Municipalities Inquiry: Cities are Leading the Charge for Innovative Climate Change Solutions

On May 5, 2022 Senator Omidvar spoke to Senator Simons’ inquiry on the challenges and opportunities that Canadian municipalities face, and to the importance of understanding and redefining the relationships between Canada’s municipalities and the federal government. Watch her speech:

Hon. Ratna Omidvar: Honourable senators, as an inveterate city girl, I take to this inquiry on cities like a duck to water and am delighted to swim into Senator Simon’s inquiry which calls:

. . . the attention of the Senate to the challenges and opportunities that Canadian municipalities face, and to the importance of understanding and redefining the relationships between Canada’s municipalities and the federal government.

For reasons we all understand, we rarely speak about cities in this chamber, and I would like to thank Senator Simons for opening up the space for us to do so.

Cities create a hum in the air. It is this hum of endless activity that has always attracted me to them. Big city, bright lights, anonymity, everything that is on offer has drawn me to live in New Delhi, Munich, Tehran, Toronto and now occasionally Ottawa. My colleagues who live in, let’s say, more bucolic parts of Canada — Senator Duncan and Senator Black, I’m looking at you — will certainly have a different point of view, and I respect that. But for me, cities are where the action is.

And no wonder. I come from one of the most diverse and vibrant cities in Canada and the world. The energy, the pace, the food, the culture and the sports help leapfrog Toronto high on every ranking of cities, not just in Canada but globally. I confess I am a bit biased, but I am not so biased that I don’t appreciate the glorious waterfront in Halifax, the music and laughs in Montréal, the Calgary Stampede — although I have never been to it; it’s on my bucket list — Stanley Park in Vancouver and, of course, the political chatter on the streets in Ottawa.

My time on this matter is brief, so I will take the opportunity of showcasing the unique capacity of cities to create innovative, place-based solutions to seemingly intractable national and global problems. Solutions which can be more easily adapted city to city with far less angst, process, debate and conflict than it takes national governments to adopt good ideas from elsewhere.

In order to make my case for a greater role for cities in our arrangements, I am going to pick a case study — that of climate change, and for good reason.

We all know the threat that climate change presents to us, not just in cities but across our nation and the world. But the sheer density of life in cities means that they will be at the forefront of rising global mean temperatures. It is predicted by Natural Resources Canada that:

As the global mean temperature continues to increase, cities and towns across Canada will experience warmer temperatures, shifting precipitation patterns . . . increased frequency and intensity of some extreme weather events, and—for most coastal cities—sea-level rise.

This is neither hyperbolic nor futuristic. We all know that. We have already witnessed chaos because of extreme weather last year in British Columbia, and we are going to see more — not less — of acute and chronic biophysical impacts, including more frequent intense heat events, increased incidences of poor air quality, high-intensity rainfall events, windstorms, wildlife-urban interface fires, increased coastal erosion, storm surge flooding and decreased water quality. It sounds almost apocalyptic, but this is a fact.

Let’s all remember the fires in Fort McMurray: 2,400 homes and buildings were destroyed, and thousands of residents were forcibly displaced. The estimated damage of this tragic event was over $9 billion, which is the costliest disaster in Canadian history.

From fire, let’s turn to water, namely sea water. One of the most commonly known impacts of climate change is the rising of sea levels. This will impact our coastline and therefore our coastal cities. Vancouver and Victoria could see significant landmarks and areas under water. Beloved civic spaces like the H.R. MacMillan Space Centre, the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia, Fisherman’s Wharf and BC Place could be under water.

This is not limited just to our coastal cities. Non-coastal cities could be impacted by rising sea levels as well. Quebec City, which is close to the St. Lawrence River, could see parts of the city under water from increased flooding in the summer. Toronto, too, would be impacted with warmer and wetter winters and summers. This could lead to flooding, which in turn will damage our physical infrastructure, because city infrastructure was not designed for climate change. It is no longer fit for purpose.

But cities are not ignoring the reality that stares them in the face. In fact, cities are leading the charge for solutions with innovation and ingenuity as David Miller, former mayor of Toronto and now cities climate activist, has noted. Time magazine observed, “Countries brought big promises to COP26. Cities brought actions.” The actions of cities matter a great deal, because 70% of greenhouse emissions are created by urban areas.

The most encouraging sign is that most forward-looking cities have embedded climate change into urban planning processes, and the results are impressive. To whet your appetite a bit, I will take you for a quick tasting tour of the “who,” “where” and “what.”

Vancouver is now dedicated to turning itself into a city for walking and cycling, much like Amsterdam. This includes a complete rethink of transportation, land use and urban planning so that cars are less and less a feature of city life. By 2030, 90% of the people living within the city will be an easy walk or roll to their daily needs.

The “rolling” grabs my imagination. I have to go back to Vancouver sometime.

Montreal has adopted strong climate-change plans that are backed heavily by city council and civil society. One key plank is to have strict energy efficiency standards for new construction in the city. It is already planning the establishment of a zero-carbon neighbourhood near the old Hippodrome horse racing track.

Toronto has recently adopted TransformTO, an ambitious climate change strategy. They have begun enforcing a new set of green standards for the buildings, which will tighten the rules around greenhouse emissions for new and existing buildings.

I could give you examples from Bridgewater and Halifax, and suburban cities like Brampton and Ajax in Ontario if I had time. But I do want to go beyond Canadian cities, because we do not live in Canada alone — we live as part of the globe. Let me give you a very quick tour of the exciting things other cities in the world are doing.

Oslo has adopted a green budget. Instead of only looking at financial analysis, it requires a carbon impact analysis and a budget to meet those challenges. Bogotá has gone on a bike lane building spree. Barcelona has banned cars from their Superblocks. Milan is being transformed into an urban forest. In Chicago, rooftop gardens and greenery have become the norm, reducing rooftop temperatures by 3 to 4 degrees Celsius. London is issuing green bonds for rewilding.

But, colleagues, I must tell you that the coolest ideas come from Canada. Vancouver is making buildings — really big buildings — entirely out of wood. Toronto is cooling its downtown office buildings not with expensive energy-intensive chillers but by piping Lake Ontario water and cooling it through an efficient system.

I believe that these are signals of focus, innovation and ingenuity. I have always believed that good ideas have long legs, and many of these ideas are being replicated across cities. But no matter how creative these solutions are, they cannot solve or resolve the challenge without the participation of other orders of government, and in particular the federal government.

The Federation of Canadian Municipalities has a sensible three-point plan. They call on the government to bring its whole self to the table through three actions. The first is rapid scaling of support for disaster mitigation and climate resilience, including wildfire mitigation, drought reduction and flood prevention. The second is strengthening natural infrastructure so that municipalities can purchase forests, wetlands and green spaces — how brilliant is that? And the third is supporting cities by updating natural hazard maps, updating regional climate mapping and undertaking risk assessments to integrate social and equity considerations.

Colleagues, I think these are all reasonable asks and, of course, they are accompanied by money — lots of money. But success will evade us if we continue to follow the narrow dictates of “business as usual” and stay in our lanes and corridors. The federal government must be able to talk to municipalities, and municipalities must be able to talk to the federal government and build relationships.

As Jane Jacobs has said, the level of government closest to the people has the capacity to respond fastest to its needs, but it is the level of government furthest from the people — in this case the federal government — that has the capacity and indeed the responsibility to provide protection to the people, whether this protection comes in the form of human rights laws, security protection or, as in this case, protection from the looming threat of climate change.

Cities and the federal government must be in the same room together more often. They must create space for each other at each other’s tables. There are already points of light.

I am an eternal optimist, so I will share with you some points of light that I have picked up. The federal government recently — “recently” is always a relative term in Parliament; so about two years ago — launched a Municipal Nominee Program to enable municipalities to choose their own immigrants according to their needs. The gas tax, when it was introduced, had municipalities in mind. Three years ago, the federal government reached out to the City of Toronto for special funding to house refugees. The taxes collected through the price on carbon are directly refunded by the federal government to schools, hospitals, colleges, municipalities and universities.

I will conclude by saying that we need many more of these good ideas and many more conversations and actions between levels of government to deal with this ever-present and growing crisis.

All this can happen, colleagues, without straying too far into the constitutional arrangements of our nation, but it will take public and political will to do so. I am pleased that Senator Simons has created the space in the Senate to start this conversation.

Thank you.