Labour’s Green agenda

The way we are living cannot be sustained on the only planet we have. We don’t need disposable jobs and disposable things for a disposable world. We need to live, work, and play closer to one another, stop wasting so much energy, and shorten the distance between the production and consumption of goods. We need to have domestic production for domestic consumption. With every one of these issues, municipalities matter!

By purchasing fuel-efficient, domestic cars for municipal fleets; investing in buses, trains, and wind turbines that are “Made-In-Canada”; reducing our exposure to toxic chemicals; and relying on people-power to make your home more efficient, we can live more sustainably. We need to work to convince our local governments to represent us courageously on these issues. We can do it.

Stop Urban Sprawl and Build Neighbourhoods

• We must develop an integrated public transit strategy.
• We need to stop urban sprawl by increasing the density of our neighbourhoods.
• We need to build bicycle and walking paths, and plant trees.

Public transportation is right for the environment, and for democracy. It is a public service that allows people to participate in the community. In large metropolitan areas, a much higher percentage of immigrants commute by public transport than Canadian-born users. Women have different transit needs than men and rely more heavily on public transportation. Transit renewal and growth contributes to good jobs in unionized transit systems, and in the local manufacturing of buses, trains, and streetcars.

Public transportation should be complimented by trees, bike and walking paths to make it easier for people to drive less, to improve air quality, and to improve our overall well-being.

We need to stop urban sprawl. Urban sprawl is when land is consumed faster than the population is growing. These low-density, often suburban, developments hurt both urban and rural quality of life. Urban sprawl contributes to a loss of natural areas like green space and wildlife habitat, and loss of productive farmland for the sake of isolated, spread-out neighbourhoods, that are much more car-dependent and contribute to poor air quality, increased water use, increased water pollution, and increased greenhouse gas emissions. There is another option. We can build up and not out, and design our cities to be less car-dependent, more suitable for public transit and walking, so municipal infrastructure is used as efficiently as possible. Limiting sprawl on the long-term means working with other municipalities to develop regional bases for planning. This will stop developers from pitting one community against another, allow municipalities to move forward together, and will give the municipalities strength to influence developers.

Use Energy Better

• We need to retrofit public buildings (and homes!) to make them much more energy efficient.
• We need to use clean energy, and get serious about energy conservation.
• We need domestically manufactured, fuel-efficient vehicles.

Municipalities need to calculate their energy use and greenhouse gas emission reductions using 1990 as a starting point. Forecast future energy use (and emissions) for 10 or 20 years, then establish a reduction target with the goal of reducing energy use and greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels. An ideal target is at least a 20% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions within 10 years. If done community-wide, try a target of at least 10% below the 1990 level within the same period.

To reach the target, transition to clean energy and stop wasting energy by getting serious about energy conservation. Retrofitting municipal buildings, including city halls, hockey rinks, community centres, and libraries is a great way to save money over the long-term, and lead by example. Renewable energy generators, like solar panels and wind turbines, can be used to provide energy. For other reductions, an anti-idling by-law can be passed to stop idling cars and school buses. A virtual car pool bulletin board can be set up on your municipality’s website to help people commute together. A local street can be reserved for bicycles on Saturdays or Sundays by prohibiting car and truck traffic.

Healthy cities

• We need to reduce, reuse, and recycle our waste, and never, ever incinerate garbage.
• We need to pass by-laws restricting the cosmetic use of pesticides and limit the use of all toxic chemicals.
• We need to organize farmers’ markets.

Through their practices and policies, municipalities have tremendous ability to affect our environment, reduce asthma rates, reduce learning disabilities and infertility rates, and reduce occupational and environmental cancers.

If your community hasn’t already, pass a by-law restricting the cosmetic use of pesticides. Even when used as directed, pesticides have many negative side effects on human health and the environment, and are particularly harmful to children.

Organize a weekly farmers’ market to reduce the distance from farm to fork, support local bakers, farmers, and artisans while helping to build community.
Reduce, reuse, and recycle your garbage, but don’t incinerate it. Vendors are aggressively promoting incinerator technology to Canadian municipalities as a way to manage solid waste and produce energy. If allowed into a community, these incinerators emit hundreds of pollutants, including carcinogens, into the air, land, water, and into our bodies.