This project aims to present alternative products to commonly used products that would have a lower carbon footprint. Through the platform, people will be able to go around the house to discover low-carbon footprint consumer products.

Help needed : Research

End of project : 2030-01-01

Contact: Éric Ferland

More information

Emission reduction now aims, through the Climate COOK application, to enable hundreds of thousands of people to improve the climate impact of their food.

Climate COOK aims to help people transition to a low-carbon diet. See a presentation of the application.

We are looking for people to test the alpha version of the application :

• iOS
• Android

Also, we are currently raising funds through community bonds ($30,000 @ $500/bond).
Our goal is to use this money as leverage to raise additional funds to finance the development of our application. For more information on our bonds, see our prospectus.

Community Bonds allow individuals to invest (via a loan) in a non-profit organization with the expectation of getting their money back at the end of the term (as with any start-up, there are no guarantees and the investment is highly risky). Please note that the bonds are open for purchase until April 29, 2021.

The Science Advocates/Défenseurs des Sciences – Canada team is looking for help to create its website. The website would mainly serve to share the important information that is on the Facebeook page as well as relevant scientific articles they talk about on their Facebook page.

Help needed : Communications / Web

End date : 2030-01-01

Contact : canada@scienceadvocates.us

More information : https://www.facebook.com/ScienceAdvocatesCA

Find out about how your city ranks nationally on 30 sustainability indicators such as air quality, public transport or affordable housing and discover what are your options at the municipal level so you can improve your community’s quality of life.

Learn more about the initiative

We aim to meet the challenges of waste diversion in Montreal to reach its net zero target by 2030

The program was inspired by the city’s massive undertaking to go zero waste by 2030 and aimes to incorporate strategies that along with the UN SDGs.The program aims to meet the city’s net zero target by 2030. Starting last year WeDIP has already engaged with 12 government departments, 10 organizations, and 10 volunteers/student interns. We need help from the city and other sponsors attempting to identify key challenges, gap assessment and international best practices to design an implementation framework.

Help needed : Data, Mobilization, Strategy

End date : 2030-01-01

Contact : kristi.h@netimpactmtl.org

More information : https://netimpactmtl.org/en/home/

A cross sectional analysis of Carbon Cycle Science and the research landscape of natural negative emissions technology and it’s potential in solving our Climatic Conundrum

Employing Carbon Cycle Science to advance Regenerative Agriculture with the participation of Plenty4All, in Ndhiwa Kenya. Validate Carbon Sequestration using Biochar and possibly Soil Carbon Sequestration.

Help needed : Outreach, Research, Strategy, Data

End date : 2030-01-01

Contact: dbrucemerlo@outlook.com

More information : http://www.plenty4all.net

We oppose any attempt to privatize the site, as has happened to many other hospitals, and major institutional and ecclesiastical sites close to the mountain, like the Children’s Hospital (sold off a cost of $25 million, when its property assessment was $47 million), the Chest Hospital (purchased by condo developers), as well as Marianopolis College, the Couvent d’Outremont, the Missionary Sisters of the Immaculate Conception, and the Shriners Hospital. Other publicly-owned sites in Montreal that have been sold off for private developers include the Radio-Canada site and the Peel-Bonaventure Basin site.

Help needed : Communications, Outreach, Strategy, Mobilization, Data

End date : 2030-01-01

Contact : info@royalvic.org

More information : RoyalVic.org

Do you have opinions and ideas about the Plateau, how it is changing, and what this means for the future of those who live and work here? You are not alone! Join your neighbors to identify issues facing Plateau residents and workers, explore solutions, and communicate with municipal, provincial, federal and school elected officials.

End date : 2030-01-01

Contact : anousleplateau@gmail.com

More information : www.anousleplateau.org

Garbage Night is an application to geolocate waste in real time. It allows Montrealers to store for and pick up their neighbourhood’s garbage, thereby reducing the amount of waste going to landfills. This approach encourages reuse and recycling, reduces the volume of waste in landfills, which saves the municipality money and reduces consumption at the source and the losses that are generated. It’s an idea I’ve had for 6 years. This is only the first part.

I am looking for people who would like to set up this project with me, funding to pay the people needed to create it, a person in graphic design, strategic organization and marketing. Thank you! Sarah Hanneman

End date : 2022-02-22

Contact : shanneman3@yahoo.com

Image by Pete Linforth at Pixabay

The waste due to weekly bags of flyers is the equivalent of abandoning 62 buses in the streets of Montreal, EVERY WEEK. In spite of the distributors’ reassurances, none of this is recyclable until the plastic bags are separated from their paper contents, and our overwhelmed sorting centres simply cannot do it. Our solution is simple: 1- ban the plastic bags, and 2- deliver flyers only to citizens who are interested enough to post an authorization on their mailboxes.

Since the City has included these ideas in the waste-reduction plan that it adopted last August, all that’s left to do is insist on a prompt implementation. For this, we’ve prepared a guide to help volunteers write to their councillors in order to demonstrate that this issue can’t be swept under the rug. Please help!

Our partners:

• Friends of the Earth
• Association québécoise de lutte contre la pollution atmosphérique
• Association québécoise pour la promotion de l’éducation relative à l’environnement
• Coalition Climat Montréal
• The Council of Canadians
• Environnement jeunesse
• Équiterre
• The David Suzuki Foundation
• Greenpeace Canada
• Nature Québec
• The Climate Reality Project
• The RAVEN group of First Nations
• Sierra Club

Help needed : Mobilization

End date: 2021-06-30

Contact : CharlesMontpetit@yahoo.com

More information :

www.antipublisac.com

www.facebook.com/antipublisac

With the help of four cities, we organize environmental fairs. Our partners are the Fonds FTQ, Recyc-Québec and the Quebec government. The main goal is to find ways to reduce our ecological footprint in order to reduce our GHGs.

Help needed : communication, outreach, data, strategy.

Contact : info@foireecosphere.org

From March to October 2020, hundreds of volunteer cyclists made more than 100,000 deliveries by collaborating with some 15 community organizations in 5 Montreal boroughs. In fact, the Solon organization was a key partner in providing us with free bike trailers for our deliveries.

So we need to continue to spread the word about our initiative so that people will lend a hand with their bikes and their beautiful smiles! In addition, our horizontal structure favours the participation of everyone and each person can contribute according to his or her skills/interests/availability. In other words, the type of involvement in our organization is varied, from coordinating the logistics of deliveries, to taking care of our social networks or even making videos.

More information : Facebook page

Contact

Working with various civil society groups to propose to the City how we want to be involved in the development and implementation of the ecological transition plan.

Contact

We hope to get a bylaw by summer/fall 2021 banning the use of gas leaf blowers at all times in the borough of Cote-des-Neiges-Notre-dame-de-grace. Banning leaf blowers would give us quieter neighbourhoods, cleaner air, healthier citizens and a healthier urban ecosystem. Vancouver has banned them since 2001, and Beaconsfield and St-Lambert have done so more recently. It is time that our borough did so as well.

We are seeking a Treasurer to handle bookkeeping and fundraising efforts, and if fundraising is successful we would use some of the returns to pay this person a stipend. We also need volunteers for handing out flyers and educating the public.

Contact

Our petition

Web Site

The Coalition Climat Montréal will hold its 5th anniversary on Thursday, February 20 at the Lajeunesse centre (7378 Lajeunesse, Jean-Talon metro station) with a program highlighting the inspiring work of various organizations.
We are expecting 150-200 people to celebrate the past and align ourselves with the future. Lectures and workshops will take place from noon to 4pm, followed by an evening of networking, and exchanges between dozens of Montreal environmental organizations seeking to showcase their projects will begin at 4:30pm. Save the date!

It’s free, but please register

The AGM will be preceded at 3pm by the presentation of our thematic sheets, describing our four pillars of action.

Please note that participation in the AGM is reserved for members of the Montreal Climate Coalition (click here to become a member).

Also noteworthy: four positions need to be filled on the Board of Directors. If you are interested in applying, please send a brief resume and cover letter to contact@coalitionclimatmtl.org .

We look forward to seeing you on June 19!

It should be noted that this event is being held thanks to the collaboration of HEC Montréal’s Sustainable Development Department.

Working with local partners (including municipal leaders) to make the responsible and ecological development of Lachine East a priority for the City of Montreal. Obtaining a public consultation with the OCPM. Providing educational opportunities for the public to learn about the heritage and history of the 60+ hectares to be developed over the next 15-20 years. Local partners are the GRAME and the CDEC as well as the Montreal Climate Coalition.

More information

To do this, we are looking to:

• Recruit 270 individuals (currency users) to complete the current pilot phase
• Recruit professionals and traders (who accept currency as payment) for the current pilot phase
• Organize an event for the official launch
• Maintain and improve the website
• Seek funding and grants
• Form a scientific committee to guide the economic model
• Conduct a descriptive study of the utility of the Islet for the Montréal territory
• Animate social networks

More information

My 2nd wish – a donation for the climate

The project consists of creating recycled greeting cards to collect donations for the climate. The proceeds from the sale of these cards will go to the Coalition Climat Montréal. “My 2nd Wish” wishes to collect donations for its used greeting cards (which are lying in the drawers of our families, friends, neighbours, colleagues, etc.) in order to produce new cards of all categories (birthdays, Christmas, Father’s Day, Mother’s Day, etc.). We would also be happy to collaborate with small elves (volunteers) who would like to participate in pleasant moments of creation!

More information

Are you concerned about the future of your city? Just like climate change? France has been running its national “Ecoquartier” programme for a decade now, designed to bring together civil society, developers and municipalities so that new developments contribute to the energy transition while promoting social equity.

In Quebec, Écoquartiers projects such as the Angus Technopole are the exception rather than the rule. But now there is a unique opportunity for Lachinois and other Montrealers to redefine the city of tomorrow. Indeed, the Office de consultation publique de Montréal (OCPM) will hold a public consultation prior to the future Lachine-Est project (more than 50 hectares and more than 4,000 units).

It is in this context that six community organizations have joined forces to invite you to the “Lachine East Summit”. This conference, on the theme of “The eco-neighbourhood of today, the city of tomorrow”, will draw inspiration from best practices for the future development of Lachine-Est, while laying the foundations for a future Montreal eco-neighbourhood development program.

This event will take place on Saturday, March 9 from 9:30 am to 5:30 pm in Lachine. A dinner will be served to participants and a networking cocktail will conclude the event.

You will be able to hear more than twenty guest speakers, including Alain Jund, Deputy Mayor of Strasbourg, in charge of urban planning and energy transition, President of the French National EcoQuartier Commission and Christian Yaccarini, President and CEO of the Société de développement Angus.

In the afternoon, you will have the choice between the following 4 thematic workshops (one of which is in English):

1: Sustainable mobility, TOD and densification

2: From the eco-building to the entire district

3: For a Montreal eco-neighbourhood charter

4 : Toward a real ecodistrict (english workshop)

However, we encourage you to make a tax-deductible donation to GRAME before March 23rd: Go to www.canadon.ca, select GRAME, make your donation and select that you support the “Lachine-Est” project. Please note: if you make a donation when you register on the EventBrite platform, you will not receive a tax receipt. You must use the www.canadon.ca platform to benefit from such a receipt. Thank you!

Register now on Eventbrite

This event is organized in partnership with

OCPM Consultation

To launch its consultation on the future of the Lachine-Est sector, the Office de consultation publique de Montréal will hold an “Open House” event on Sunday, February 24 at 11 a.m., at Maison du Brasseur, 2901 Boulevard Saint-Joseph, Lachine.

In opening, Pierre Lessard-Blais, Mayor of the Borough of Mercier-Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, and Alexandre Boulerice, Member of Parliament for Rosemont-Petite Patrie, stressed the importance of a common commitment to the fight against and adaptation to climate change, as well as the support of citizens for the proposals and actions of elected officials in this direction.

We would like to thank all the presenters and people who came to listen to them.

If you missed this event or would like more information on the groups and projects presented, you can consult the following links:

• Up from the ground / À nous les quartiers
• Coalition Climat Montréal

Présentation Démocratie participative (4e anniversaire)

Présentation Inventaire GES (4e anniversaire)

• Conseil régional en environnement de Laval

Présentation du CRE Laval (4e anniversaire)

• Contrôle des Publi-sacs
• Demain Verdun
• Extinction Rebellion
• Forêt nourricière
• National climat league
• Mobilisation Environnement Ahuntsic-Cartierville
• Vegan Option Canada

Présentation de Option Vegan (4e anniversaire)

• Réseau Transition Québec

Présentation du Réseau Transition Québec (4e anniversaire)

• Transition NDG

Présentation de Transition-NDG (4e anniversaire)

• Trainsparence

In 2018, the International Panel on Climate Change, a group mandated by the UN to provide governments with scientific information that they can use to develop climate policies, issued a report stating that we cannot continue to ignore the effect that human activity is having on the planet. Doing so would mean certain death for our species and for much of life as we know it. The report examined how a continued warming of the Earth to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels would affect life on Earth in precise scientific terms, and issued this prescription to the world community: Act now! Or else! (I am paraphrasing here.)

The IPCC Report had the effect of a meteor crashing to Earth—we could not ignore it, but we weren’t quite sure what to do with it. We have known for a long time that we have to stop burning fossil fuels, although this realization has yet to percolate up to our elected representatives.

However, even as the Canadian and Québec governments continue to shill for the oil and gas industry, scientists, Indigenous communities, and citizens’ groups have been researching solutions and taking actions, like the fossil-fuel divestment movement. And the IPCC report served to draw attention to Paul Hawken’s Project Drawdown which boldly proclaims itself “The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming.” To write this book, Hawken gathered a qualified and diverse group of researchers from around the world to identify, research, and model the 100 most substantive, existing solutions to address climate change.

Notice that a “plant-rich diet” is number four on that list. Consider also, that as an individual, this is a solution that you can act on immediately and with direct impact on the world.

Drawdown top ten solutions

In a new-year tradition-meets-global-awakening effect, suddenly everywhere articles abound on the importance of a plant-based diet. As I write this, the Canada Food Guide has announced that in its new version of the Guide, Dairy will no longer be considered a food group in its own right–it has been demoted to be henceforth a mere member of the Protein food group, along with lentils, legumes and nuts–which is momentous: The long-held myth that one “needs” animal-based protein has been implicitly debunked. (It is a little bit as though proportional representation has come to food—can a PR government be far behind?)

Perhaps you have been toying with the idea of adopting a vegan or vegetarian lifestyle, but you don’t know where to start. This article provides answers to a few of the questions that people typically have about a plant-rich diet, with insider resources for those living in Montréal.

I love meat and I eat it daily! How can I make such a drastic change?

The idea of transitioning to a plant-rich diet can be overwhelming… as long as it is just an idea. Once you try it, you might find it quite easy.

First of all, be clear about your motivation… are you most concerned about improving your personal health? The health of the planet? Love of animals? Love of humanity? “All of the above”?. Be clear in your mind about why you are doing this.

Second, set out the ground rules for yourself, in order to make this a sustainable lifestyle change, and not just a transitory diet. Decide whether to start with a vegetarian diet (consume no animals or fish, but still eat animal-derived products) or a vegan one (no animals or animal-derived products). Then again, if you are currently eating meat daily, you might want to start with meatless meals every-other day, and take it from there. Personally, when I first committed to a plant-rich diet, I had many reservations, so I was initially vegetarian, and later, having realized how easy this was, I become vegan. However, only you know yourself.

One key question is, do you like to cook? If the answer is yes, then, Congratulations! You will enjoy trying new recipes and exploring new tastes and foods like vegan cheeses, tofu, tempeh, seitan, nutritional yeast, and more.

If you would rather walk over hot coals than open a cookbook, no worries! There are more and more convenient vegan versions of comfort foods. Look in the frozen section of your grocery for meatless nuggets and “filets”–Gardein brand has a delicious selection—or try a vegan pizza. For easy recipes that focus on convenience, you can also order a “Vegetarian Starter Kit

What could I use to replace milk, cream and cheese?

This is an easy one! There are so many options! Why not pick up a carton of soy milk the next time that you are at the grocery? Take a moment to do a side-by-side comparison with a carton of cow’s milk. You will see that there is really little difference in terms of the vitamin and minerals. If you want to explore all the plant-based options, consider oat, almond, and rice milk; all are delicious. Personally I use soy milk most of the time, but one of these days I would like to try making oat milk, which would be cheaper than buying soy milk, and also has the advantage of eliminating the carton.
 

As for cream, once you start exploring with vegan recipes, you will see that coconut cream is a perfect substitute for cream from a cow. If you have tasted vegan pastries, you know already that there is no detectable difference! When it comes to coffee, you can use commercial non-dairy creamers like Silk.
As for vegan butter, most vegans I know use Earth Balance brand vegan butter, which is quite delicious. However, it does contain palm oil, which in my mind makes it non-vegan, since palm oil plantations destroy habitat of orangutans and other species. I personally make my own butter, using coconut oil (the refined kind, with no coconut taste) and olive oil. The recipe is here.

Cheese-lovers may find that the sheer ubiquitousness and variety of animal-derived cheeses is a stumbling block—how to give that up? Never fear! Where one door closes, another door opens! Welcome to the amazing world of vegan cheeses—which includes parmesan, cream cheese, mac-n’ cheese, feta, blue and more! You can buy many vegan cheeses ready-made at Montreal stores like Coop La Maison Verte, LOCO, Rachel Berry; Fleur Sauvage and so on, or you can make your own. A vegan version of Parmesan takes only minutes to make, and requires only a handful of cashews, nutritional yeast, and salt. You can find this and many other cheese recipes at the Urban homesteader web site. The site founder, Sheena Swirlz, also gives vegan cheese-making workshops here in Montréal.

Where will I get my protein?

More to the point, where won’t you get protein? Ha ha! There is plenty of protein in tofu, tempeh, seitan, plant-based milks, whole wheat, brocolli, cabbage, beans, legumes, nuts and seeds. Also, nuts and seeds often have a greater density of protein by weight than meat. For example, did you know that 3/4 cup of pumpkin seeds contains as much protein as 3 ounces of turkey, and has more glutamate, zinc, and phytosterols, not to mention copper, manganese, phosphorous, vitamin K, E, and B that are missing in the turkey? And the turkey gets to live! Yay!

The important thing is to get a wide variety of nutritious foods. Here is a poster that you might want to pin up somewhere in your kitchen :
 

If you want a more prescribed regimen until you feel comfortable with all these new foods, try Lise Desaulniers’ book, Le défi vegane 21 jours.

Won’t I lack vitamins on a plant-based diet?

Hmm… let me see if I understood correctly… you are about to ditch your one-food-fits-all, meat-centric Carnist diet, and embark on a nutritional odyssey of plant-rich foods, and you are worried about vitamins? Chances are, your new diet will contain a far greater scope of vitamins than your meat-and-potatoes grandparents ever dreamed of!

Seriously, though, it is commendable to be concerned about vitamins and minerals. Here is a 1-2-3 formula for ensuring that you don’t miss out.

1. Sign up for a farmer’s basket. This will ensure that you are getting a steady, varied and ample supply of organic, local produce.
2. Grab a pencil and make a grocery list, with these vitamin superstars on it:

• Nutritional yeast is a good source of vitamin B12. Start with vegan parmesan, or pick up a cook book like Jean Philippe’s cookbook. You can also subscribe to his blog.
• Flax seed is a good source of protein, calcium and Omega 3 fatty acids (which non-vegans get from eggs). Interestingly, flax seed can be used in just about any baking recipe as an egg replacer.
• Chia seeds contain Omega 3, fibre, and myriad other vitamins and minerals. Throw them in a smoothie for instant benefits.
• Tofu and tempeh (calcium, manganese, copper, selenium, protein and phosphorus; plus, omega-3 fatty acids, iron, magnesium, zinc and vitamin B1.) Pick up some coconut milk while you’re at it, and try a tofu butter chicken recipe. My favorite is from chef Jean Philippe Cyr, but there are plenty of English versions on line.

3. Pick up a good cookbook, or subscribe to a vegan blog (or both!). My favorites so far are Oh She Glows and La Cuisine de Jean-Philippe.

What about eating out?

In Montréal or in any large city, you can find vegan options on the menu of most restaurants. But don’t let that stop you from exploring the really world class, vegan restaurants that abound in this metropolis. Download the HappyCow app, and whereever you are, you will be able to locate nearby veg restaurants.
Some of my favorites here in Montréal: Chu Cha, LOV, Lola Rosa, Panthere Verte, Sushi Momo, Vego, Vegano.

Just about everyone I know eats meat… where will I get moral support?

Some suggestions:

• Facebook groups, like Végétaliens/Véganes Québec.
• If you prefer face-to-face, join a Vegetarian group, like the longstanding Association végétarienne de Montréal
• Attend the Festival végane de Montréal, in October of each year. You will come away with your backpack loaded down with business cards, and your tummy full of samples. You will also be blown away by the size of the vegan community in Montréal!

Good luck on your vegan adventure!

Cym Gomery

Good Evening M. Nakonechny,

It was my pleasure to meet you last week outside the Québec court of appeal.

In the interest of improving CBC’s reporting of issues relating to mitigating greenhouse gas emissions, find below several comments on your piece on the motion to have construction halted in the Technoparc until the court of appeal has its word on the Réseau Express Métropolitain (REM) on November 2. I am copying your colleagues who have published recently on this project; some of the points below relate to their work as much as yours. For more context on why a climate-focused organization would oppose a private transportation project of this nature, see this op-ed addressing that question.

I recommend that staff writing on issues relevant to climate change are adequately trained and resourced to ensure the most factual, objective reporting possible.

Questionable Calculation

“A total of 20 hectares of green space will be cleared during the construction of the entire 67-kilometre rail network — the equivalent of close to 25 CFL football fields. To compensate, CDPQ Infra is committed to planting 250,000 trees over 200 hectares.”

CBC journalists seem at liberty to choose how they define the size of a football field depending on the slant they want to give their piece. When vaunting an expansive new liquor warehouse, one reporter chose to inflate the perceived size by equating it to smaller NFL fields. Another chose a more Canadian measuring stick, comparing protected green space to CFL fields. In Mr. Nakonechny’s piece last week, describing the 20 hectares (in reality 21, see page 15 here) of forest and wetlands that the Réseau Express Métropolitain proposes to bulldoze, he decided to define the CFL field differently – including 18-metre-long end zones, thus opting for the measuring stick that minimized the project’s perceived impact (25 fields instead of 31 or 36 by his colleagues’ calculations). At the very least, I would recommend consistency across your organization. As an advocate of a sustainable future, I would also recommend that environmental degradation not be understated.

False Equivalency

More importantly, the piece concluded with a false equivalency being drawn between the 20 hectares of green space that would be cleared and the 200 hectares of green space that would have trees added to them. Paving over green space is only equivalent to planting trees if the area planted involves removing asphalt/demineralizing that surface. It is unreasonable to assume that such a stipulation was made in the contract with the Jour de la Terre Québec who agreed to plant the trees on behalf of the CDPQ. According to the same press release, the CDPQ paid for the planting of those trees to compensate for GHG emissions stemming from the REM’s construction, not to replace green space that would be razed. The CDPQ is double-dipping and careless reporting allows them to get away with it.

Such compensatory measures for GHG emissions would be welcome were they to represent an honest desire to offset the construction’s emissions. In another successful PR effort, the CDPQ billed the move as a complete offset of emissions during the construction of the project: “La Caisse s’engage à acheter 87 000 crédits compensatoires générés par le programme 375 000 arbres afin de compenser les émissions anticipées de GES durant la construction du REM.” However, due to the cement required for the towering concrete viaducts necessitated by the CDPQ’s choice of technology, those offsets cover just over 10% of total emissions attributable to the project’s construction.

Misleading reporting

Reporting without critical examination the “20-to-200 hectare” trade-off cited frequently by the CDPQ misleads your readers in two other ways:
1) the CDPQ’s carefully worded claim excludes green space that is not legally classified as such; and
2) the green space that they require to be developed around stations like the Technoparc to render the project economically viable is also ignored.

The green space that CDPQ-Infra intends to pave over far exceeds 20 hectares – in large part due to the sprawling parking lots around several of its stations. One of the network’s 15 new stations will require between 30 and 50 hectares of ‘excellent agricultural land’ south of Highway 30 in Brossard. Official estimates for the total number of these grasslands and agricultural lands slated for parking lots or other uses does not figure among the CDPQ’s talking points, but is the kind of question that a conscientious journalist should be reporting on.

As their agreement with the Union des Producteurs Agricoles du Québec states, $3-million has been devoted to protecting land around the 10-30 intersection, which leaves hundreds of hectares of land unprotected and open to speculation and development. (see map). Would the CDPQ have chosen to locate its station in the greenfield adjacent the DIX30 shopping centre if it did not expect to profit from ensuing developments bringing it $10 per square foot in royalties for developments within a kilometre of the station? Brossard’s offer to use an old golf course to avoid expanding beyond the psychological barrier of highway 30 was rejected.

Similarly for the Technoparc, the REM’s arrival will spur development south of Rue Alexander Fleming, with plans to develop 54% of the remaining forest and wetlands. This, in a borough of the city with a surprisingly high rate of vacancy in its commercial building stock. Industrial and commercial buildings across the city sit vacant and brownfields are left for the public purse to remediate. Why provide a transit subsidy (72¢ per passenger km) building on forests and wetlands when the city has so much other available space? Mr. Nakonechny’s decision to publish a map of the station location without mentioning the further development that the station engenders is disappointing and leads readers to facile conclusions about over-reaching environmentalists.

When the CDPQ’s talking points are repeated without analysis or scrutiny, its wager that the public and the media are more concerned with feeling green than actually reducing emissions or protecting biodiversity is validated. The CBC is a trusted source of information. When reporting on an issue of this import, your staff must be adequately equipped to conduct the research necessary to report accurately and completely.

Montreal is far from meeting the objectives for green space preservation as recommended by the World Health Organization and required by the Plan Métropolitain d’Aménagement et Développement (PMAD). It is also facing a major challenge with respect to growing transportation emissions. Those facts, in addition to the ever-growing threat to biodiversity is more than enough reason for sober reflection. The environmental community is not simply opposing the destruction of 20 hectares of forests and wetlands, we are concerned with the hundreds of other hectares of green space and agricultural land that the REM is designed to exploit – and the impact that such sprawl will have on our greenhouse gas emissions.

Sincerely,
Matthew Chapman
President, Coalition Climat Montréal

For more information, contact Matthew Chapman.

An open letter from  Matthew Chapman, president of Coalition Climat Montréal to Yvan Cardinal, Pincourt’s mayor

Dear Mayor Cardinal,

Many residents of the Communauté Métropolitaine de Montréal recognize the value of our few remaining green spaces.

They serve as natural infrastructure to filter water, cool neighbourhoods, mitigate flooding and are host to many species of flora and fauna in a period of ever-increasing threat to biodiversity. They also differentiate suburbs like Pincourt from the concrete jungle of denser urban areas, providing respite for residents from the unrelenting hum of city life.

From a legislative perspective, the Plan métropolitain d’aménagement et de développement (PMAD) set targets for green space protection in line with recommendations of the United Nations and the World Health Organization. A decision to raze the Rousseau Forest would further distance the region from its objective. According to one recent Globe and Mail report, sprawl in the Greater Montréal Area is ‘shocking’ urban planners as our expansion far outpaces other major Canadian cities.

Instead of developing the remaining natural spaces in Pincourt, why not consider their value as natural assets? In collaboration with the Suzuki Foundation, the CMM’s 2016 Summit of Natural Infrastructures produced a trove of locally-relevant knowledge on the matter. Another summit this fall backed by the same organizations promises to further develop local expertise while proposing solutions to brownfield reclamation through phytoremediation.

The cost in terms of greenhouse gas emissions of increasing market supply of low-density single-family dwellings is significant. This study by Vivre en Ville demonstrates the carbon footprint of those living in low-density settings to be significantly higher than that of more dense populations, due in large part to transportation fuel and material goods consumption required by such lifestyles. Another report ‘Croitre sans s’étaler’ provides further alternatives to the type of ecologically irresponsible development that is proposed for the Rousseau Forest.

You have the choice as Mayor to stand up for what you know to be true – confluent ecological crises of biodiversity loss and climate change require an ambitious response – or to allow the status quo to trudge along uninhibited. By standing with the citizens behind ‘Sauvez Rousseau Forest’, you’re sending a clear message that you value citizen engagement and understand your role in preventing biodiversity loss and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. I encourage you to explore alternatives that allow Pincourt to grow in an ecologically responsible manner, such as redevelopment of the seas of parking and brownfields that encircle Faubourg de l’Île, which represent an ideal location for transit oriented development given their proximity to the Pincourt-Terrasse-Vaudreuil train station.

I leave you with an image and a question: if the town of Pincourt imposes a $2000 fine for littering in the Rousseau Forest, what value should it place on that forest’s destruction?

Sincerely,
Matthew Chapman
President – Coalition Climat Montréal