Bracebridge — Councillor — Macaulay Ward / Ward 3
1. What actions have you personally taken to support a greener, more sustainable climate?
In 2018 I transitioned to an electric car. This was a big investment but certainly has been a great change and makes a difference. In 2019 I moved into a new energy star house, and then continued with upgrades to all the appliances, led light bulbs, energy saving window film, and an automatic awning to shade the southern windows in the summer. A lot of little differences can ultimately make a big change to the world.
Along with riding my bike when I can, these are dramatically changing my environmental footprint.
2. What opportunities for climate leadership at the municipal level (e.g. greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs)) would you champion in one or more of these areas: Buildings | Housing | Land use (sprawl) | Transportation | Other
There have been many discussions about this issue since the current council declared a climate emergency.
We look at electric when procuring new vehicles and Lakeland, in partnership with the town is working on installing 10 electric car charges.
As the current chair of the Active transportation committee I champion making our town safe to walk, ride, or cycle anywhere. With our first submission receiving an honourable mention from the Cycle Friendly Community’s program, we have some momentum for future changes.
In terms of sprawl, the current provincial mandate is to encourage in-filling of density. This means we need to look inside our transit area for opportunities for environmentally friendly housing options.
3. A long-term problem requires a long-term solution. What is your 100-year plan? If elected, what would be your first action?
Declaring and recognizing the climate emergency was number one! Continuing to work on all the issues above is the way forward. More infrastructure to make active transportation safe and easy is important. Ensuring new and revitalized municipal buildings are energy and environmentally friendly would be the next goal.
In Ottawa this summer we met with companies would will do these assessments and then amortize the costs to offset the savings. Having all of our facilities evaluated would be a great step forward.
Looking further out we need to work with the Provincial government and Ministry’s to advocate for further and enhanced protections to our forests and waterways, including better protections against developer clear cutting.
Working with the federal government, we need proper electric train service to serve our communities, not porter airplanes and private jets. If we had 1 hour train service from Toronto we could get hundreds of cars off the highways on Fridays and Sundays. This would require some local transit infrastructure but anything is possible with the right drive!