A Troubling Weakening of Ottawa’s Climate Change Master Plan

We’re very concerned by a City Councillor’s recent effort to divert Ottawa’s climate action.

At the 21 Nov 2023 meeting of City Council’s Environment and Climate Change Committee (ECCC), Councillor David Hill presented a motion to change the implementation of the City’s Climate Change Master Plan (CCMP). 

The motion called for the City to focus on the City’s assets and operations (“the corporation”), as opposed to “community,” emissions—or essentially everything else. It also asked for a “prioritization framework” for the disbursement of funds for climate change, specifying five criteria. 

Hill rationalized the motion citing limited City funds and the resiliency needs in his ward. He also felt that the City was being too ambitious, and acting beyond its jurisdiction.

When the motion came to ECCC, staff didn’t support it, and the motion failed. Coun. Hill then promised to reword the motion before it came before Council.

But when the motion came to Council, the wording had hardly changed. Yet now City staff said they supported it, and Council passed it—with approval from even those members of ECCC originally opposed.

If you’re confused…so are we. 

Meanwhile, there are several serious problems with this motion. 

First, it’s a mistake to modify the CCMP. It was developed with substantial research and consultation, and it’s more than halfway through its implementation (2020–2025). Coun. Hill should have withdrawn the motion outright after it failed in ECCC.

Second, it’s poor policy to limit the City’s climate action to its operations. Certainly this is part of the solution; but City operations account for only 4% of our city’s GHG emissions. Moreover, the City has considerable influence on community emissions—for example, land-use planning, development standards, or transportation planning. An approach to fighting climate change that ignores these aspects fundamentally misunderstands appropriate climate action.

Third, it’s retrogressive to criticize the CCMP for being too ambitious. Climate change is likely the greatest challenge that humanity has ever faced; no meaningful action is wasted. City Council itself declared a climate emergency in 2019, and emergencies demand decisive, ambitious action.

Finally, there are some questionable aspects of process with this motion. 

To begin with, Coun. Hill brought it to ECCC without providing any notice. Thus, councillors couldn’t consider it before voting on it. Also, the public couldn’t address councillors on it, since to do so you must register in advance. This is undemocratic and poor form.

Also, the motion may have had no place in a budget discussion; as Coun. Bradley pointed out, this motion is about policy, not funding. Why was it considered in an already packed budget discussion?

Finally, how did the motion go from failing at ECCC and staff not supporting it to it passing Council unanimously with staff’s support—despite it not changing substantially in the interim? And do staff actually support it? There was a particularly awkward exchange when Coun. Johnson (rightly) pressed City staff on this.

For more information on this motion, including action you can take, please see our longer discussion. In the meantime, we’ll be keeping an eye on the fallout of this motion, as well as Council’s action on climate generally.

William van Geest is a Living Cities Program Coordinator at Ecology Ottawa.