Canada West Foundation Blog

By: Stephanie Shewchuk

When the Economist Intelligence Unit released the latest version of its Global Liveability Report two weeks ago, three Canadian cities were listed in the top five of the 140 cities surveyed. The Global Liveability Report, which originated as a means of testing whether Human Resource departments needed to assign a hardship allowance as part of ex-pat relocation packages, ranked Vancouver as third, Calgary as fourth and Toronto as fifth in the list of the world’s most liveable cities.

The top cities do well on a variety of criteria, including stability, health care, culture and environment, education, and infrastructure. While the quality of the environment is not the only measure that matters in these rankings, it certainly is a major draw for those who live and work in a city. The ability to commute by cycling on dedicated pathways, for example, or to handily access urban green space contributes to community sustainability, ecosystem stability and an overall sense of civic well-being. This is precisely why environmental initiatives should be actively supported by policymakers.

Environmental initiatives are not simply ‘nice to have’; they are must-haves for cities that are constantly competing to attract and retain the best and brightest talent. Cultivating a healthy and vibrant setting for residents fosters economic competitiveness while at the same time protecting and preserving the natural environment. Vancouver, it was cited in the report, has begun work this year on an “Evergreen” mass transit line and is considering measures such as scramble intersections and road tolls to counteract congestion. Calgary, which has previously been named as the top eco-city in the world by the consultancy firm Mercer, has a C-Train system entirely powered by wind energy, as well as one of the most extensive recreational pathway networks in North America.

As it stands, plenty of good work is being done across the country that speaks to ‘triple-bottom line’ policy-making, which equally weighs the environmental, economic and social considerations of proposed policies. Many cities in western Canada, including Vancouver, Victoria, Calgary, Edmonton, Regina, Saskatoon and Winnipeg, have formally adopted this approach into their municipal operations as a means of promoting environmental initiatives while respecting the economic and social dimensions of such decisions. Furthermore, municipal officials are finding that environmental initiatives often have positive financial impacts. Reducing building emissions through green design, for example, results in lower energy bills in the long run.

This is not to say we should sit back and rest on our laurels. All cities, regardless of their ranking or reputation, have the opportunity to be greener. With over 80 per cent of Canadians living in urban areas, environmental improvement in cities stands to impact the overwhelming majority of the population. Canadian cities should capitalize on these current gains and focus on the future expansion of environmental initiatives, as indeed many already are. Technologies which were once considered cutting edge—district energy systems, wastewater heat recovery systems and biomass combustion systems, to name a few—are becoming more the norm from Vancouver to Halifax.

Without a doubt, liveability means different things to different people, and a city’s likeability does not always necessarily correspond to its liveability. It can generally be said, however, that environmental initiatives have a positive influence on the quality of life a city has to offer. In celebrating our region’s successes, let’s hope more of the same is encouraged in the years ahead.

Canada West Foundation hosts Bridging the Gap: Shifting Urban Environmental Policy into Action on September 25th at the Telus Convention Centre. For more information, click here.

By: Lyle Hewitt

Nothing could make John Lee happier than the anticipation of hundreds of leaders and experts converging on Regina with one thing on their minds: infrastructure. Lee is the President of Saskatchewan’s Communities of Tomorrow, a public/private partnership devoted to the development of innovative products and services in the municipal infrastructure field. All those people are headed for the second National Infrastructure Summit, to be held September 10-12, 2012.

“While properly functioning infrastructure is absolutely critical to our economy and our communities, it isn’t something people really talk about at the water cooler,” says Lee. “The summit is an outstanding opportunity to bring the issues around infrastructure to the forefront and get people engaged in a dialogue about new solutions.”

Lee and his team are out to position Saskatchewan as a global leader in the field of infrastructure innovation. They have been building a collaborative network of companies, municipalities, research organizations and other stakeholders to find and develop new, smarter, infrastructure solutions.

“The demand to repair and replace aging infrastructure is global,” says John Lee. “Around the world there will literally be trillions of dollars spent on these systems. And everyone making those investments is looking for more value by decreasing maintenance costs and increasing the effective life of their infrastructure.”

Communities of Tomorrow was involved in the first National Infrastructure Summit in 2011, and once again is taking a sponsorship and contributor’s role in the 2012 summit. The summit has been championed by Regina Mayor Pat Fiacco and Regina City Council. The emphasis for 2012 is moving the discussion from the theoretical sphere to practical applications of innovations that are being tried, tested, and are proving successful.

“This is right in our wheel house, in terms of the mission of Communities of Tomorrow,” says John Lee. “We have been working closely with the Municipal Innovation Network we’ve built in Saskatchewan to get innovative infrastructure ideas out of the lab and into the street for field-testing and eventually commercialization. Our municipal partners provide what we call living labs to allow testing and development of new applied technologies.”

Lee points to a new approach of recycling asphalt and concrete in roads as just one of the successful projects his organization has been involved in. They have also been working with a number of communities on a new system that vastly reduces the excavation required to replace domestic water and sewer lines and are even looking at the application of robotics.

“Much of this work is not very sexy-and not necessarily about completely new inventions,” says Lee. “It is about incremental changes that result in cost-savings or increased service life, which increase the value of municipal investments in infrastructure.”

Communities of Tomorrow is also involved in a partnership with the Canada West Foundation entitled Let’s TOC – Transforming Our Communities (www.letstoc.ca), a web-based platform to facilitate dialogue about infrastructure issues. The site features blogs by the Canada West Foundation’s Senior Policy Analyst Casey Vander Ploeg, as well as guest contributors from municipal government, industry and other stakeholders in the infrastructure sector. The project will be the subject of a report by Casey at the National Infrastructure Summit.

Registration for the summit is still available at www.nissummit2012.ca. You might even get a personal welcome to Regina from John Lee.

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

There are two main ways of addressing the fact that Canada is a collection of diverse regions.

The first is to embrace this fact as a fundamental strength and seek ways to work together and support one another. If we respect our differences and build on our similarities, a strong, united, dynamic and great nation is the result. Taking this path is not easy; it requires empathy, sacrifice, the ability to see beyond narrow perspectives, a willingness to compromise and an abiding commitment to the belief that Canada is strongest when all of its regions are thriving.

The second option is all too common and involves playing one region (or city or industry) of the country off of another for short-term gain, out of jealousy or because of ignorance. This approach sees the different parts of this great nation as competitors locked in a zero-sum game in which one region triumphs as the expense of the others. The result is bickering, missed opportunities, counterproductive animosity and a frayed national fabric. We can do better.

Politicians, business leaders, journalists, policy wonks and citizens from all parts of the country sometimes default to the second option. Most recently, Thomas Mulcair has said a number of things that focus on what divides Canada rather than what unites it. His remarks have been critiqued—and rightly so!—but we have to be careful not to let them become more fuel for the fire of division.

I have heard Albertans blame Quebec for Canada’s problems. I have heard people in Ontario berate life on the Prairies. I have heard people from Toronto tell tourists to avoid Calgary because it is ugly and full of rednecks. I have heard people in BC complain about EI recipients in the Maritimes. On top of these taunts and insults, there are old grudges against eastern banks, the oil sands is blamed for everything from the common cold to global warming and there are far too many Canadians who think breaking up the country is a good idea.

As we react to the recent wave of regional tension, it is worth considering that we are all better off working together as a country of strong regions rather than throwing stones at each other in an attempt to score points in a game with no real winner.

By: Michael Holden

The 2008-2009 recession and the still-fragile economic recovery in western Canada have amplified the urban-rural divide in regional labour markets. That large cities have been responsible for the majority of job creation in the West is hardly a recent development—the region’s nine Census Metropolitan Areas (CMAs) [1]have accounted for nearly 80% of all job growth in western Canada since 1997. However, the gap in employment growth between those nine cities and less populous areas has widened in recent years.

Not only did the West’s largest cities, on average, emerge from the recession relatively unscathed, but they have since posted much stronger job gains as well. From its pre-recession peak (November 2008) to the lowest point of the economic downturn (August 2009), western Canada lost just over 110,000 jobs. Even though our nine CMAs were home to about two thirds of all employment in the region, they accounted for just one third of those losses. Conversely, when the region began to add new jobs, it was mostly in the large cities. Since August 2009, there have been 119,000 positions created in western Canadian CMAs compared to 42,100 elsewhere in the region. In fact, smaller urban centres and rural areas have, on the whole, yet to recover their pre-recession employment levels. Meanwhile, the CMAs collectively did so in August 2010 and have been expanding ever since.

Of course, this is not to suggest that all the region’s big cities have been engines of job creation. Two cities—Vancouver and Edmonton—have been the primary drivers of employment growth, creating more jobs post-recession than all other CMAs combined. Regina and Kelowna have also posted impressive job gains, although their smaller population base means their affect on regional job creation is somewhat muted. At the other end of the spectrum, Calgary, Victoria and Abbotsford-Mission have all seen strong employment growth within the past 12 months, but there are still fewer people working in those cities today than before the recession began. In Saskatoon, there have been only modest job gains in recent months and employment remains well below pre-recession levels.

Even though most new jobs in western Canada are being created in big cities, this does not mean that employment prospects elsewhere in the region are necessarily bleak. In Manitoba, for example, employment growth outside of Winnipeg has been a lot stronger than in the province’s largest city since even before the recession began. Similarly, job creation outside of Alberta’s major urban centres has kept pace with the 4.3% average employment growth rate in Edmonton and Calgary over the past two years.

Moreover, as much as employment in western Canada’s CMAs has been rising, this increase has been counterbalanced by strong population growth; through the combined forces of urbanization, immigration and interprovincial migration, people continue to flock to our cities. Employment gains in our major centres since August 2009 has been just sufficient to absorb the growth in the urban working-age population in western Canada. Meanwhile, while job creation has, broadly speaking, been slower elsewhere in the region, so too has population growth.

These concurrent trends have created a favourable balance in western Canadian labour markets. While there remain pockets of weakness in some areas, the general situation is one where excess labour capacity in the region is moving to our major cities to absorb the growing demand for workers. As a result, the unemployment rate in urban and rural areas in western Canada has been virtually identical for several years.

1. In order of population size, western Canada’s nine Census Metropolitan Areas are: Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Victoria, Saskatoon, Regina, Kelowna and Abbotsford-Mission.

By Tom Carson, Director of the Manitoba Office

While there remains one more hurdle—selling 13,000 season tickets within three weeks—Winnipeg appears destined to bolster western Canada's presence in the NHL by adding another team. Yes, western Canada, with almost 31% of the nation’s population will have four (or nearly 60%) of Canada's seven NHL teams.

In 1996 when Winnipeg lost its NHL franchise, several economic factors drove the end of the city's presence in the league. These issues have since been minimized throughout the years, which should secure Winnipeg’s position in the league going forward:

The Winnipeg Arena was considered to be the finest facility in western North America when it was built in 1955, when Winnipeg was Canada's third-largest city. The Arena was renovated in 1979 and expanded to accommodate 15,565 people. Owned by an agency of the City of Winnipeg, it did not provide the revenue potential that owners needed nor the modern amenities and entertainment potential expected in today's facilities. In contrast, the city's new arena (2004) is a full season multiplex owned by True North Sports and Entertainment Limited, the owners of the new hockey club. For hockey, it can accommodate 15,015 people, which is not large by NHL standards (the smallest of 30 NHL arenas ranging from 16,234 to 21,273 seats). However, size is not everything: five NHL clubs had lower than 15,000 average attendance in 2009/10, many of them were substantially lower.

The 1996 ownership of the Winnipeg Jets did not have the means to backstop the growing financial risks that came from the rising salaries and operating costs associated with NHL expansion into the US. By comparison, True North Sports and Entertainment has spent the past decade learning the market, done its due diligence and the ownership team of David Thompson and Mark Chipman has the means and knowledge to support a team in the current Western economy, provided that the fan base is as strong as Manitobans believe.

The Canadian dollar was very weak in 1996. NHL hockey salaries were paid in US dollars and in Canada, every player's salary dollar cost the club at least $1.36. Prior to the negotiations that ended the 2004/05 lockout the NHL had no luxury tax, revenue sharing, salary cap or salary floor.

Manitoba's population was 1,134,000 in 1996, and the capital region of Winnipeg was 684,100. Today, after posting its highest growth rate in 40 years, the estimated population is projected to stand at 1,250,900 with the CMA at 764,200. Although it has the smallest NHL population by at least 250,000, the region is a deeply knowledgeable and committed hockey population.

All in all, a stronger Canadian dollar, a well-designed new facility, a province more confident in its economic future, a growing population, a greater local sense of pride and a rabid fan base are all pieces of the package that make this potential NHL franchise far different from the one Manitobans lost in 1996.

The latest research conducted by the Canada West Foundation shows that a small locally-levied sales tax, dedicated to municipal infrastructure and implemented only if voters agree in a referendum, would help western Canadian cities close the gap between their huge infrastructure needs and the funding dollars available.

The Penny Tax: A Timely Tax Innovation to Boost our Civic Investments by Casey Vander Ploeg, Senior Policy Analyst, measures the projected infrastructure needs facing western Canadian seven biggest cities over the next ten years at over $40 billion.

“Our work shows that a small voter-approved penny tax, combined with regular and comprehensive reporting by governments, could be the most visible, transparent and accountable tax in Canada,” author Casey Vander Ploeg explains. “It has so many benefits to recommend it. One that is very important is how the tax would ensure that all individuals coming into a city and use the infrastructure also help pay for it.”

The penny tax would be a tax unlike any other in Canada because of the unique features built into the tax. Such features include a capped rate so the tax cannot be raised, voter-approval for implementing the tax, and dedicating all revenue to specific municipal infrastructure projects that would also be subject to voter-approval.

“The features I like the most in our proposal is the automatic sunset and the refund of excess revenue back to taxpayers,” said Vander Ploeg. The penny tax could only be used across two municipal election cycles, after which the tax would lapse. For the tax to be used any longer than six years, voters would have to vote the tax back in along with a new set of infrastructure projects. A sales tax can also produce revenues that exceed expectations. This tax revenue could be returned to local taxpayers.

While there are challenges that require further exploration before a penny tax could be implemented, it is clear that this innovative tax option would do much to maintain, renew, and rehabilitate existing infrastructure, as well as invest in new infrastructure. Across the globe, local governments are implementing such innovation tax solutions.

This report is part of the Canada West Foundation’s Smart Financing Project, which focuses on innovative solutions to Canadian public financing challenges.

To download The Penny Tax: A Timely Tax Innovation to Boost our Civic Investments, click here.