents in our respective wards to the Province to control increases.

Peter Anthony Weber

Did not participate.

Joseph Ben-Ami

Did not participate.

Sean Devine

Yes. Emergency preparedness is one of my core campaign priorities. My own community of Trend Arlington was devastated by the 2018 tornado, which had as severe a local impact as the 2022 derecho. We are seeing a drastic in climate-related natural disasters everywhere. If we are to responsible in protecting our communities than the city must enact better preparedness measures now.

James Dean

Yes.

Myles Egli

Yes. As a resident of Ward 9 - Knoxdale-Merivale, I have lived through both the Tornado of 2018 and the Derecho of 2022. I believe that the time for emergency preparedness is long overdue which is why it is one of the five pillars in my platform that can can be found at https://mylesegli4ward9.ca/my-platform/. I will work with all the stakeholders, including community associations and churches, to make sure plans are in place when the next extreme weather event occurs. I would work to ensure all Community Associations' buildings are equipped with generators so they can be hub where people can go in times of emergencies.

Peter Westaway

Yes. We will see more significant weather events in our near future and we must be better prepared to deal with the aftermath. The power lines that were so vulnerable in that wind storm must be buried so they won't be susceptible to so much damage.

Michael Wood

Yes. My family home was directly hit by the 2018 tornado. I will commit to a full review of the climate adaption planning for the city in order to ensure that the residents are best protected including infrastructure and our city services.

Peter Anthony Weber

Did not participate.

Joseph Ben-Ami

Did not participate.

Sean Devine

Yes. Again, this is among my three core campaign priorities. The best cities have the best transit, and we are lagging far behind. In order for Ottawa to meet the needs of our rapidly growing population, and in order to avoid increasing climate impact due to vehicular use, we must invest in a reliable, affordable city-wide transit system.

James Dean

Yes.

Myles Egli

Yes. I will work towards making a public transportation system that is affordable, reliable and that takes you where you need to go. The current system does not meet that criteria. If we had a system that took the commuter (you!) to where you needed to go we would have a higher ridership.

Peter Westaway

Yes. I don't want to expand LRT beyond stage 2. Buses will soon be much more affordable with the advent of driverless vehicles. Smaller driverless buses should be traveling on the transitways within five years. And on open roads in ten.

Michael Wood

Yes. Transit needs to be full reviewed with so many new councillors coming on board. We will all need to work together to ensure transit is reliable, efficient and accessible to all that use it.

Peter Anthony Weber

Did not participate.

Joseph Ben-Ami

Did not participate.

Sean Devine

Yes. 

James Dean

Yes. 

Myles Egli

No. I believe in the diversity of transit methods; however, I, also, believe in the need to maintain our current roads. I have lived in Ward 9 for over 30 years and many of the roads have not been properly maintained over that time. I believe at the present time our priority needs to be  the maintenance of our current infrastructure before it becomes a must fix scenario. If we are able to incorporate a more active transit network while we are doing this that than I believe we would have a win/win situation.

Peter Westaway

Yes. I am an avid cyclist and have been in the bike industry for all my life, so yes of course I would like us to continue to improve and expand the bike lanes and multi-use paths throughout the entire city.

Michael Wood

Yes. I am willing to meet with the community once I am elected to determine what is best for Ward 9 based on feedback from the residents directly.

Peter Anthony Weber

Did not participate.

Joseph Ben-Ami

Did not participate.

Sean Devine

Yes. I am absolutely in support of this, having seen my own neighbourhood lose much of our canopy in 2018, and now having seen many other parts of Ottawa suffer a similar loss in 2022. I've worked closely with Ecology Ottawa, Tree Canada and the City's Trees in Trust programs before on several tree-planting initiatives, and look forward to resuming that work.

James Dean

Yes.

Myles Egli

Yes. I would support a target of 40% tree canopy per neighborhood. I would, also, protect the existing mature trees in our neighborhood. Many are fearful, because of recent weather events, that the more mature trees are at risk during extreme weather events. We need to educate the general population so that some of these fears are alleviated.

Peter Westaway

Yes. Planting and taking care of our trees should be our biggest priority. We need more trees.

Michael Wood

Yes. Providing we have the labour and the what the cost would look like I will commit to meeting with you and coming up with the best solution for Ward 9.

Peter Anthony Weber

Did not participate.

Joseph Ben-Ami

Did not participate.

Sean Devine

Yes.

James Dean

Yes. 

Myles Egli

Yes. I will prioritize the need to conserve our current greenspaces. I would towards having biodiversity on all city lands. I would work to educate the general public on the need for biodiversity on private lands. I would towards increasing our targets for naturalization and look into ways that we can increase the funding.

Peter Westaway

Yes. I am in full agreement to protect our greenspace. Our massive cornfields in our greenbelt is not precious greenspace however. Much of the year is is a dirt or snowy field. We must end this embarrassment. No other city in the world grows a fraction of the corn we do inside the urban boundary.

Michael Wood

Yes. 

Peter Anthony Weber

Did not participate.

Joseph Ben-Ami

Did not participate.

Sean Devine

Yes. While I support this measure, I do believe that we also need to prepare for a future where there will need to be some form of replacement for Trail. And so we should look for the most responsible solution to that potential need down the road. But for our immediate needs, I am fully in support of incentivizing residents into better waste management of organics, since I'm fully aware of how many residents are not properly educated on responsible waste management.

James Dean

Yes. 

Myles Egli

Yes, I believe in the green bin program and feel that it needs to include all residents. I would support expansion of the current program.

Peter Westaway

No. I believe we should look into an incinerator or other waste technology. I think our green bin program is a disaster. They are producing such low quality compost that I am wondering where it is going. Is it true that some of it goes into the landfill ultimately anyway? Some our cardboard is being shipped to India according the the city of Ottawa website. That is outrageous and should be stopped immediately.

Michael Wood

Yes. I am willing to review and investigate what the costs and environmental impacts would be to having large vehicles constantly on the road picking up this waste. This waste management model would need public education and public buy in to be effective.  With that said, delivering the message to the public and getting them to engage fully would have to be first priority.

Peter Anthony Weber

Did not participate.

Joseph Ben-Ami

Did not participate.

Sean Devine

Yes. This will be a controversial measure to implement, but I believe that the financial penalty of poor waste management is the best incentive to improving habits. The same can be said of issuing speeding fines or parking tickets to bad drivers. The financial penalty is meant to act as a deterrent to bad behavioural habits.

James Dean

No. 

Myles Egli

No. I would not support a user pay system. This is just another tax. I feel it would penalize those that can least afford it. In my opinion, it would be a burden on larger families and those of lower incomes. Those on lower incomes tend to buy more packaged goods and less fresh products resulting in more garbage at the curb. I feel instead of penalizing those with too much garbage we should be rewarding those who minimize their garbage output.

Peter Westaway

Yes. We have to first look at other cities that have implemented this pay for bag system. We can't have it increasing illegal dumping.

Michael Wood

No. This has not been overly effective in other communities and I do not believe the demographics of Ward 9 would support this.

Peter Anthony Weber

Did not participate.

Joseph Ben-Ami

Did not participate.

Sean Devine

Yes. 

James Dean

Yes. 

Myles Egli

Yes. I would definitely want to include the Algonquin Anishinaabe and other indigenous people in the creation and implementation of environmental policies. As the original guardians of the land and waters they may have ideas that we have not thought of that would help us move forward.

Peter Westaway

Yes. Yes I would work with all Indigenous people, but not much different than I would work with all of the public. I don't think any group should be treated any worse or any better than any other group, no matter what your ancestry is.

Michael Wood

Yes. 

Peter Anthony Weber

Did not participate.

Joseph Ben-Ami

Did not participate.

Sean Devine

Yes. 

James Dean

Yes. 

Myles Egli

Yes. I believe that when city council develops strategies on any city related topics that they should make every effort possible to ensure that all stakeholders are part of the process. I believe that when we do not invite all of the voices to the table that we risk leaving possible solutions at the door.

Peter Westaway

Yes. It is still an uphill battle to convince the majority of the public that environmental issues should be our more important and vital issues, but of course I will do my best to develop strategies to help convince people that they have to take these issues seriously.

Michael Wood

Yes. 

Peter Anthony Weber

Did not participate.

Joseph Ben-Ami

Did not participate.