Memories of integrated sustainability

Jeff Green | Nov 01, 2019

On March 19th of this year, the City of Kingston passed the following motion: “Be it resolved, that the City of Kingston, officially declare a climate emergency for the purposes of naming, framing, and deepening our commitment to protecting our economy, our eco systems, and our community from climate change.”

There are policies that flow from the declaration, most related to the carbon footprint of the city and its residents. They include policies to: purchase electric vehicles for city use when possible, investments in public transit, promoting active transportation, a greener building policy, and promoting urban density so Kingston residents can use public transit instead of their own vehicles to get around.

Tay Valley Township, a rural township in Lanark County, located between Central Frontenac and the Town of Perth, which has a population density typical of Frontenac County townships, established the Green Energy and Climate Change Working Group in 2018. The group, which is chaired by the deputy reeve of the township and includes one other councillor and a half a dozen township residents, focusses on the greenhouse gas emissions from township operations and within the local community in general. This year the group received funding from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities to develop a plan to address climate change in Tay Valley, and they are working on developing that plan as we speak.

I point to these two examples as a contrast to Frontenac County, where there is little talk of climate change and its implications at the township or the county level. Some readers of this column might say Frontenac County is behind the times, others might say that those other municipalities are wasting their time. It all depends on how people look at climate change and its implications.

Years ago, however, Frontenac County was ahead of the climate change curve, when it adopted a Integrated Community Sustainability Plan (ICSP). The plan established pillars of sustainability within Frontenac County, and every county decision was to be considered against the backdrop of the plan.

When the ICSP was in place, every staff report to Frontenac County Council included a clause outlining the sustainability implications of the options presented elsewhere in the report. This did not necessarily influence how the report was received, but it did put sustainability in the equation whenever the council was considering any change to county operations.

The ICSP also came with some money to be spent on community initiatives of an environmental bent, and some projects in the county were supported by this funding.  In terms of the thrust of decision-making from Frontenac County, the Integrated Community Sustainability Plan is long gone.

The language around climate change, and sustainable and resilient communities, has drifted into the background as well. Frontenac County has put a lot of effort into developing its own Official Plan, which replaced the ICSP when it was adopted a couple of years ago. The county is now working hard on updates to the Official Plans of its member municipalities. These Official Plans all include significant language about maintaining water quality and the health and diversity of watersheds. They are indeed progressive documents in terms of planning and the environment.

However, over the last five years, sustainability, green energy, averting climate change or preparing for its implications, have been off the table at Frontenac County Council and the Frontenac township councils.

Because of this, when Frontenac County Council took a look at transportation funding last week, the community sustainability implications of cutting that funding were not even mentioned.

A decision to cut funding for transportation programs that serve seniors, people living with disabilities, and low-income families, certainly makes a kind of a statement. This is not to say that the council did not have any reasons to cut the funding. Cutting transportation from the levy to ratepayers was the easiest way for Council to cut 1% off a tax increase that they felt was already too high.

Up until last year, the transportation funding request to the county came from Frontenac Transportation Services to support residents in South, Central, and North Frontenac equally. This time there were two requests, each for exactly half of the funding, to support different transportation programs for two agencies who are no longer working together. The new funding request was problematic from county wide point of view, and that was certainly a factor for members of Frontenac County Council.

But there was no mention of the fact that cutting the funding leaves Frontenac County with no transportation policy at all. There was no discussion of the sustainability implications of this decision, no discussion of the gap in service for vulnerable members of the community.

Unless one or more of the townships comes through, Frontenac County is now a rural jurisdiction that, by default, is telling the world that in our county everyone who wants to live here, really needs to own a car. If they don’t or can’t for some reason, they should move somewhere else. That is certainly the way it is now, in Frontenac and most other rural municipalities in Canada. But with no commitment to transportation at all, Frontenac County is saying that it will stay that way. ‘One person, one car’ is not exactly a winning slogan in a world that is attempting to avert the worst implications of climate change.

This makes Frontenac County a laggard when it comes to climate action, as compared to its neighbours.