A4C Oshawa Leader, Members and Durham residents delegate against Envision Durham Plan - Oct. 1, 2024
Episode Stats
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152.20796
Summary
In this episode, Action for Canada's Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Terry Recker, sits down with the Mayor of Durham Region, Doug Ford, to discuss the proposed Envision Durham plan, the 15Minute Streets Guide, and the C40 Principles.
Transcript
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Good morning. I would like to, sorry, I just set my timer so I remember. My name is Terry
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Recker and I am with Action for Canada. I'm a provincial leader in Ontario. I would like
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to make a land acknowledgement to begin with. I would like to thank God and God alone for
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the ground that I'm standing on. After reviewing the Envision Durham plan in great detail, I'm
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very confused about, you know, what it's all about, but I do actually see that there is
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an infringement on our mobility rights and also our God-given inalienable rights as a
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Canadian citizen in Durham. I don't know if any of you have read it in great detail,
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but I would like to share with you, as I hold up quickly here, the Complete Streets Guide,
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which is here. This is on the internet, so anybody can go to it and take a look at it and read
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it in detail, and it's quite disturbing as to what happens with it. And so this report
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here, Complete Streets, works with the 15-minute streets, and they're all intertwined. And then
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we also have the 15-minute city report, which works with the C40 principles. The C40 principles
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is the consumptive interventions to the individual. And the C40 streets headline, which is this report
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here, which is the future of urban consumption in a 1.5 Celsius world, outlines the disturbing plan
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that has been put into motion to control all of humanity through smart cities and C40 cities in
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their own language. And I just want to share a few highlights from the report. Examples of a 2036
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year plan to reduce your meat consumption from 16 kilograms to zero. A dairy milk from 90 kilograms
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to zero. Calories per day would be restricted to 2,500 calories. And the number of clothing
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purchases per person per year would be eight to start off with, and then it would go down
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significantly to three items. Car ownership would, from 190 vehicles per 1,000 people down to zero
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vehicle vehicles. Aviation restrictions, one trip per year. And so what I'm saying here is,
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for decades, the UN have been at work implementing their, I call it their diabolical plan, and their
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main focus is at the municipal level because municipalities are closest to the people and
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have the potential to inflict the greatest amount of control at the ground level. Municipalities
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are receiving cash incentives from the federal government, and many mayors have signed on to what's
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called the convenant of mayors. The convenant of mayors sets out the greenhouse emission budget
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targets for each city to follow. And the way that they get individuals to do this is through targets
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by law restrictions at the local municipalities that they will put in place. I feel that it's a great
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violation of privacy, and it's against our constitution and the charter of rights and our coronation oath.
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So I'd also like to mention, it may, in their own words, if I hold up the municipal primer,
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which was a group that got together from all countries in 1994, they say in their own words
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about the plan, it may be difficult, if not impossible, to impose sustainable development
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practices on the public because it involves certain changes in people's expectations and behavior.
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Well, I say, like, who do they think they're talking to? So the emphasis on establishing
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minimum densities and intensification targets... Sorry, Terry, I just want to remind you I have one
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minute. Okay, thanks. Intensification targets within our neighborhood raises significant concerns.
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I oppose the idea of transforming my community through massive intensification efforts because I'm
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going through those so quickly. There's different aspects in the pages that restrict a lot of our
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mobility rights, like walking and the use of bicycles. Well, I don't know how they expect us to do that in
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the winter, but I completely do not vote on any of this. And actually, we haven't even been asked as
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residents whether or not to vote. But I would like to hold up lastly for you. Council resolution
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joined the FCM, which is the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, and the ICLEE Partners for Canada.
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Durham Region signed this in 2008, along with two signatures at that time. I would like to hold up
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a council resolution signed by the people in Durham Region to leave the FCM-ICLEE Partners for Climate
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Protection Program. So that concludes what I'd like to say about it. Thank you, Terry. You're just about on time
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Absolutely. 3.2 is the area of my concern, and I'm very concerned about what I read.
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I was shocked to find out that we actually made a declaration of climate emergency. And the reason
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I am shocked at that is because there is no climate emergency based on anthropogenic CO2.
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I've been following this for a long time. It started when I was 15 years old, and I got scared. I was
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frightened by what I read in a magazine saying that global ice age was going to kill everybody by 2020.
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We were going to die of frostbite in July. That's what these sensationalist morons were trying to say
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to a young teenager. But then I learned later that sensationalism sells, and so people follow these
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things. And at the same time, there was the global warmers who were claiming that the ice caps were
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going to melt, and the polar bears were going to drown, and all kinds of sensationalist things.
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Again, because sensationalism sells, people tend to want to get that kind of attention,
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write their books, and do what they want to do. Later on, as I started investigating it on my own,
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I found that the genuine science that I found, that there is no climate emergency due to anthropogenic
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CO2. And therefore, that tells me that the whole climate change kind of narrative seems very
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disingenuous to me. In 1989-90, the IPCC was formed to intentionally demonize CO2 as the cause of
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global warming. To intentionally demonize CO2 and put it under the guise of science is so disingenuous
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to me, because science doesn't work that way. My undergraduate degree was in science. I really
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enjoyed the subject. I'm not a scientist by any means, but I can read the literature a little bit.
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And I was just, I am not happy. And I think a lot of people are not happy that we have a climate
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emergency on our books. And I would propose a motion, my first motion, that we withdraw the
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climate emergency, because there's a lot of benefits from that. If I could respectively go
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through the chair and ask for somebody to put that motion today, I would do that. Thank you.
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Climate change to demonize CO2. I've mentioned that. CO2. Why do I say that it's disingenuous?
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CO2 is the weakest greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. Not the strongest, it's the weakest,
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because it only absorbs infrared at 15 nanometers. And it is also very small in the atmosphere. 420
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parts per million may sound like a lot, but 0.042% is actually very small. But anthropogenic CO2,
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which is what the target is of the disingenuous climate alarmist, is about 80 parts per million.
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And that accumulation has happened over about 100 years. In other words, there is no climate
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emergency due to anthropogenic CO2. I want to make that clear to you. It cannot happen. It's
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energetically impossible. It is simply too small and too weak. As I continued in the literature at 3.2,
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I found out that we are now talking about methane. Methane is even smaller in the atmosphere than
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anthropogenic CO2. Two parts per million. So for two parts per million and eight parts per million,
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or sorry, 80 parts per million in CO2, we're expecting climate to dramatically change and it's going to cause
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catastrophic climate change. This is not true. I've studied a little bit about this.
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And what I'm finding is that the real genuine science seems to come from those who have denied
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this thing. And there's a lot of great scientists who have denied catastrophe. And it's the catastrophe
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that's the problem, because that's what scares people. Not long ago, you know, James, I don't mean
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to interrupt, but you have one minute left. Oh, okay, I better get rolling. What else am I going to talk
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about? My second motion withdraw from ICLE. Okay, it's already been said net zero. Net zero seems to me
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like net silly. I mean, how is it that we're going to reduce our so-called footprint to zero and invite
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600,000 people to come? Every individual in this room breathes out 40,000 parts per million CO2
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about every minute and a half, depending on your size and your exercise. So if we're bringing 600,000
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people who produce CO2, not to mention drive their cars and heat their homes, how are we going to get
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to zero? It's impossible. It's a setup for failure. And I'm going to ask you to withdraw from net zero.
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Do not follow net zero. I implore you. What else can I say about that? Carbon tax. If net zero is silly,
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carbon tax is terrible. It's taxing our breath. It's taxing our humanity. I'm out of time. But it's
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taxing. It's taxing our existence. And ideologically, if you can think ideologically
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with me, that can be twisted and turned into something very ugly. I remember David Suzuki,
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a man whom I did not respect very much to begin with. And he came up and said that we have too many
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people. We're in trouble for climate because there's too many of us. James, I'm going to have
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to cut you off there. I gave you a little bit more time because I interrupted you. But
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you can remain at the podium because you're our next delegate anyway. Okay. I'll just call you
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James this time. Yes. And you're speaking to the transportation master plan. Okay, the transportation
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master plan, which I'm just going to finish briefly. I would like you to understand my perspective. I love
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our environmental committee, or at least it used to be the environmental committee, because they do a lot
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of good things. But now that's been convoluted, the ideas involved with environmental stewardship is
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being convoluted by this disingenuous climate stuff. And we have somehow combined those two
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together. I would ask that we pull those two apart. So that's to conclude the first part for me.
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One more item about carbon tax, if you don't mind. I have a friend who owns a truck and he owns a car.
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And he said the carbon rebate is great because now we can drive his truck more. In other words,
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the carbon tax has failed. It's failed because it's not a good disincentive to drive more or to
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burn more gas. It doesn't work that way. And the original PBO in Ottawa said that the carbon rebate
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is less than what it's going to cost the average person. So again, I don't know how you're going to
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be able to push back on carbon tax. But I think that's a very popular notion right now. And I'm
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talking to people who know, have their hand on the pulse of the nation, the pulse of the province in
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the region. Is there a way that you can push back on carbon tax? I think that'd be a very popular idea.
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Do you have to kick the can back to Queen's Park? Does Queen Park have to kick it back to Ottawa,
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where a lot of this comes from? I don't know. But I would really ask that you do that.
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Transportation. Let me focus on a couple of positive things. I really like the bike lanes. I don't like
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it if they're too wide, but I really like the bike lanes because I used to ride the bike. I used to
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ride the bike quite a bit when I was younger. As you can see, I'm not a spring chicken anymore. I don't ride
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my bike anymore. I can walk, but I can't ride my bike anymore. I don't know. It's just too
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uncomfortable for me. So I want to thank you for the bike lanes. And I also want to thank you for
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those little scooter things that we have in Oshawa. I love those things. And I see them all
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over the place. Rick, Ward 4, thank you for that. Thank you for providing those things. I think it's
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great to see young people kind of boot around on these little things. So the transportation that I'm
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concerned about, someone told me there was a double-decker bus driving around Durham region.
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I've never seen it, but somebody said they saw it. Is that true? If it's true, I don't think we
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should continue to buy double-decker buses. No, it's not true. Okay. Yeah.
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Metrolinks. And they're running a double-decker bus?
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Yes. Okay. Stranger things have happened, I'm sure. What else can I say about transportation? I
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didn't really prepare too much for transportation. I focused on this one, on climate change, because
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that's my passion. What am I going to say? I hope that we will always continue to provide parking
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for those who drive. I remember 22, 2022, I was looking at a parking lot, parking lot 16 in
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Oshawa. And it's going to be used by the condo developers who are developing, I think, the old
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post office, something like that. I'm really happy for that development, but I'm a little bit concerned
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about losing 100 parking spaces downtown. I really like downtown Oshawa. I don't live that far, but I
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still like to drive there. And I would be concerned about parking. I don't think we should mitigate
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parking at all. There's no reason in my mind to mitigate parking in an area like Durham Region,
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where we have a lot of space. And also, when we develop, this is a development committee,
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I would suggest that we maintain strong levels of parking in any development that we endeavor to
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allow. I'm down to one minute. What else can I talk about? I like to drive my car. When I came to
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Oshawa over 30 years ago, I did not come by bus. It certainly wasn't double-decker, and I didn't come
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on a scooter. I came in my car. I like to drive my car. And when I drove all across Durham Region,
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not Durham Region, Oshawa, I noticed a lot of single-family homes. And I thought, if I take the
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job here, I could probably afford one. And that's what I did. And when I had, when there was two incomes
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in our family, that's what we had. We had a home in the north, a relatively new home. That's the
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strength of Oshawa. If we're going to attract people, we've got to have detached single-family
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dwellings. If there's a stigma against that because of climate change, by all means, drop the
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stigma. That's what brought me here, single-family dwellings. Detached if you can. I'm down to 20
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seconds. I think I'll just kind of let it go. Thanks very much for hearing me.
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I mentioned when I asked to speak here today that I wanted to look at the numbers presented on the
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Envision Durham page. Those who have visited the page will notice that the video there is looking
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at a horizon of 2041, while the text above says 2051. The video talks about 1.2 million residents
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and 430,000 jobs, while the text suggests a population of 1.3 million. Putting aside the 10
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years and 100,000 residents' difference, I also want to look at these numbers, these population and job
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predictions refer to in the 2009 Durham region business count highlights PDF. I have those numbers
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here. The job growth from 2015 to 2019 is shown to increase at an average of 5,786 jobs per year,
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while the projected numbers show an increase from 206,494 in 2019 to the same 430,000 jobs in 2051.
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This represents an increase in the ratio of jobs per capita of 16.57%, which seems optimistic.
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If we look at the population, on the other hand, the growth is projected over the next 25 years at 24,021
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people per year. Again, from the 2019 Durham region business count highlights PDF, the population here
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increase from a rate of 6,541 persons per year over five years from 2015 to 2019, or 8,176 if you divide that by four years.
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So we now have a proposed three- or four-fold increase in the speed at which the population is projected to grow,
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There are a few problems here, which speak to the first four questions in the 2019 public survey,
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how to manage how and where growth should occur in the region, how to increase job opportunities,
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how to promote a balance of jobs and population, how to diversify the region's employment base.
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The main problem, of course, is that such a large growth in the population will totally upset the fabric of our communities.
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During the recent Durham by-election, our team canvassed all of North Oshawa,
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which, unlike Clarentine and Bowmanville, is predominantly new immigrants.
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And overwhelmingly, the feeling there, too, was that we need to slow down the influx of new residents.
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The projected numbers are hugely optimistic, if not reckless,
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considering the information in the federal government's own 2004 document, Disruptions on the Horizon.
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I get the very real sense from this document that neither the federal government nor the provincial government
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The language of this agenda is the same language we see in the United Nations and World Economic Forum,
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documents and declarations, diversity, inclusion, equality, sustainability, resilience, etc.
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And yet the WF, in its fourth industrial revolution book,
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predicts massive job dislocations in the near future due to AI and robotics.
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So can the people you plan to bring in here expect to find meaningful work?
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And how, given all the other disruptions outlined in the recent Horizons document,
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can the region be so sure that the level of the population growth can be sustained in a way
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that won't totally erase the culture of those originally, of those original Durham communities,
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My ancestors, incidentally, are still listed in the wedding registry at St. Mary's Church
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My great-great-great-grandfather was the harbour master there around the time that a young James Cook
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plied the English coast as an apprentice in the merchant navy in the 1740s.
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Current strategic plans emphasize the importance of preserving our heritage.
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We hope the upcoming 2030 strategic plans emphasize the same.
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The history of Durham region is enshrined in the names of the towns in which we live.
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It is incumbent on everyone here to ensure that the traditions that have made this region what it is can continue.
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So this so-called new fiscal age describes a society of global design in which the accumulated wealth
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of the existing population is harvested by various public-private partnerships
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in order to pay for infrastructure of a fanciful and unsustainable future.
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So we call on all of you now to step away from the globalist agenda being forced upon us,
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adopt an appropriately regional plan with a focus on local environmental stewardship.
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And I must ask also here if any of you are familiar with this recent 2024 document disruptions.
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Good morning, Chair and members of the committee.
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I'd like to draw your attention to the many flaws in Durham's strategic growth policies.
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While these ideas are often marketed as modern and efficient,
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in practice they have serious negative consequences for both urban and rural residents.
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Firstly, strategic growth limits property rights.
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One of the key features of strategic growth is highly density development.
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While this may sound like a positive step towards more compact, efficient cities,
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Single-family homes are being discouraged in favour of multifamily buildings,
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and zoning lawns are being tightened to restrict where people can live and build.
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Secondly, strategic growth is incompatible with rural needs.
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While high-density transit-oriented development might work in an urban setting,
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Many people in Durham region rely on personal vehicles and larger properties to support their way of life.
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Pushing for car-free zones and ride-sharing in these areas is both impractical
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Thirdly, strategic growth is a financial burden of unused transit infrastructure.
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One of the pillars of strategic growth is the expansion of public transit.
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While this sounds good in theory, many of these projects are underutilised and over-budget.
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This creates an enormous financial burden on taxpayers,
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who are forced to pay for transit systems they may never use.
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Example, Durham's investment in light rail and bus rapid transit projects
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could run into hundreds of millions of dollars,
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yet the ridership projections are often overly optimistic.
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These systems will likely require ongoing subsidies to remain operational.
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Draining public funds that could be used for more pressing needs,
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such as homelessness, drug addiction problems, or local water and air pollution.
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The strategic growth referred to in Durham region's Envision Official Plan
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should be the main issue at the next municipal election.
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Prior to the election, planners should be conducting input sessions
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at which the public needs to be asked the following questions.
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that forces them to move from their single-family homes to multi-dwelling high-rises?
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How do the citizens feel about planning with a goal to eventually ban cars?
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How do citizens feel about planning that enforces the creation
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of light rail public transportation with a limited number of riders?
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How do citizens feel about planning that enforces smart meters
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that can grossly overcharge users and can be a hazard
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How do citizens feel about planning that forces taxpayers
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to play for plug-in stations for electrical cars
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How do citizens feel about planning that creates non-elected boards,
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How do citizens feel about planning that forces
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all housing to conform to specific government design,
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How do citizens feel about planning that enforces international building codes
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and international plumbing and electrical codes
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designed to require major retrofitting in existing and new buildings
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to comply with results in a one-size-fits-all society?
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How do citizens feel about planning that uses the power of eminent domain
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to take properties and destroy small, locally-owned businesses?
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These are the realities of sustainable development planning programs,
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It is recommended that Durham Region move away from strategic growth policies
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that prioritize density and transit infrastructure
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We need to withdraw from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, ICLEI,
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Instead, we should focus on practical solutions
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that protect property rights, respect rural lifestyles,
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and provide affordable infrastructures for all residents.