Canada West Foundation Blog

By: Michael Decker

I take 15 minute showers. I run the tap when I brush my teeth. I find a sink full of dirty dish water unsettling so I wash each individual dish and pot under the tap with the water running. I prefer a clean shiny car so I wash it at least once a week. To keep my lawn lush and green during the summer, I water it regularly. Sound excessive? It should. But like plenty of Canadians, I haven’t spent a great deal of time considering water conservation. When I turn on the tap I expect clean fresh water to come out of it. This was the way I approached water consumption until my home town in British Columbia decided to adopt water meters.

When I heard the news that my town was going to implement water meters I, like many others within the community, was baffled. Our town is located near a stable source of fresh water. Our drinking water is world-renowned (ranked third in the world one year). So why was our town council implementing water meters?

After researching Canada’s water supply, and issues surrounding water conservation, it became clearer that Canada’s water supply wasn’t as stable as I once thought. However, a problem arises for municipalities when they try to implement water conservation measures when they currently have a stable abundant supply. To address these concerns, municipalities should highlight the significant cost of treating water and the benefits of leaving water in the environment. This belief that Canada has an abundant supply of water has led to many Canadians becoming unwitting water gluttons.

Could it be true? Was I consuming water like a glutton? In addition, I was shocked to discover that my home town consumed on average 1,100 litres of water per capita per day compared to the national average of 426 litres.

The concept of water meters is very simple. Meters measure how much water you consume and then you are charged a fee based on your consumption. Once I found out that I would be charged for the amount of water that I consumed, I immediately found ways to conserve water. This was, of course, the objective of my local town council in implementing water meters. I give credit to my town council, and to cities and towns across Canada who have implemented water metering as a way of conserving water.

As a result of this initiative, I’ve reconsidered my personal water usage. I no longer take long showers, brush my teeth with the water running, wash my car every week, or water my lawn every day. I have gotten over my fear of dish water and I only run the dishwasher when it is completely full.

I am proud to say that I am no longer a water glutton. If I can be reformed, there’s a good chance that others might rethink their habits, too.

For more information on water conserving measures and for additional urban environmental policy tools, check out Canada West Foundation’s new report Tools of the Trade: Urban Environmental Improvement Options.

By: Stephanie Shewchuk

Composting has never been the most enticing activity for a majority of people. It can seem a grubby, soggy and all-around dirty process that yields, well, something that looks a lot like dirt. In the past, it’s been relegated to the domain of green-thumbed gardeners and eco-warriors, but as environmental consciousness becomes more de rigueur, composting has hit the mainstream.

While many of the larger municipalities across Canada have implemented civic composting programs, not everyone has jumped on the bandwagon. Naysayers cite the apparent messiness, lack of space and the inconvenience of composting bins as some of the reasons composting hasn’t caught on. People living in smaller spaces with limited access to a yard or private green space may think that composting is more trouble than it’s worth.

But it remains that individual composting can still yield great environmental returns even if one doesn’t have much personal use for compost. Parks and municipal green space benefit from community composting efforts and the increasing number of opportunities for urban agriculture mean that compost can be put to good use across the city. At the end of the day, composting diverts waste away from the landfill—an action that yields widespread environmental benefits regardless of where in the city the compost ends up.

So the question is, how can more people be persuaded to compost, whether for personal benefit or otherwise? The answer lies in the design and execution of composting programs and of the composting bins themselves. Curbside composting makes it easier to send food scraps and yard waste to a central facility for processing. Programs of this type are possible in most municipalities. In some cities, however, curbside composting is not offered to tenants in condos or apartment buildings because of collection issues around the size of standard composting bins.

For more people to compost, it must be easy, quick and clean, and appropriate to a variety of dwellings. Vancouver, for example, offers worm composters suitable for apartment use at a subsidized cost. City-driven action and further education around the process will increase the number of people composting. Just as recycling wasn’t always automatic in households, composting will become more popular over time with well-designed collection programs and better bins.

Composting is one example of a tool that individuals, communities and cities could be using more as a way to improve the urban environment. For a more comprehensive list of urban environmental tools check out our latest report Tools of the Trade: Urban Environmental Improvement Options.

By: Shawna Stirrett

There are many benefits to be had from improving the environmental performance of Canadian cities. Residents can benefit from improved aesthetics, lower water treatment costs, higher property values, increased air quality, the attraction and retention of skilled workers and much more. General environmental benefits can include reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, improved water and air quality, less fragmented ecosystems and improved biodiversity.

And the good news is that we have a pretty good sense of how these environmental improvements can be realized. There are many different tools for, and principles of, creating more sustainable cities that individuals, businesses, communities and municipal governments can employ. Outlining these tools is the focus of Canada West Foundation’s most recent report Tools of the Trade: Urban Environmental Improvement Options.

The real challenge, however, isn’t in knowing what to do but rather in implementing the good ideas that we already have. Many people are well aware of the environmental benefits of recycling, composting, improved energy efficiency and transit-oriented development. The fact remains, though, that we are not using these tools as much as we could in Canadian cities for myriad reasons.

Let’s take, as an example, a very simple environmental tool like the use of rain barrels to harvest rainfall.

Rain barrels are used to capture and store rainwater for later use on lawns and gardens. The environmental and economic benefits of rain barrels are clear. Using rainwater is better for your lawn and garden because it is not chlorinated and contains many of the minerals that your soil needs for healthy plant growth. Rain barrels also save money as you are not paying for water to be treated, transported and metered by the city. It’s a clear environmental and economic win-win.

So, given that, why wouldn’t everyone use rain barrels?

Well, in the spirit of full disclosure, I have to confess I do not have a rain barrel. I’m not trying to be hypocritical, and I would love to have one, but I live in a condo and our condo board does not allow rain barrels because they are unsightly and ruin the grass and I don’t have enough space on my patio for both a rain barrel and a barbeque.

I also find that I’m not alone in this. Using a very informal survey methodology (I asked my friends on Facebook), I have discovered that while only a few of my friends actually use rain barrels currently, almost everyone wants to use them. For those not using them, their reasons include laziness, aesthetics, cost of the rain barrel and living in a condo or apartment. The most frequently cited reason was living in a condo or an apartment building.

This raises the question for me: if we want to encourage higher density living and smaller carbon footprints, then why are we not designing environmental products that can be used by a variety of people in different types of housing?

Conventional rain barrels can hold about 45 gallons of water, are made of plastic, cost around $70 and come in a couple different colour options. While there is no question that these rain barrels work for many people, they also don’t work for many others as my survey and personal experience testifies. Rain barrels are really big, for starters, meaning that unless you have a house or a very large deck they are impractical. They are also somewhat awkward to use. The downspouts are located at the bottom and they often have to be positioned on cinder blocks so that you can access the water inside them. Finally, they are ugly and do little for the overall aesthetic of your yard and garden.

If we really want more people to use rain barrels as a way to make cities more environmentally friendly, we need to think about the full picture. It’s not going to be enough to tell people they should be using rain barrels, we need to be thinking about why they aren’t and designing solutions that are holistic and practical. We need to remember that “Good design is not about color, style or trends—but instead about thoughtfully considering the user, the experience, the social context and the impact of an object on the surrounding environment” (Inhabitat).

For a good example of how good design can change our relationship with environmental products, check out some innovative rain barrels by clicking here.
 

By: Robert Roach

A new report released by the Canada West Foundation today summarizes interviews with 23 of the leading minds on how to marry resource development with environmental protection. Keeping Pace: Improving Environmental Decision-Making in Canada is based on input from former senior bureaucrats, former environment ministers, internationally renowned scientists, natural resource industry representatives and ENGO leaders. From former federal Environment Minister Jim Prentice and internationally-recognized scientist David Schindler to original founding member of Greenpeace Patrick Moore and Suncor VP Gordon Lambert, the combined experience with environmental decision-making among interview participants totals well over 400 years.

Considering the diverse background of these Canadian thought leaders there was surprising agreement, especially on three overarching themes:

First, everyone agreed that environmental decision-making in Canada needs improvement—full stop. We are not at the top of our game when it comes to environmental stewardship in the resource sector.

Second, improving environmental decision-making is not about fixing the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, the National Energy Board, the Alberta Energy Resources Conservation Board, BC Environment or some other government department or regulatory agency. Environmental decision-making has to be viewed in a broader policy context. Some changes are needed to the regulatory framework, but it is a small piece of the pie.

Unfortunately the regulatory framework is taking the brunt of the criticism right now. It shouldn’t. Other components of the decision-making process such as regional plans, monitoring and compliance, strategic plans, clear goals and objectives, political leadership, meaningful consultation/collaboration are much more important. These elements have not kept pace with the public interest.

Third, we have moved from a relatively simple world into a much more complex one. The difference was described as a shift from “environmental challenges 1.0 to 2.0.” The 2.0 label has been famously applied to the World Wide Web to highlight the shift from passive viewing of websites (Web 1.0) to active online interaction and collaboration (Web 2.0). The web has gone from emails, news groups, desktop computers and basic websites to eBay, PayPal, instant messaging, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia, 500,000+ apps, mobile Internet devices and cloud programming. Environmental challenges have gone from a relatively straightforward set of problems and solutions to situations characterized by a wide range of stakeholders, heated rhetoric, competing scientific claims, incomplete information and responses that require broad social change and/or significant economic costs. Hence, we need to upgrade our environmental decision-making mechanisms.

You can download this timely new report for free from the Canada West Foundation website by clicking here.

By: Robert Roach

The federal government recently announced a “Plan for Responsible Resource Development” that will streamline the federal regulatory review process. While this is a step in the right direction, a report from the Canada West Foundation being published on May 3 argues that the task at hand is much larger. Keeping Pace: Improving Environmental Decision-Making in Canada reveals an environmental decision-making process that, while one of the best in the world, is dogged by a number of significant shortcomings. These weaknesses include insufficient integration of scientific research; a lack of clarity regarding exactly what trade-offs between environmental protection and economic development are acceptable to the government of the day; and the ongoing need to ensure that the various government departments and agencies at the federal and provincial levels are cooperating as much as possible.

You can download this timely new report for free from the Canada West Foundation website on Thursday.

By: Dr. Roslyn Kunin

Over the years, I have spoken with many people who were planning on starting their own business. They told me about the great product or service they would offer. They described how they would set up the business. They all told me how much money they hoped to be making once the business got rolling.

What they never mentioned, until they were prompted, were customers. That basic business need, someone willing and able to pay for the good or service provided was, if not totally missing from the mental image of the new business, certainly not in the foreground.

We should not be too hard on these aspiring entrepreneurs for not thinking about who was going to buy their output. For a very long time, governments, policymakers, planners and others interested in economic development did the same thing. Some still do so.

Take western Canada as an example. When we think about advancing our economy, we think about inputs. These include our resources and how we can access and develop them. They include infrastructure; transportation, communication, etc. They definitely include human capital—a workforce with both hard and soft skills and, ideally, some relevant experience.

We think about what we might produce. In the past, the focus has been around the question of how the West can move up the food chain beyond its traditional, resource-based industries and into manufacturing and the newer technologies.

What we have not been thinking about is customers. Who is going to want whatever it is we are or might be producing? For too long, we have had an “if you build it, they will come” attitude. But that only happens in the movies.

Relative to much of the rest of the world, western Canada is blessed with various essential resources, an educated labour force, decent infrastructure and political stability. But we are seriously limited by our lack of customers. We have been, and still are, far too dependent on one customer—the United States.

If you have only one customer, the US is a good one to have. It is close, big, speaks English and has similar laws and customs. But it exposes you to the risk of having all your eggs in one basket. We learned this to our sorrow in the last downturn.

To advance western Canada, we need more customers, and those potential customers are sitting across the Pacific and beginning to creep into our awareness. They want, need and can afford the resources and high level services that we can provide.

So let us adjust our focus to look west as well as south. Let us develop the pipelines and other infrastructure needed to serve new markets. Let us develop and add to our customer base. That is how businesses and economies grow.

With increasing food and energy prices, a growing world population and the potential effects of climate change, water—and how it is managed—is more important than ever. A new publication by the Canada West Foundation delves into the views of water policy experts across the West to determine key highlights and priorities for our water future. 

Wave of the Future: Water Policy in Western Canada by Dr. Roger Gibbins and Larissa Sommerfeld highlights viewpoints from over 50 individuals across the West with a background in water management, governance or the study of water, brought together by the Canada West Foundation for the Honourable James A. Richardson Discovery Roundtables. As a result of these discussions, it was obvious that water experts have similar priorities.

“Canada needs to take a long-term approach to planning water policy,” advises Dr. Gibbins. “In addition to ensuring that policy developments progress in a timely matter, we also need to appropriately value this natural capital while increasing public awareness about water issues.”

Our water has the potential to be a challenging issue for western Canada in the coming years, yet the participants at the spring 2011 James A. Richardson Discovery Roundtables shared a general sense of optimism. Although there are challenges that lie ahead with this resource and how we can best manage it, decision-makers should recognize that addressing any one of the priorities highlighted will be a step in the right direction.

The Honourable James A. Richardson Discovery Roundtables were launched in 2006 to seek out new thinking to strengthen the voice of western Canadians and gain a sense of policy challenges to come. The annual roundtables are designed to engage a small group of individuals with a background in, and a passion for, the topic under discussion. In the spring of 2011, the Roundtables featured water and were held in Victoria, Lethbridge, Saskatoon and Winnipeg. 

Click here to download a copy of Wave of the Future: Water Policy in Western Canada.

“The People and the deer fused in my mind, an entity. I found I could not think of one without the other, and so by accident I stumbled on the secret of the Ihalmiut.”

I was reminded of this quote from Farley Mowat’s book, People of the Deer, when reading about the debate currently taking place over the impact of seismic testing on the marine wildlife in Lancaster Sound and, by extension, the northern communities that rely on that wildlife.

The connectedness of people with their natural environment, including the wildlife, is important and something you can’t put a price on. This was the message of Nunavut judge Sue Cooper and one of the reasons why she blocked a seismic study of Lancaster Sound. She states, “The loss extends not just to the loss of a food source, but to loss of a culture. No amount of money can compensate for such loss.”

Lancaster Sound is a body of water north of Baffin Island in Nunavut that is rich with marine wildlife. It is the home of narwhal, walrus, beluga whales, seals and polar bears and is an important migratory route. The abundance of life is so substantial there it has been dubbed the “Arctic Serengeti.” It is also an area that has yet to be explored in terms of its mineral and resource wealth.

That is the aim of Natural Resources Canada, which is interested in conducting a geo-mapping program in order to “increase our knowledge of the geology of the North.” This seismic involves firing an air gun underwater to gather data. This process, they say, presents very little risk to wildlife. The Inuit, however, disagree and argue that previous seismic testing resulted in death and hearing damage to wildlife, and caused whales to alter their migratory route.

Many important questions remain unanswered in this case, including: What is the scientific evidence of the impact of seismic on wildlife? Was the consultation process with the potentially impacted communities sufficient? And, what is the intended use of the geological knowledge obtained through this seismic testing?

What is interesting to me isn’t whether blocking the seismic was a good or bad decision. What’s interesting is that there was an acknowledgement of the larger philosophical concept that place matters—that individuals, communities and cultures’ sense of self is informed by their natural environment and you can’t impact that environment without impacting the people within it.

It is easy to forget sometimes that the value of the natural environment can’t be readily quantified in economic terms—although various solutions from Bentham’s utilitarianism to Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness indicator have been attempted. The valuation difficulties are not easily overcome, as the case of Lancaster Sound illustrates. It is possible to conduct seismic testing to learn about the type, quality and quantity of mineral deposits on the bed of the Arctic Sea and assign a numeric value to it; but, is it possible to assign a price to the value of a preserved natural environment to the culture and identity of the Inuit?

Having a connection with nature is important for all people, not just aboriginals or northerners. A love of nature is one of the few things that unites all Canadians. For example, 98% of Canadians state that they view nature in all its variety as essential to human survival, 90% consider time spent in nature as children as very important and 82% say nature has very important spiritual qualities for them personally (Environics International, 1999).

This connection, or bond, with the natural world is especially significant for western Canadians whose psyche and character are informed by the expansive lakes of Manitoba, the broad prairies of Saskatchewan, the jagged teeth of Alberta’s mountains and the rhythmic ocean on British Columbia’s shores.

This means that whenever we disrupt the natural environment we need to be asking: what is the impact of a disrupted, polluted or otherwise unhealthy natural environment on our sense of self and community? Or, to put it another way, if you woke up tomorrow and the salmon stock had collapsed, the lakes were too polluted to swim or boat in and grizzly bears were extinct, how would that impact your understanding of what it means to be western Canadian?

As we search for the correct balancing point between economic development and environmental conservation as a region and a nation, we need to keep in mind that the natural world matters to our sense of self. Although both the economy and the environment are important there are some variables, such as identity, that you can’t readily put a price on. As Mowat notes, identity and nature are fused, they are an entity.