Attending a conference on behalf of City of Powell River is always a serious affair for Councillor CaroleAnn Leishman, especially when it is regarding environmentally sustainable initiatives.
In early February, Leishman attended Federation of Canadian Municipalities’ (FCM) Sustainable Communities conference for a second year, this time in Ottawa.
“As a local government elected official you get so busy with the general workings of the city, but there are communities doing really innovative stuff,” said Leishman.
It is important to attend these type of conferences, she added, “to meet other representatives from other communities, to hear their ideas, to hear the success stories and the failures.”
Last year, innovations by Halifax, NS, were a guiding point for the first-time councillor.
Halifax led the charge in changing provincial legislation to allow municipalities to borrow from the Municipal Finance Authority at a very low interest rate, and also apply for grants through the Green Municipal Fund, providing low-interest loans to local property owners wishing to add solar hot water retrofits to their homes. Halifax later expanded the program to include solar thermal and solar photovoltaic upgrades.
The low-interest loans would be paid back through property taxes. Even if the owner moved, the loan would remain with the home. With savings experienced on utility bills, the increase in property tax was often mitigated.
Solar hot water might not work for Powell River, but photovoltaic solar works in our climate most of the year, said Leishman.
“Even on a cloudy day, you are generating power that can be stored in batteries or directed back to the grid,” she said. “It is fairly easy to do that on a home.”
Other local building initiatives Leishman said she would like to see are upgrading insulation, changing windows and doors and installing heat pumps.
“It is a proven brilliant method of financing energy-efficiency upgrades to a home or business because there is very little risk for the city and it helps the homeowner,” said Leishman.
Unlike Nova Scotia and Ontario, however, the BC government does not allow the practice.
“We have to lobby the province into changing that legislation, otherwise there is not a mechanism for us to do that kind of loan structure,” said Leishman.
Changing legislation can take a long time and involve many steps. As an example, City of Powell River recently passed a declaration to a right to a healthy environment.
“David Suzuki Foundation and Blue Dot are trying to get the federal government to pass an environmental bill of rights,” said Leishman.
This bill of rights would change the Canadian constitution by adding the right to a healthy environment.
“If enough municipalities pass the declaration to the right to a healthy environment, then the next step is lobbying FCM, through the Union of BC Municipalities, to ask the federal government to pass an environmental bill of rights to a healthy environment, clean air, safe drinking water and clean soils for food production,” she said.
It is not just local governments and large environmental charities that need to lead the charge, said Leishman.
“If the public makes a huge statement about it, and is screaming in the media, the government is much more likely to have to listen,” she said.
When Leishman reviewed her conference experience at City of Powell River’s regular council meeting on March 3 with a PowerPoint presentation, she brought council and the public to Ottawa’s door to experience the possibilities for Powell River’s future.
To view the presentation, go to powellriver.ca and click on “reports” in the City Hall menu.
