DONATEAt Sierra Club Ontario, our work mainly focuses on protecting the Great Lakes ecosystem, increasing awareness about air pollution, and promoting Green Energy adoption in Ontario. Sierra Club Ontario also works on very local issues, in coordination with smaller communities in Ontario.
With Ontario election 2022 well underway we asked the major provincial political parties a series of questions on the environment. Below you will find their answers.
In Memory of Alicja Rozanska.
From John Bacher:
Critical environmental indicators, which should send warning signals at the polls, are the fate of native cold-water fisheries. These are important warning signals of pollution since self-supporting cold-water fisheries will not survive in polluted environments. What should send alarm bells off on election day is the fate of Lake Simcoe’s Lake Trout.
This is a key election for the environment and the future of Ontario. We can no longer afford to wait for the government to catch up on meaningful climate action. Sierra Club Canada Foundation is demanding stronger legislation that prioritizes people, the environment, and a liveable future.
Below you will find the actions our members are calling for. You can reference this document for discussion when local candidates come to your door. Ask your local candidates what they plan to do to tackle the issues Ontarians are facing.
Sierra Club Canada Foundation's Ontario Chapter has joined a coalition of over 125 groups across Ontario in calling upon candidates in the upcoming provincial election to treat climate change as an emergency.
This election is critical for Ontario and for Canada. Now more than ever, we need strong action and leadership on climate change.
The Ontario Climate Emergency Campaign encourages diverse groups from every sector to urgently work together towards our shared climate action goals.
We are looking for a new Ontario representative to join our Board of Directors.
We are also recruiting new committee members to join our national committees.
Interested? Click to learn more.
In Memory of Alicja Rozanska.
***Scroll down to reach out to local councilors
From John Bacher:
It is an old but true saying that photographs express threats to the natural world more vividly than the most eloquent warning. Some of these images recently emerged, which captured the beauty of the portion of the Thundering Waters Forest in Niagara Falls, on the eve of its destruction for a subdivision.
Environmental racism is ingrained into the colonial systems of Canada. This is a fact. And the reality of the colonial systems we have in place disproportionately affects Black, Indigenous and other people of colour in a multitude of ways, at every level, in almost every space. That is the way colonial systems are designed.
Our Breathe Easy campaign recently hosted a webinar with Health Canada's Dr. Errol Thomson to learn about the effects of air pollution on our health
In Memory of Alicja Rozanska.
The Federation of Tiny Township Shoreline Association (FoTTSA), a group of concerned citizens from Tiny Township, organized a protest to bring attention at Queen’s Park Legislation on United Nations World Water Day (March 22, 2022) about the quality of aquifers being threatened by aggregate mining in North Simcoe County. Around noon, the last speaker at their rally which had scientists, activisits, citizens, politicians and Native people speaking out for the protection of their aquifers, was Native elder Danny Beaton, a Turtle Clan Mohawk.
In Memory of Alicja Rozanska.
From John Bacher:
Over the past week and a half, there has been a Carolinian tree massacre by bulldozer underway in Niagara. A preliminary report, completed on August 11, 2021, by Nash Colville of Colville Consulting Inc. provides a rough description of the damage.
The Niagara region's new Official Plan threatens to promote urban sprawl, degrading key habitats for endangered species and impacting the region's thriving agricultural community.
These plans have been made without any scientific due diligence to assess the impact of pushing development outside of urban areas.
Dr. John Bacher recently spoke to the region's Planning and Economic Development Committee to stress three key points.
From John Bacher:
In her last report before her office was shut down by the provincial government of Premier Doug Ford, Ontario’s Environment Commissioner, Dr. Diane Saxe, drew attention to what she termed “Southern Ontario’s Disappearing Forests.” She urged that, “Conserving forests must become a top priority in land use planning.” Since “each incremental loss has a big impact on the services the forests provide to society and the wildlife they support.”
The Ontario government is proposing a plan to implement changes to the Environmental Assessment Act. These changes would not only make it easier for companies to launch experimental technologies that claim to recover fuel and/or chemicals from waste, but they would also remove important public oversight from these controversial projects.
February 28, 2022
Ian Drew
Resource Recovery Policy Branch
40 St. Clair Avenue West, 8th floor
Toronto, ON
M4V 1M2
In Memory of Alicja Rozanska.
From John Bacher:
Shortly after being forced into hospitalization following an attack of congenital heart failure, veteran environmentalist Doug Draper sent me an ominous warning. He informed me that powerful cliques in Niagara were trying to convince the Ontario provincial government of Premier Doug Ford to resurrect the terminated 130-kilometer Mid-Peninsula Highway from the dead.
Air pollution does not have to be as obvious or as extreme as that in Delhi to cause harm. Believe it or not, even Canada – a place we think of as very clean and healthy – experiences air pollution which is caused both by human activity, such as simple daily tasks or, more complex economic activity such as building, manufacturing, farming, and mining.
The choices we make, both in our everyday lives, as well as in supporting specific public policies, have important effects on how our neighbourhoods, our provinces, and our country addresses air pollution.
Fumes from anti-vaccine mandate protesters' trucks and smoke from their barbecues and campfires is damaging air quality in downtown Ottawa.
Local resident Bonnie Charette said she wears a mask outside downtown — partly as a COVID-19 precaution and partly because of what she calls the "stench" in the air.
"The smell is disgusting," she said.
Abby Donald, who lives in an area where trucks line the streets, agrees.
"I hate breathing it in," she said. "I walk into my apartment and I smell like it."
We, the undersigned, therefore call on the Government of Canada to commit immediately to implement the following actions on an urgent basis...
The typical lifespan of products today seem to only be a few years. From mobile phones, to dishwashers, to equipment; you buy a product, use it for a few years, and then it breaks. Leaving you with only one or two, usually costly, options. In fact, it is almost always easier and cheaper to replace the product with a new one, instead of simply repairing it. This has become the standard.