Ontario Chapter

If you've walked around a neighbourhood when people have their fireplaces going, you've probably noticed that woodsy scent wafting through the air. Some would even find that a soothing, pleasant smell. You may be surprised to learn that the smoke from a wood stove, a wood burning fireplace, or an open campfire, is not at all good for you. In fact, in some countries, like the U.K., wood-burning produces more than double the air pollution that results from traffic exhaust.

The Mohawk elder Danny Beaton (Turtle Clan) speaks on the threat posed by two environmental reviews in Ontario.
He warns,

“How many books have to be written about environmental protection or films made by David Suzuki, Ed Burtynsky, or Jacques Cousteau, before we create another environmental crisis? How many environmental disasters — Katrina, Bangladesh? How many mega projects do we need? There is an Earth crisis still unfolding from killing wild animals in China.

The explosion of the movement for racial equality recently brings into highlight a threatened old growth forest called Waverly Beach, in Fort Erie, Ontario. Its sacred groves in 1905, earlier a home for refugees from slavery, became the birth place of the Niagara Movement. It was a forerunner of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP).

Although inconspicuously described as “Amendment Number I to the Ontario Growth Plan”, its impact if approved would be catastrophic. Amendment No. 1, would neuter the thrust of provincially directed land use planning, since it began to have an impact in a document entitled “Design for Development” (1966). It was also described as the Toronto Centred Region Plan.

By Dr. Lino Grima
Chair, Ontario Chapter

We all know how big a problem plastic pollution is – and it has not gone away while we’ve been trying to stop the spread of COVID-19.

This is why we invite you to join the Plastic Free July Challenge, a series of activities and actions being organized by the Sierra Club Ontario and the Great Lakes Forums’ Plastic Pollution Team.

Reducing plastic pollution will generate savings for businesses, towns, and governments, and generate tens of thousands of new jobs in Canada - a great way to build back better after COVID.

From usually reliable sources it appears that the provincial government is planning at the request of developers, to urbanize  2,200 hectares of Carruthers Creek. Carruthers flows into Lake Ontario in the City of Ajax, a community that has long opposed the flood of pollution such an action would bring.

Protect Carruthers Creek Headwaters