All this may be about to change in Ontario. This past Thursday, January 1st, responsibility for residential recycling in the province shifted away from municipal governments. The costs of collecting and disposing of recycled material are now borne by retailers and packaging producers under a policy approach called Extended Producer Responsibility, (EPR).

Circular Materials is the not-for-profit organization supporting the EPR program in Ontario and for ensuring packaging suppliers meet their obligations under the new framework. Under this new system, producers are now financially and operationally responsible for managing the waste associated with their products and packaging.

From an environmental perspective this promises to be a major step forward. Up to this point, manufacturers only cared about things like protecting a product during transport, making it more attractive, or making it more difficult to shoplift. Now the cost of disposing of all that excess packaging is borne by the companies that manufacture or retail the product. They are therefore incentivized to reduce those costs by reducing the amount of packaging, and or making packaging easier to recycle through standardization and reduced toxicity of packaging materials. It also means that more materials will be recycled and the same list of materials will be recycled across the Province. These actions reduce costs, and make the system more efficient. They have the extra benefit of lowering the load that these materials have historically imposed on the environment.

Residents of Peel can now put more products in their blue bin. The list includes coated paper products, (coffee cups, ice cream tubs), empty deodorant containers, plastic bottle caps, toothpaste tubes, Styrofoam, bubble wrap, and frozen juice containers. Other products that were accepted in the Peel blue bin before, (like black plastic containers), are now accepted anywhere in the province. No more guesswork about what’s acceptable when visiting friends in a different municipality.

Another advantage of this new system is that it encourages a market for recycled products. Previously low demand meant that much of the collected recycled products was shipped to countries in the global south where it was burned or ended up in landfill. Now, new regulations under the Resource Recovery and Circular Economy Act 2016 stipulate that a certain percentage of a specified material category must be both recovered and reused. This percentage increases over time from 2026-2030. For example, in 2026, 75% of the beverage containers sold in Ontario, (by weight), must be recovered and reused. That increases to 80% by 2030.

The highest recovery rate will be for cardboard and paper, (85%), and the lowest is for flexible plastic, (25%). A variety of factors contribute to the difference in recovery rates. Cardboard and newsprint is less contaminated, making it easier to recover and reuse than mixed plastics or composite materials. Market demand, regulatory and program structure will also affect recovery rates.

Under the new program, Community Recycling Centres will remain open and will continue collecting electronic waste, hazardous waste and bulk handling of recycled materials. Stewardship Ontario, the organization that historically managed Ontario’s blue bin program, ceased operations at the end of 2025 and transferred all responsibility to Circular Materials.

It will be interesting to see the effect that this new program will have on waste reduction and diversion rates over the coming years. Our hope is that Circular Materials will be diligent, accurate, and transparent in their management and monitoring of program results. We also want the Ontario government to expand the program to make it easier to recycle other materials like tires, textiles, wood and construction material as well as mandate higher recovery rates on plastics, and support Canada’s ban on single-use plastics. Standardized right to repair legislation combined with a consumer green bin incentive would help move the province from laggard to leader in waste management!

Download the free app to your Apple or Android phone for a complete list of what can and cannot be recycled.

Aneet and Rajbalinder talked about the importance of One-planet Living, the concept of staying within the Earth’s limitations in terms of resource extraction, managing waste, and living with each other in harmony.

The BEA has participated in several past events at this school and has found the students, parents and staff to all be engaging and interested in environmental issues and local environmental sustainability. This event lived up to expectations as families signed up to receive the BEA newsletter and committed to participate in BEA events.

But, when cleaning and tightening doesn’t work, it can be a real challenge to discover which part is broken and where to find a replacement. Here I’ve had mixed results, depending on the manufacturer and the availability of YouTube repair videos and or service manuals and parts.

Case in point. A few years back, my uncle asked for help with his portable humidifier that had stopped working. I brought the unit home to my workbench. After some investigation and triage the problem turned out to be a small part at the bottom of the water well that I discovered is an ultrasonic nebulizer. No idea how to fix it so I looked for a replacement. The manufacturer was singularly unhelpful, listing the part as, “NOT USER REPLACEABLE”. Yet there I was with it in my hand. Parts like it sell for $7.00 on Amazon. But I couldn’t find one that matched the specifications I was looking for. So, in the end, after much time wasted, the broken unit went to landfill for the want of a $7.00 part. My uncle was forced into buying a replacement humidifier costing more than $200.

In recent years, the Repair Café movement has become a cornerstone of sustainability, waste reduction, and community empowerment worldwide. Its roots can be traced to Amsterdam in 2009, where Martine Postma established the first Repair Café. Her vision was a welcoming venue for people to fix broken household items, guided by volunteers eager to share their expertise. The model spread rapidly, inspiring communities globally to embrace repair culture, reducing waste and fostering resilience through shared knowledge.

At a recent Kitchener Repair Café, volunteers restored more than 30 household items in a single afternoon. The Toronto Tool Library and Repair Café regularly hosts events where volunteers help attendees fix broken toasters, smartphones, and laptops. Similarly, the Ottawa Repair Café has partnered with local environmental groups to repair small appliances and educate the public on the consequences of electronic waste.

A week ago, Saturday the Brampton Environmental Alliance hosted an information table in support of Eco-Caledon’s nineth annual Repair Café event at the Caledon East Community Centre. The Caledon event boasted more than a dozen volunteer “fixers” who were kept busy stitching clothes, sharpening knives, repairing bikes and fixing lamps, fans and other small appliances.

Repair Cafés exemplify the principles of the circular economy, which revolves around extending product lifecycles and minimizing waste. Unlike the conventional linear economy, based on production, use, and disposal, the circular economy emphasizes repair, reuse, and material recovery. By teaching hands-on repair skills, Repair Cafés divert countless items from landfills and nurture environmental stewardship. These initiatives also spotlight cases where a simple battery replacement or screen repair is impossible without proper instructions, tools, or proprietary parts, forcing consumers to discard otherwise functional devices.

Right to repair legislation is needed to give consumers more choice that will normalize the circular economy. The legislation would ensure that consumers and independent repair shops can access necessary parts, tools, and information to fix products, fighting back against planned obsolescence. This helps extend the life of products, reducing the environmental impact of discarded items. It also saves consumers money by allowing them to postpone or avoid buying new. This is particularly important in these tough economic times. It also creates opportunities for neighbourhood employment and keeps money in the local economy rather than paying for new products which are often manufactured outside Canada.

In Ontario, right to repair legislation has been proceeding at a snail’s pace. In 2019, Ontario Member of Provincial Parliament Michael Coteau introduced Bill 72, the “Consumer Protection Amendment Act (Right to Repair Electronic Products),” aiming to compel manufacturers to provide the necessary tools, parts, and documentation for repairs. That Bill was quashed by the Conservative Government shortly after it came to power in 2019. An updated version of the Bill was reintroduced to the Provincial legislature in April 2024 as a private members bill. It’s still waiting to pass second reading. Meanwhile, this government has shown expediency in passing other pieces of legislation in a matter of days or weeks to address important issues like banning speed cameras and bike lanes while foisting more of the costs of growth on the backs of existing ratepayers, all in the name of building more “affordable housing”.

Let us know what you think. Where should the BEA be focusing its efforts in on this topic? What has your experience been with products that fail prematurely and are difficult to repair.

With increasing popularity, we are looking for opportunities to host our own Repair Cafés and other events such as clothing swaps, tool libraries and computer Windows 10 to Linux conversion sessions. Let us know if you have a Windows 10 machine that is now obsolete because it can’t be upgraded to Windows 11.

We will also be pushing the province for legislation that will support right to repair, and combat planned obsolescence. Together, let’s make it easier to extend the useful life of existing products.

Are you good at fixing things? Want to help out by being a Repair Café fixer? Join the Brampton Library Repair Café Fixer Team. Fixer Registration Form

On October 8th, Ghazanfar, Yarim, Gunjan, and Rajbalinder attended the W. G. Davis Senior Public School Open House. One-Planet Living and Plant-Based Treaty were among the topics discussed with students and parents.

According to the organizer, Noura Bacon, “the feedback from the evening was spectacular”! The school is hoping to grow connections with community organizations to create lasting partnerships where students feel more connected to their school and community. Ghazanfar and Noura are continuing collaboration discussions on creating a pollinator garden on school property starting next spring. Receiving a thankyou note is always nice.

On October 9th, Yarim, Gunjan, and Aneet participated in an Open House event at Springbrook Public School. Students were encouraged to use plant-based dyes to create postcards with an environmental theme.

They also were played a waste sorting game to help their families put waste products into the right bin.

Finally, students and their parents were told about plant-based eating and using One-Planet principles to learn to live within the earth’s planetary boundaries.

Sasha, the school principal, was thrilled with the BEA exhibits.

On Saturday September 20th thousands attended Draw the Line events across the country. Protests were organized to draw attention to the lack of climate action being taken by our civic leaders, and to highlight the impact this inaction will have, particularly on vulnerable sectors of our population.

Protestors showed up in in large cities such as Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal. They also participated in impressive numbers in smaller centres including Peterborough, Kingston, Ottawa, Niagara, and Georgetown Ontario, Charlottetown PEI, and Kimberly B.C.. Draw the line events in Edmonton and Calgary, the heart of Canadian oil country, also drew large numbers of rally participants. (image above from the Edmonton event)

Tens of thousands of Canadians have been displaced from their homes in 2025, the result of climate related events such as wild fires and floods. Many more are currently being affected by unprecedented wet or dry conditions in varying parts of the country, impacting farm production and profits, and affecting food availability and affordability.

Despite these events and the climate scientists’ warnings that the situation will only get worse, both our Federal and Provincial governments continue focusing on economic growth that includes subsidies, encouragement and support for Canadian fossil fuel production and distribution while winding down or dismantling carbon reduction incentives. How, in any universe, does this make sense?

Victoria

Calgary

Peterborough

Georgetown

Members of the Brampton Environmental Alliance participated in the Georgetown Draw the Line event organized by Halton Hills Climate Action.

Charlottetown

Parent Teacher Night at Harold M. Brathwaite Secondary School

This past Wednesday April 9th, Dayle and I participated in the parent teacher night at Harold M. Brathwaite Secondary School to promote the One Planet Living Challenge, create awareness about the Emerald Energy from Waste expansion project and encourage folks to register for Bike the Creek and other cycling events taking place in the city over the next few months. We had great conversations with both parents and students about the history of Earth Day, the importance of living within planetary limits and the joys of cycling and other forms of sustainable transportation. The student ambassadors were wonderfully supportive, coming to our table and asking how they could help. Report cards must been favourable to the students because everyone seemed to be having a good time!

Sustainable Procurement – Brampton’s Community Benefits Workshop

Friday April 11th, I participated in a Community Benefits Workshop hosted by the City of Brampton at the Rose Theatre. It is a fair question to ask what a Community Benefits Workshop has to do with building a sustainable Brampton. Lot’s it turns out.

The Power of Purchase is something that Dayle and I have been interested in for more than a decade. At the retail level this is called conscious consumerism where the consumer makes buying choices based on their values. When large volumes of consumers consciously choose to buy sustainably sourced products from ethical companies, using fair trade practices it sends a powerful market message that environmental and social responsibility is important.

Companies that ignore this message can see sales and profits negatively impacted. The threat is often enough to change how products are designed, manufactured, distributed and disposed of at the end of their intended life. A good example of this is McDonald’s Restaurant chain that, in 2018, replaced plastic straws with paper due to a customer-led campaign.

Customer-led change, however, is relatively rare because of the challenge involved in building a swell of spontaneous feedback. Sustainable corporate procurement practices, on the other hand, can be an even greater market force for good because smaller numbers of buyers are involved in very large purchase decisions both in number and scale of transactions. Corporate procurement, therefore, when driven by a “community benefit strategy”, can be a tool that unlocks transformative local economic opportunities, empowers workers, and leverages social value in creating conditions that will encourage and drive a circular economy.

The circular economy is a model of production and consumption that extends the life cycle of both raw materials and products. It does this through mechanisms of sharing, repairing, repurposing, refurbishing, recovery, and recycling. Each time material goes through one of these cycles, rather than being disposed of, it continues adding value to the global economy through job creation and product utility. The objective is to have these products and materials continue providing economic value in perpetuity, generating more wealth and prosperity while limiting the requirement to extract “virgin” material from an earth with rapidly depleting resources.

The City of Brampton is developing a Sustainable Procurement Strategy to leverage large infrastructure projects to improve the quality of life for Brampton residents by requiring community benefits from suppliers while stimulating the local circular economy. This has started with the implementation of a supplier diversity program and a fair wage policy. The current step involves adding a community benefits policy which involves buy-in from potential city partners and suppliers. Hence a reason for last week’s workshop.

The workshop was led by Dr. Mervyn Jones a globally recognized procurement expert with a PhD in Climate Change and over 25 years of sustainability experience. Dr. Jones used his home country of Wales as an example of a community benefits procurement strategy.

In 2015 Wales passed the. “Well-being of Future Generations Act”, which uses the indigenous “seven generation” approach to decision-making, that takes current and future impacts into account.

The Act requires municipalities in the country to work to achieve seven well-being goals, that aim to balance, social, environmental and economic objectives. It also defines five ways of working including, balancing short and long-term needs, integrating objectives of all public bodies, involving people that reflect community diversity, be open to collaboration and, acting to prevent problems from occurring or worsening.

Finally, the Act outlines 50 key performance indicators that are used to measure progress while ministers are required to set milestones in relation to those national indicators.

Brampton’s Community Benefits Policy is a transformative initiative, harnessing the City’s purchasing influence to create economic opportunities, promote inclusive training programs, and expand employment opportunities for residents, especially those from equity-deserving groups. It is paving the way for lasting change and the enrichment of the economic, social and environmental fabric of our community.

Reconnect Brampton’s “Sip & Stroll”

On Saturday April 12th, Dayle and I led a “Sip & Stroll” walking tour organized by Halley Patel the Regional Coordinator at Reconnect Brampton. About 15 participants met at Ryan’s Chai Cafe and enjoyed a complimentary hot brew before starting the tour.

Created by Environmental Defence, the Reconnection Project is designed to connect people with nature and community by making it easy to, know about, and participate in, local events that focus on the outdoors.

The tour used seven stops to illustrate how climate change is affecting Brampton’s downtown area and to discuss the City’s plans for managing flooding, creating new development opportunities and encouraging active and sustainable transportation. The tour also highlighted a bit of Brampton heritage and how residents can be more involved in the City’s planning process.

Wards 3&4 Earth Day Event at McCandless Park

Sunday April 13th, Dayle and I met up with BEA Board members Yarim and Amisha at Councillor Santos’s Earth Day Event in Andrew McCandless Park. There were several environmental activities to keep participants busy including, a tree-planting hosted by Credit Valley Conservation, and a park clean-up hosted by People Against Littering. There was also information about the City’s Plant-based Treaty initiative, which I’ve written about in a previous post.

While it was nice being part of this important environmental day and saying hi to friends and colleagues, one of the reasons Dayle and I wanted to attend this specific event was that we had a significant amount of electronics for recycling. Friends and family had added to the pile over the past several months and the collection included old cathode ray TV sets, rotary dial phones, a Blackberry Pearl phone, (with flip-down real keyboard), a night-side table radio with built in lamp, and a host of computer and stereo sound system equipment.

Alison, Rebecca and the other volunteers from the electronics recycling organization “Let’s Get Together” helped unload our van and then weighed and sorted all of the old retired items. LGT is a not-for-profit whose mission is to support the circular economy by repairing old computers and other electronics and then working to ensure that every youth has access to technology and equal opportunity allowing those youth to pursue higher education without barriers and with “purposeful support”. So far LGT has redistributed more than 5,000 computers back to the community, has diverted more than 120,000 pounds of e-waste from landfills, and has provided more than 12,000 digital literacy workshops.

Credit Valley Conservation hosts Fletcher’s Creek SNAP Workshop

On Monday April 14th, I attended a workshop hosted by Credit Valley Conservation Authority (CVC) in support of the Fletchers Creek Sustainable Neighbourhoods Action Program (SNAP). SNAP takes an integrated approach to improve the environment in a chosen neighbourhood, building climate resiliency by greening local infrastructure and encouraging positive behaviour change among the residents through programs, events, and education. The SNAP was initiated by Toronto and Region Conservation Authority (TRCA), Both TRCA and CVC have delivered SNAP projects in Brampton including, County Court Blvd, Bramalea, and Fletchers Creek. Each project is unique and engages the residents in helping define project priorities and actions.

The Fletchers Creek project is focused around 5 themes, Living Parks and Nature, Green Streets, Strong Schools, Resilient Homes and Businesses, and Active People. Within those themes, 27 actions have been completed or are in progress. Highlights over the past 5 years include

• Installation of rain gardens at three schools,
• Delivery of a “Your Green Yard” program,
• Numerous tree and rain barrel giveaways,
• 5,628 trees & shrubs planted,
• 7,717 wildflowers, grasses, and sedges planted,
• 11 community projects started including a catchment basin painting project,
• 388 sustainable actions taken at homes
• 345 events hosted, and,
• 7,472 people engaged in the neighbourhood!

Each table was assigned one of the 5 themes and was asked to reflect on the accomplishments over the past 5 years, and help define the priorities and capacity requirements for how the project should evolve over the next 5 years. It was great to see the level of commitment, passion, competency and experience demonstrated by the workshop participants. I’ll write another blog once the workshop results have been synthesized and shared with the group.

April 22, 2025 will mark the 55th anniversary of the first Earth Day celebration. April 1970 represented a rare time for U.S. environmental activism, where Democrats and Republicans joined with labour and business leaders, as well as members of the public from all walks of life to support legislative action that would start to curtail human caused environmental degradation. The first Earth Day was the catalyst for change but the seeds of that change had been planted during the previous decades.

After WWII and up to the end of the 1960’s, the public and press had been largely ambivalent to concerns about the effects of a polluted environment on human health. Without legislation or regulation, industry was allowed to disperse vast quantities of toxic pollutants into the air and water. Automotive companies were allowed to build large heavy automobiles with inefficient engines that burned huge quantities of leaded gas. Lead, and its combustion related byproducts, are known carcinogens and neurotoxins. Research reported in Psychiatrist.com has linked the decades use of leaded gasoline to increased rates of violent crime, mental illness and other negative psychological effects, the impacts of which linger even today.

In addition, oil and chemical spills were a regular occurrence in the 50s and 60s. There were stories of waterways, so polluted with industrial effluent that they caught fire, the most notable being the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland Ohio that went up in flames on June 22, 1969.

In the 1940’s the chemical industry invented synthetic pesticides most notably DDT. These chemicals were used in large quantities to control insect transmitted diseases such as malaria and typhus and as a way to improve crop and livestock yields. But they also had nasty side effects including animal reproductive disruptions and “bio-accumulation”, meaning they would build up in the tissues of plants and animals which further accumulated up the food chain until toxicity levels caused the plant or animal to die. It took the 1962 book called “Silent Spring”, written by Rachel Carson, an American marine biologist and environmental activist, to begin raising public awareness of the escalating human and ecological dangers, associated with the unrestricted use of these toxins.

Senator Gaylord Nelson, spurred to action by a large 1969 oil spill in Santa Barbara California, struck a committee with the aim to bring national attention to air and water pollution. He convinced Pete McCloskey, a conservation-minded Republican Congressman to co-chair the committee. They engaged a young activist named Denis Hayes to organize university campus teach-ins and engage national media to raise public awareness. They chose April 22, 1970 to be Earth Day because they though a weekday falling between spring break and final exams would allow for large student engagement. They were right, An estimated 20 million Americans participated in the first Earth Day, making it the largest political demonstration in U.S. history at that point. The movement led to the creation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. and Canadian water pollution regulations including, the Clean Water Act and the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement.

Since President Trump and his team entered the Whitehouse in January they have fired or threatened the jobs of hundreds of EPA workers and have targeted hundreds of millions of dollars in funding for the protection of the great lakes. North of the border, Prime Minister Carney has eliminated the consumer carbon tax and has promised to streamline project reviews to make Canada an energy superpower.

On the other hand, the Prime Minister has committed to continued support for focused green incentives for energy retrofits and EV charging infrastructure. He will maintain an “improved” industrial carbon tax as well as maintain the oil and gas sector emissions cap. All of these initiatives would be scrapped under a government led by Pierre Pollievre, according to the Conservative party platform.

The point is that no matter who you vote for on April 28th, make sure the candidates and the party understand that you feel it important to maintain strong environmental regulations that will encourage environmental innovation, hold companies to account for environmental damage and prevent catastrophic climate change and ecosystem collapse. Our forests are already burning more than they need to because of climate change; we don’t need our rivers ablaze again as well.

What you can do.

• Vote for the party that has the best vision for an environmentally sustainable Canada,
• Write to or speak with your local candidates to let them know that economic growth must be in balance with the need for a sustainable environment,
• Stay informed about local environmental issues by subscribing to the BEA newsletter,
• Join the BEA and take part in environmental events

Earth Hour, Earth Day, Earth Month – What’s the Difference?

• Earth Hour:
  • What: A global initiative where people, communities, and businesses turn off non-essential lights for one hour (8:30 PM to 9:30 PM local time) to raise awareness about climate change and environmental issues. 
  • When: Typically on the last Saturday of March. 
  • Focus: Symbolic action to highlight the importance of environmental action and encourage people to take action against climate change. 
  • Example: In 2023, Earth Hour took place on March 25th. 
• Earth Day:
  • What: An annual event on April 22 dedicated to promoting environmental awareness and action. 
  • When: April 22nd every year. 
  • Focus: A day to celebrate the Earth, raise awareness about environmental issues, and encourage people to take action to protect the planet. 
  • Example: The first Earth Day was celebrated on April 22, 1970. 
• Earth Month:
  • What: A broader period in April that focuses on environmental awareness and action. 
  • When: The entire month of April. 
  • Focus: A month-long celebration of the Earth, with various activities and events to promote environmental protection and sustainability. 
  • Example: Many organizations, including the National Environmental Education Foundation, celebrate Earth Month throughout April. 

In the morning, the Bramalea Community Network hosted a Health and Wellness Day at the Knightsbridge Seniors Centre. About 30 neighbourhood residents attended including seniors from the Centre as well as families from the surrounding community.

The event featured presentations on nutrition, mental health, and overall well-being by expert speakers from William Osler Health System and B.L.O.O.M. Empowerment Group.

It also included a short chair yoga session.

About 10 community service organizations, including BikeBrampton and the BEA, were invited to set up information tables around the room’s perimeter.

Feedback on the resources and information provided was positive.

That evening, the BEA attended an Earth Hour event in the Caledon East Community Complex. This first ever event was organized by Eco-Caledon and sponsored by the Town.

Almost 300 attendees and 25 exhibitors spent the evening celebrating sustainability, environmentalism, and our collective efforts to protect the planet!

Exhibitors were encouraged to include interactive activities at their tables and they delivered. Magicians, kale smoothies, blue planet cookies, bean bag tosses, and heat pump demonstrations were all part of the mix.

The BEA’s activity was a One-Planet Pledge. Participants were invited to select one of the ten principles from the One Planet Living Framework® and then pledge to take two actions that would help fulfill that principle.

Join the Contest, take the One Planet Living Pledge for Earth Day 2025

Among the issues we faced: the Province prioritizing building Highway 413, and the efforts of the Emerald Energy From Waste company to expand its garbage burning operations in Brampton without appropriate environmental controls being in place. Of greater concern is the general apathy of the public towards environmental issues and the vitriolic response to public policies aimed at climate change mitigation, notably carbon pricing and rebates. The fact that we seemingly cannot have an adult conversation related to these important topics is deeply troubling.

Perhaps the biggest blow to our progress was in the area of active transportation, i.e. using human power to get around. After a decade of advocating, planning and, public consultation, a safe cycling network was beginning to emerge in the City of Brampton, one that would truly encourage more people to leave their cars at home for short-distance trips. And the data showed it was working. In previous posts we’ve described how the installation of bike lanes in the city increased the amount of cycling and improved road safety by slowing down the average road speeds. Counter-intuitively even though speed was reduced, actual travel time was shortened, meaning the roads were being used more efficiently. The reduction of carbon emissions was becoming significant.

Unfortunately, as the cycling network became more “obvious” to the public, city staff and Councillors received increasing levels of complaints. The situation worsened during the summer and fall of 2024 after Council responded to cyclists’ concerns resulting from continued bike lane parking violations and irresponsible driver actions that put cyclists’ lives at risk. Council voted to increase parking fines, and hired more by-law officers to enforce the rules. Protection barriers were installed at several intersections to prevent conflict situations.

These actions, while effective at changing driver behaviour for the better, also fueled a volley of anger and protest that threatened to create a cultural chasm between those wanting to perpetuate suburban car-centric planning and those who support a city transformation that includes safe, convenient, economically available and environmentally sustainable transportation choices. The former group’s objections were so vehement that they won the day and Council chose to back down. The Active Transportation Master Plan (ATMP) was suspended, pending review later this year.

This past fall another figurative nail was driven in the ATMP coffin as the Provincial Government enacted Bill 212. This poorly crafted, politically driven piece of legislation overrides local transportation policy planning. New bike lane installations now require Ministerial approval and the Province can force municipalities to remove bike lanes in certain situations. More egregiously, the legislation also absolves the province of legal liability for cyclists safety, despite a Provincial staff report indicating that bike lane removal would compromise road safety.

These policy decisions are heading us in the wrong direction despite a year of heightened climate risk, rising carbon emissions from transportation and roads that continue to be more dangerous by the day, especially for pedestrians and cyclists. Despite these setbacks BEA members continue to advocate, working with City Council and staff to make the best of the situation across all these fronts. I especially thank the members of our Board for their continued support and tireless contributions. Their efforts have led to several, more than modest wins. So, let me touch on a few of our efforts from 2024.

Advocacy

• Worked with Environmental Defence to ask the Federal government to request a full environmental assessment for highway 413,
• Met with the Mayor and Council members several times on various environmental issues related to active transportation, energy transformation and climate change,
• Met with MPP McGregor to advocate for Alectra policy changes that would support home electrification projects including installing residential heat pumps,
• Met with Brampton’s Government Relations department to advocate for carbon controls to be put onto Capital Power’s expansion proposal for the Goreway Gas Plant.

Events

• 2024 03 13 Brampton Environmental Alliance Annual General Meeting
• 2024 03 21 Wetlands Enhancement Project
• 2024 03 30 Ecosphere Conference & Job Fair
• 2024 04 17 Bramalea Community Network (BCN) Co-Design Workshop and Meeting
• 2024 04 20 Earth Day Festival
• 2024 04 21 Rooted in Hope Final Training Event
• 2024 05 11 Reconnect Brampton Clothing Swap
• 2024 05 23, Dearbourne Park Pollinator Habitat Planting Activity with BEA
• 2024 05 25 Laidlaw Park Tree Planting
• 2024 05 25 Chingucousy Park Bike Fest
• 2024 05 29 Peel Council on Aging Summit
• 10th Annual Bike the Creek Event
• 2024 06 18-19 Emerald Energy from Waste proposal, community meeting and City Council delegations. This item has been referred to City staff for a report back later this summer.
• 2024 06 15 Fred Klein Park tree planting & invasive species pull hosted by CVC
• 2024 06 25 Moving Electricity to fight Climate Change – DSF webinar
• 2024 07 04 Heart Lake Turtle Troopers Family Fun Night Picnic
• 2024 09 14 Unifor GTA West Environmental Council Ecofest in support of CVC
• 2024 10 05 CVC Fletcher’s Creek SNAP 5 year celebration event Fred Klein Park
• 2024 10 09 Emerald Energy from Waste Community Information Session
• 2024 10 22 Litter Reduction Charter Signing
• 2024 11 02 BEA Completes Healthy and Connected Bramalea Project

Education

• BEA delivered a keynote presentation at the Ecosphere Conference and Job Fair,
• BEA delivered Rooted in Hope Training event at Gore Meadows,
• BEA worked with Sierra Club, Toronto Environmental Alliance and Environmental Defence to host an information session on the Emerald Energy from Waste expansion proposal,
• BEA helped promote a David Suzuki Foundation webinar on Moving Electricity to fight climate change,
• BEA organized and helped deliver 2 bike repair workshops, 1 bicycle skills training session and three nature journaling workshops to residents in the Bramalea SNAP neighbourhood as part of Healthy and Connected Bramalea Project.

Collaboration & Networking

• The BEA AGM offered a great networking opportunity,
• Collaborated with BikeBrampton, Sierra Club and Brampton staff on the organizing committee helping plan for the City’s Earth Day Grow Green Celebration and Grow Green Awards Presentation,
• Collaborated with TRCA, BikeBrampton and ACER on the delivery of the Rooted in Hope Project,
• Collaborated with Sierra Club and BikeBrampton to keep Bike the Creek as a waste free event,
• Collaborated with TRCA’s Bramalea SNAP team, BikeBrampton to deliver Healthy and Connected Bramalea Project,
• Participated with the City’s Community Safety and Well-being Office on Litter Reduction Task Force and the development of the Litter Free Charter.

As 2025 kicks off, the Trump tariffs loom as a potentially catastrophic blow to the Canadian economy and the friendly interconnected relationship that has existed between Canada and the United States for over a century. I am hopeful, however, that something good will emerge from this chaos. A breakdown of inter-provincial trade barriers that have historically made it easier for Canadian businesses to sell to customers in Arizona than to neighbouring provinces. A regenerated pride in our country, A focus on self-reliance. A desire to work together as a country and leave partisanship and petty differences behind.

We live in a country of immense natural, cultural and economic wealth. Perhaps the greatest benefit will be that we recognize how precious, how tenuous these benefits are and the importance of putting in the necessary effort to protect them against existential threats, a U.S. economic takeover, or a climate induced apocalypse. We can no longer afford to take these features for granted.