Hello,

PERC held its Annual General Meeting at the end of May. The past year has continued to see changes at PERC as we continue to develop as an organization and maintain our presence in Ottawa’s environmental and social justice community. Looking ahead, PERC looks forward to continuing to foster connections among individuals and organizations doing good work here in the city and to keep in touch through the PEN.

The past year has been eventful for the city as well. To being noting just a few important topics covered by the PEN in that time:

This past spring Ottawa recently hosted international negotiations aiming to develop a treaty to stop global plastic pollution. In the fall, residents took the Ottawa Police Services Board to court for violating their right to freedom of expression guaranteed under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

And last summer, the federal government announced plans to establish the a radioactive waste dump at the Chalk River Laboratory site located directly across the Ottawa River from the province of Quebec despite the stated opposition of Algonquin First Nations, on whose unceded territory the dump will be located.. The past twelve months have also shown climate change’s effects on weather and its impacts on the city, including unseasonable and record-setting heat and brief, intermittent skating season on the canal that would not have happened at all without diligent efforts by the city to thicken the ice.

Meanwhile, on a national level, news organizations have struggled after social media companies retaliated to the federal government’s Online News Act. Now that staying informed on current and local events is harder than it was before the Act, and Canadians are blocked from sharing news links on social media, subscribing to the PEN newsletter can help you stay informed about how fellow Ottawans are engaging with pressing peace, environmental, and social justice matters across the city.

Stories from the PEN!

This month’s stories from the PEN include:

• Climate Misinformation Projects Aims to Help Residents Speak Up for Climate Action details efforts by Ottawa’s own Community Associations For Environmental Sustainability (CAFES) to set the record straight on climate information

• In an article reprinted from The 613 substack, Neil Saravanamuttoo writes about the Ottawa Community Land Trust’s launch of Housing Forever Bonds.

• Empowering Ottawa’s Faith Communities: Energy Benchmarking Insights discusses how Greening Sacred Spaces has helped track energy usage for local churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples, and is now in its fourth year running.

From the PEN Archives

The June 2000 edition of the PEN listed articles calling out several human rights abuses abroad supported by Canadian entities.

Burma, for instance, saw a wave of investment by Canadian companies—primarily in the gas and mining sectors—despite human rights abused by the country’s ruling junta that included summary executions, forced labor, abuse of women, torture, and displacement and oppression of minorities. Canada’s largest pipeline firm at the time—TransCanada pipelines, now known as TC Energy Corporation since changing its name in May 2019—was not dissuaded from a $1.2 billion joint venture that was then the biggest foreign investment in Burma.

Meanwhile, Calgary-based Talisman Energy was targeted by the Ottawa Talisman Divestment Campaign. The Campaign called for the company to end its investments in Sudan, where it was partnered in oil projects with the Sudanese government despite the country’s prolonged war and human rights abuses.

(ed. note—Talisman was since purchased by Spanish energy company Repsol and later operated as Repsol Oil & Gas Canada Inc. The company was later liquidated).

Other News

• The Tewin development near Carlsbad Springs doesn’t make economic sense for taxpayers and is rife with questionable practices, writes Bruce Deachman in the Ottawa Citizen. Aside from its nighttime clearcutting in spring 2023 (read the PEN’s story about that, here) Tewin is funding salaries and benefits for 3 senior city staff members that are working on the project, and outside consultants will also be funded by the company and subject to its approval.

  • Also, Capital ward Coun. Shawn Menard has warned that expenses linked with infrastructure to the development will lock the city into “forever sprawl.”

• Staff from AAFC and NCC are part of a working group tasked with finding ways to address development’s impacts on research conducted at the Central Experimental Farm, and to find a path forward, reports CBC.

• Give a hand to Rural Woodlands Ottawa for its advocacy for Living Snow Fences: the organization wrote for the PEN about the fences in the February 2024 edition, and the initiative was recently unanimously approved by city council.

• An update on paramedic and fire services’ performance in 2023 showed that paramedics experienced increased response volume, excessive time spent in hospital offload delay, and the continued occurrence of level zero events (when there are no ambulances available). Fire services experienced a “notable” increase in numbers of calls, incidents, and vehicle responses, especially for those relating to extreme weather.

• The City approved a wildlife strategy and action plan.

• And while this last article (from NPR) is not Ottawa-specific, it is important for illuminating the intentional campaign by the plastics industry during the middle of the last century to encourage consumers to adopt a “throw-away culture.” That campaign has had a lingering, and devastating, impact on the scale of plastic pollution we now experience today.

I look forward to connecting with you again next month through the PEN Newsletter. In the meantime, please use the comments section of the newsletter or email [email protected] with thoughts or questions.

—Christopher Bonasia, PEN editor

PERC appreciates all of our readers for giving us this chance to connect with members of our community, and we love being able to provide you with a forum to discuss pressing environmental and social justice issues.

But we also rely on your support to make this happen. If you are interested in helping our organization continue to use storytelling and networking to help individuals, non-profits, and community groups work locally for a greener and more peaceful world, please consider making a donation to the Peace and Environment Resource Centre.