Hello,

Warm weather lingered into mid-December, but temperatures dropped and snow fell in the last couple weeks. But now its warmed up again. This November / December edition will be the last newsletter of 2024 and the PEN looks forward to connecting with you again at the end of January.

The Ottawa Food Bank released its 2024 Hunger report last month, revealing that a “staggering” 1 in 4 Ottawa households are facing food insecurity, up from 1 in 7 in 2022. The majority of Ottawa Food Bank users are now severely food insecure, while across the province nearly a third of Ontarians are “struggling to meet their basic needs.” There has been a 90% increase in visits to the Food Bank since 2019.

Overall, poverty rates in the city have been rising since 2020, “signaling a deepening crisis.”

The Food Bank noted that “food insecurity does not discriminate,” and this year’s visitors spanned demographic categories:

• 37% of visitors are children and youth under 18

• 42% of visitors are single adults

• 39% of visitors primary income source is social assistance

• 13% of visitors primary income source is employment, (a growing trend)

• 45% of visitors live in private housing, either rented or owned

Furthermore, the report showed rising vulnerability for newcomers who have been in Canada for ten years or less— including refugees, international students, migrant workers, and recent immigrant families. This group made up 25.9% of food bank visitors in Ottawa in the last year, up from 16.3% in 2019.

With rising poverty and food insecurity, the Food Bank says the City needs to step up by fully funding its 2025-2029 Poverty Reduction Strategy.

Stories from the PEN!

This month’s stories from the PEN include:

• The Energy Mix’s Tova Gaster writes about how community land trusts and the Ottawa City Council’s Nov. 20 vote that prioritizes funding new construction over preserving affordable housing.

• Battery Energy Storage Systems Look For A Home In Ottawa—by Cecile Wilson, reprinted from The Glebe Report—discusses the role of BESS in energy systems and some pending projects that have stirred up controversy in Ottawa.

• And interns connected to the Sustainable Capacity Foundation shine the spotlight on two organizations, StepUp— a nonprofit that promotes gender equity, diversity, and inclusion within Canada’s energy management sector—and the CPAWS Ottawa Valley chapter, which advocates for the conservation of public lands and waters across the Ottawa Valley.

From the PEN Archives

The PEN’s January 2008 edition included an ‘Activist’s Notebook’ column about climate change’s impacts on food security. In a global overview, the author details how rising seas, heatwaves, and changing rainfall patterns will reduce yields worldwide. Though climate change will not affect Canadian agriculture—except in the Prairies—as severely as other countries, the country’s dependence on food imports still creates significant risk to food security.

Other News

• After Ottawa City Council approved its 2025 budget, Neil Saravanamuttoo laid out some suggested steps for improving future budget decisions, including prioritizing public engagement and giving more time for discussion and input.

• Kitigan Zibi Anishinābeg First Nation is calling for safety improvements at the Carillon Generating Station, located on the Ottawa river east of Hawkesbury, Ontario, to protect America eels.

• Canadian canola exporters may face challenges finding new buyers to replace their sales to the Chinese market because Australia’s farmers are already supplying other countries.

• New research has determined that cities’ strategies to cool cities by planting trees need to consider species type, because some trees can increase temperatures if they are mismatched with local climate and city layout.

  •  Another study found that increasing land surface reflectivity—such as by painting roofs white—to cool cities can increase temperatures in the surrounding area at some scales.

• Ontario’s financial watchdog found that 45 of 147 schools in the Ottawa-Carleton school district—or about one third—are below a “state of good repair.”

• A Caledon, ON, environmental group is suing the town for deciding to “pre-zone” 5,000 acres of prime farmland for housing development, and are arguing that 12 rezoning bylaws rushed through without proper consultation, environmental studies, or fiscal assessments. Caledon residents are prevented from appealing the rezoning decisions to the Ontario Land Tribunal (OLT) because of Bill 185, known as the Cutting Red Tape to Build More Homes Act.

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.