Action4Canada - A4C Oshawa Leader, Members and Durham residents delegate against Envision Durham Plan - Oct. 1, 2024

00:00:00.000 Good morning. I would like to, sorry, I just set my timer so I remember. My name is Terry

00:00:14.200 Recker and I am with Action for Canada. I'm a provincial leader in Ontario. I would like

00:00:20.320 to make a land acknowledgement to begin with. I would like to thank God and God alone for

00:00:25.140 the ground that I'm standing on. After reviewing the Envision Durham plan in great detail, I'm

00:00:35.540 very confused about, you know, what it's all about, but I do actually see that there is

00:00:41.960 an infringement on our mobility rights and also our God-given inalienable rights as a

00:00:51.600 Canadian citizen in Durham. I don't know if any of you have read it in great detail,

00:00:58.820 but I would like to share with you, as I hold up quickly here, the Complete Streets Guide,

00:01:05.440 which is here. This is on the internet, so anybody can go to it and take a look at it and read

00:01:10.020 it in detail, and it's quite disturbing as to what happens with it. And so this report

00:01:16.220 here, Complete Streets, works with the 15-minute streets, and they're all intertwined. And then

00:01:24.040 we also have the 15-minute city report, which works with the C40 principles. The C40 principles

00:01:31.180 is the consumptive interventions to the individual. And the C40 streets headline, which is this report

00:01:38.480 here, which is the future of urban consumption in a 1.5 Celsius world, outlines the disturbing plan

00:01:48.920 that has been put into motion to control all of humanity through smart cities and C40 cities in

00:01:55.440 their own language. And I just want to share a few highlights from the report. Examples of a 2036

00:02:01.440 year plan to reduce your meat consumption from 16 kilograms to zero. A dairy milk from 90 kilograms

00:02:09.640 to zero. Calories per day would be restricted to 2,500 calories. And the number of clothing

00:02:17.100 purchases per person per year would be eight to start off with, and then it would go down

00:02:21.800 significantly to three items. Car ownership would, from 190 vehicles per 1,000 people down to zero

00:02:31.040 vehicle vehicles. Aviation restrictions, one trip per year. And so what I'm saying here is,

00:02:37.680 for decades, the UN have been at work implementing their, I call it their diabolical plan, and their

00:02:44.320 main focus is at the municipal level because municipalities are closest to the people and

00:02:49.080 have the potential to inflict the greatest amount of control at the ground level. Municipalities

00:02:54.360 are receiving cash incentives from the federal government, and many mayors have signed on to what's

00:03:00.460 called the convenant of mayors. The convenant of mayors sets out the greenhouse emission budget

00:03:05.380 targets for each city to follow. And the way that they get individuals to do this is through targets

00:03:12.280 by law restrictions at the local municipalities that they will put in place. I feel that it's a great

00:03:20.060 violation of privacy, and it's against our constitution and the charter of rights and our coronation oath.

00:03:26.800 So I'd also like to mention, it may, in their own words, if I hold up the municipal primer,

00:03:33.820 which was a group that got together from all countries in 1994, they say in their own words

00:03:40.320 about the plan, it may be difficult, if not impossible, to impose sustainable development

00:03:46.540 practices on the public because it involves certain changes in people's expectations and behavior.

00:03:52.000 Well, I say, like, who do they think they're talking to? So the emphasis on establishing

00:03:58.000 minimum densities and intensification targets... Sorry, Terry, I just want to remind you I have one

00:04:02.980 minute. Okay, thanks. Intensification targets within our neighborhood raises significant concerns.

00:04:08.320 I oppose the idea of transforming my community through massive intensification efforts because I'm

00:04:15.020 going through those so quickly. There's different aspects in the pages that restrict a lot of our

00:04:21.480 mobility rights, like walking and the use of bicycles. Well, I don't know how they expect us to do that in

00:04:28.640 the winter, but I completely do not vote on any of this. And actually, we haven't even been asked as

00:04:34.860 residents whether or not to vote. But I would like to hold up lastly for you. Council resolution

00:04:41.480 joined the FCM, which is the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, and the ICLEE Partners for Canada.

00:04:47.340 Durham Region signed this in 2008, along with two signatures at that time. I would like to hold up

00:04:53.860 a council resolution signed by the people in Durham Region to leave the FCM-ICLEE Partners for Climate

00:05:01.100 Protection Program. So that concludes what I'd like to say about it. Thank you, Terry. You're just about on time

00:05:06.700 there. Thank you. Thank you.

00:05:09.220 Absolutely. 3.2 is the area of my concern, and I'm very concerned about what I read.

00:05:14.260 I was shocked to find out that we actually made a declaration of climate emergency. And the reason

00:05:21.660 I am shocked at that is because there is no climate emergency based on anthropogenic CO2.

00:05:27.560 I've been following this for a long time. It started when I was 15 years old, and I got scared. I was

00:05:32.860 frightened by what I read in a magazine saying that global ice age was going to kill everybody by 2020.

00:05:38.960 We were going to die of frostbite in July. That's what these sensationalist morons were trying to say 1.00

00:05:45.040 to a young teenager. But then I learned later that sensationalism sells, and so people follow these 1.00

00:05:50.340 things. And at the same time, there was the global warmers who were claiming that the ice caps were

00:05:56.060 going to melt, and the polar bears were going to drown, and all kinds of sensationalist things.

00:06:00.560 Again, because sensationalism sells, people tend to want to get that kind of attention,

00:06:05.400 write their books, and do what they want to do. Later on, as I started investigating it on my own,

00:06:12.300 I found that the genuine science that I found, that there is no climate emergency due to anthropogenic

00:06:18.200 CO2. And therefore, that tells me that the whole climate change kind of narrative seems very

00:06:24.840 disingenuous to me. In 1989-90, the IPCC was formed to intentionally demonize CO2 as the cause of

00:06:32.940 global warming. To intentionally demonize CO2 and put it under the guise of science is so disingenuous

00:06:40.360 to me, because science doesn't work that way. My undergraduate degree was in science. I really

00:06:45.400 enjoyed the subject. I'm not a scientist by any means, but I can read the literature a little bit.

00:06:49.900 And I was just, I am not happy. And I think a lot of people are not happy that we have a climate

00:06:56.540 emergency on our books. And I would propose a motion, my first motion, that we withdraw the

00:07:03.100 climate emergency, because there's a lot of benefits from that. If I could respectively go

00:07:09.420 through the chair and ask for somebody to put that motion today, I would do that. Thank you.

00:07:15.220 Climate change to demonize CO2. I've mentioned that. CO2. Why do I say that it's disingenuous?

00:07:22.060 CO2 is the weakest greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. Not the strongest, it's the weakest,

00:07:27.780 because it only absorbs infrared at 15 nanometers. And it is also very small in the atmosphere. 420

00:07:34.500 parts per million may sound like a lot, but 0.042% is actually very small. But anthropogenic CO2,

00:07:43.200 which is what the target is of the disingenuous climate alarmist, is about 80 parts per million.

00:07:50.960 And that accumulation has happened over about 100 years. In other words, there is no climate

00:07:58.340 emergency due to anthropogenic CO2. I want to make that clear to you. It cannot happen. It's

00:08:04.100 energetically impossible. It is simply too small and too weak. As I continued in the literature at 3.2,

00:08:11.700 I found out that we are now talking about methane. Methane is even smaller in the atmosphere than

00:08:17.680 anthropogenic CO2. Two parts per million. So for two parts per million and eight parts per million,

00:08:25.340 or sorry, 80 parts per million in CO2, we're expecting climate to dramatically change and it's going to cause

00:08:31.040 catastrophic climate change. This is not true. I've studied a little bit about this.

00:08:39.500 And what I'm finding is that the real genuine science seems to come from those who have denied

00:08:44.820 this thing. And there's a lot of great scientists who have denied catastrophe. And it's the catastrophe

00:08:50.540 that's the problem, because that's what scares people. Not long ago, you know, James, I don't mean

00:08:55.400 to interrupt, but you have one minute left. Oh, okay, I better get rolling. What else am I going to talk

00:09:03.640 about? My second motion withdraw from ICLE. Okay, it's already been said net zero. Net zero seems to me

00:09:09.600 like net silly. I mean, how is it that we're going to reduce our so-called footprint to zero and invite 0.61

00:09:15.560 600,000 people to come? Every individual in this room breathes out 40,000 parts per million CO2

00:09:22.360 about every minute and a half, depending on your size and your exercise. So if we're bringing 600,000

00:09:28.120 people who produce CO2, not to mention drive their cars and heat their homes, how are we going to get

00:09:32.740 to zero? It's impossible. It's a setup for failure. And I'm going to ask you to withdraw from net zero.

00:09:39.520 Do not follow net zero. I implore you. What else can I say about that? Carbon tax. If net zero is silly,

00:09:48.760 carbon tax is terrible. It's taxing our breath. It's taxing our humanity. I'm out of time. But it's

00:09:54.780 taxing. It's taxing our existence. And ideologically, if you can think ideologically

00:10:01.480 with me, that can be twisted and turned into something very ugly. I remember David Suzuki,

00:10:07.780 a man whom I did not respect very much to begin with. And he came up and said that we have too many

00:10:12.600 people. We're in trouble for climate because there's too many of us. James, I'm going to have

00:10:19.640 to cut you off there. I gave you a little bit more time because I interrupted you. But

00:10:22.580 you can remain at the podium because you're our next delegate anyway. Okay. I'll just call you

00:10:28.800 James this time. Yes. And you're speaking to the transportation master plan. Okay, the transportation

00:10:34.900 master plan, which I'm just going to finish briefly. I would like you to understand my perspective. I love

00:10:42.420 our environmental committee, or at least it used to be the environmental committee, because they do a lot

00:10:47.880 of good things. But now that's been convoluted, the ideas involved with environmental stewardship is

00:10:57.220 being convoluted by this disingenuous climate stuff. And we have somehow combined those two

00:11:03.160 together. I would ask that we pull those two apart. So that's to conclude the first part for me.

00:11:07.940 One more item about carbon tax, if you don't mind. I have a friend who owns a truck and he owns a car.

00:11:16.040 And he said the carbon rebate is great because now we can drive his truck more. In other words,

00:11:20.960 the carbon tax has failed. It's failed because it's not a good disincentive to drive more or to

00:11:27.080 burn more gas. It doesn't work that way. And the original PBO in Ottawa said that the carbon rebate

00:11:36.040 is less than what it's going to cost the average person. So again, I don't know how you're going to

00:11:41.400 be able to push back on carbon tax. But I think that's a very popular notion right now. And I'm

00:11:48.220 talking to people who know, have their hand on the pulse of the nation, the pulse of the province in

00:11:55.320 the region. Is there a way that you can push back on carbon tax? I think that'd be a very popular idea.

00:12:02.740 Do you have to kick the can back to Queen's Park? Does Queen Park have to kick it back to Ottawa,

00:12:08.920 where a lot of this comes from? I don't know. But I would really ask that you do that.

00:12:14.180 Transportation. Let me focus on a couple of positive things. I really like the bike lanes. I don't like

00:12:19.640 it if they're too wide, but I really like the bike lanes because I used to ride the bike. I used to

00:12:23.820 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

00:12:29.700 my bike anymore. I can walk, but I can't ride my bike anymore. I don't know. It's just too

00:12:34.800 uncomfortable for me. So I want to thank you for the bike lanes. And I also want to thank you for

00:12:39.420 those little scooter things that we have in Oshawa. I love those things. And I see them all

00:12:43.860 over the place. Rick, Ward 4, thank you for that. Thank you for providing those things. I think it's

00:12:51.680 great to see young people kind of boot around on these little things. So the transportation that I'm

00:12:56.260 concerned about, someone told me there was a double-decker bus driving around Durham region.

00:13:02.900 I've never seen it, but somebody said they saw it. Is that true? If it's true, I don't think we

00:13:08.860 should continue to buy double-decker buses. No, it's not true. Okay. Yeah.

00:13:17.960 Metrolinks. And they're running a double-decker bus?

00:13:20.820 Yes. Okay. Stranger things have happened, I'm sure. What else can I say about transportation? I

00:13:27.900 didn't really prepare too much for transportation. I focused on this one, on climate change, because

00:13:33.260 that's my passion. What am I going to say? I hope that we will always continue to provide parking

00:13:42.560 for those who drive. I remember 22, 2022, I was looking at a parking lot, parking lot 16 in

00:13:49.440 Oshawa. And it's going to be used by the condo developers who are developing, I think, the old

00:13:55.420 post office, something like that. I'm really happy for that development, but I'm a little bit concerned

00:13:59.980 about losing 100 parking spaces downtown. I really like downtown Oshawa. I don't live that far, but I

00:14:05.580 still like to drive there. And I would be concerned about parking. I don't think we should mitigate

00:14:10.700 parking at all. There's no reason in my mind to mitigate parking in an area like Durham Region,

00:14:16.220 where we have a lot of space. And also, when we develop, this is a development committee,

00:14:21.420 I would suggest that we maintain strong levels of parking in any development that we endeavor to

00:14:29.560 allow. I'm down to one minute. What else can I talk about? I like to drive my car. When I came to

00:14:36.040 Oshawa over 30 years ago, I did not come by bus. It certainly wasn't double-decker, and I didn't come

00:14:42.340 on a scooter. I came in my car. I like to drive my car. And when I drove all across Durham Region,

00:14:49.360 not Durham Region, Oshawa, I noticed a lot of single-family homes. And I thought, if I take the

00:14:54.700 job here, I could probably afford one. And that's what I did. And when I had, when there was two incomes

00:14:59.980 in our family, that's what we had. We had a home in the north, a relatively new home. That's the

00:15:05.180 strength of Oshawa. If we're going to attract people, we've got to have detached single-family

00:15:09.540 dwellings. If there's a stigma against that because of climate change, by all means, drop the

00:15:15.160 stigma. That's what brought me here, single-family dwellings. Detached if you can. I'm down to 20

00:15:21.200 seconds. I think I'll just kind of let it go. Thanks very much for hearing me.

00:15:26.360 I mentioned when I asked to speak here today that I wanted to look at the numbers presented on the

00:15:32.000 Envision Durham page. Those who have visited the page will notice that the video there is looking

00:15:37.280 at a horizon of 2041, while the text above says 2051. The video talks about 1.2 million residents

00:15:46.560 and 430,000 jobs, while the text suggests a population of 1.3 million. Putting aside the 10 1.00

00:15:53.600 years and 100,000 residents' difference, I also want to look at these numbers, these population and job

00:16:01.380 predictions refer to in the 2009 Durham region business count highlights PDF. I have those numbers

00:16:08.460 here. The job growth from 2015 to 2019 is shown to increase at an average of 5,786 jobs per year,

00:16:18.300 while the projected numbers show an increase from 206,494 in 2019 to the same 430,000 jobs in 2051.

00:16:29.520 This represents an increase in the ratio of jobs per capita of 16.57%, which seems optimistic.

00:16:38.540 If we look at the population, on the other hand, the growth is projected over the next 25 years at 24,021

00:16:46.440 people per year. Again, from the 2019 Durham region business count highlights PDF, the population here

00:16:55.420 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.

00:17:07.500 So we now have a proposed three- or four-fold increase in the speed at which the population is projected to grow,

00:17:15.200 which roughly doubles the population by 2051.

00:17:18.040 There are a few problems here, which speak to the first four questions in the 2019 public survey,

00:17:26.120 how to manage how and where growth should occur in the region, how to increase job opportunities,

00:17:32.640 how to promote a balance of jobs and population, how to diversify the region's employment base.

00:17:39.280 The main problem, of course, is that such a large growth in the population will totally upset the fabric of our communities.

00:17:46.660 During the recent Durham by-election, our team canvassed all of North Oshawa,

00:17:52.940 which, unlike Clarentine and Bowmanville, is predominantly new immigrants.

00:17:56.820 And overwhelmingly, the feeling there, too, was that we need to slow down the influx of new residents.

00:18:02.300 The provision of jobs cannot keep up.

00:18:05.600 The projected numbers are hugely optimistic, if not reckless,

00:18:09.140 considering the information in the federal government's own 2004 document, Disruptions on the Horizon.

00:18:16.820 I get the very real sense from this document that neither the federal government nor the provincial government

00:18:24.360 really knows what they're doing.

00:18:26.060 The language of this agenda is the same language we see in the United Nations and World Economic Forum,

00:18:42.740 documents and declarations, diversity, inclusion, equality, sustainability, resilience, etc.

00:18:50.340 And yet the WF, in its fourth industrial revolution book,

00:18:55.960 predicts massive job dislocations in the near future due to AI and robotics.

00:19:01.620 So can the people you plan to bring in here expect to find meaningful work?

00:19:06.840 And how, given all the other disruptions outlined in the recent Horizons document,

00:19:11.740 can the region be so sure that the level of the population growth can be sustained in a way

00:19:16.620 that won't totally erase the culture of those originally, of those original Durham communities,

00:19:22.840 Whitby, Ajax, Pickering, etc.

00:19:24.700 My ancestors, incidentally, are still listed in the wedding registry at St. Mary's Church

00:19:29.620 in the town of Whitby in North Yorkshire.

00:19:32.660 My great-great-great-grandfather was the harbour master there around the time that a young James Cook

00:19:37.820 plied the English coast as an apprentice in the merchant navy in the 1740s.

00:19:42.500 Current strategic plans emphasize the importance of preserving our heritage.

00:19:50.320 We hope the upcoming 2030 strategic plans emphasize the same.

00:19:55.660 The history of Durham region is enshrined in the names of the towns in which we live.

00:19:59.480 It is incumbent on everyone here to ensure that the traditions that have made this region what it is can continue.

00:20:04.920 So this so-called new fiscal age describes a society of global design in which the accumulated wealth

00:20:12.160 of the existing population is harvested by various public-private partnerships

00:20:16.320 in order to pay for infrastructure of a fanciful and unsustainable future.

00:20:22.700 So we call on all of you now to step away from the globalist agenda being forced upon us,

00:20:27.940 adopt an appropriately regional plan with a focus on local environmental stewardship.

00:20:33.920 And I must ask also here if any of you are familiar with this recent 2024 document disruptions.

00:20:42.280 Thank you.

00:20:43.900 Thank you, David.

00:20:45.320 Good morning, Chair and members of the committee.

00:20:48.000 I'd like to draw your attention to the many flaws in Durham's strategic growth policies.

00:20:53.280 While these ideas are often marketed as modern and efficient,

00:20:57.700 in practice they have serious negative consequences for both urban and rural residents.

00:21:02.120 Firstly, strategic growth limits property rights.

00:21:06.660 One of the key features of strategic growth is highly density development.

00:21:11.740 While this may sound like a positive step towards more compact, efficient cities,

00:21:16.140 in reality it restricts property rights.

00:21:19.460 Single-family homes are being discouraged in favour of multifamily buildings,

00:21:23.700 and zoning lawns are being tightened to restrict where people can live and build.

00:21:27.300 Secondly, strategic growth is incompatible with rural needs.

00:21:32.500 While high-density transit-oriented development might work in an urban setting,

00:21:36.500 it is completely unsuited to rural areas.

00:21:39.780 Many people in Durham region rely on personal vehicles and larger properties to support their way of life.

00:21:45.980 Pushing for car-free zones and ride-sharing in these areas is both impractical

00:21:49.980 and damaging to rural residents' independence.

00:21:52.200 Thirdly, strategic growth is a financial burden of unused transit infrastructure.

00:21:59.500 One of the pillars of strategic growth is the expansion of public transit.

00:22:03.740 While this sounds good in theory, many of these projects are underutilised and over-budget.

00:22:09.660 This creates an enormous financial burden on taxpayers,

00:22:13.020 who are forced to pay for transit systems they may never use.

00:22:16.000 Example, Durham's investment in light rail and bus rapid transit projects

00:22:22.580 could run into hundreds of millions of dollars,

00:22:24.780 yet the ridership projections are often overly optimistic.

00:22:28.880 These systems will likely require ongoing subsidies to remain operational.

00:22:34.060 Draining public funds that could be used for more pressing needs,

00:22:37.240 such as homelessness, drug addiction problems, or local water and air pollution.

00:22:41.660 The strategic growth referred to in Durham region's Envision Official Plan

00:22:46.880 should be the main issue at the next municipal election.

00:22:51.660 Prior to the election, planners should be conducting input sessions

00:22:54.840 at which the public needs to be asked the following questions.

00:22:59.060 How do citizens feel about planning policy

00:23:01.420 that forces them to move from their single-family homes to multi-dwelling high-rises?

00:23:06.580 How do the citizens feel about planning with a goal to eventually ban cars?

00:23:11.660 How do citizens feel about planning that enforces the creation

00:23:15.460 of light rail public transportation with a limited number of riders?

00:23:20.160 How do citizens feel about planning that enforces smart meters

00:23:23.620 that can grossly overcharge users and can be a hazard

00:23:27.080 and they can spontaneously catch on fire?

00:23:30.340 How do citizens feel about planning that forces taxpayers

00:23:33.180 to play for plug-in stations for electrical cars

00:23:36.140 that hardly anybody wants or uses?

00:23:38.340 How do citizens feel about planning that creates non-elected boards,

00:23:43.220 councils, and regional governments

00:23:44.800 to enforce United Nations-inspired policies?

00:23:48.580 How do citizens feel about planning that forces

00:23:51.420 all housing to conform to specific government design,

00:23:55.920 including projects of multi-family buildings

00:23:58.240 that are forced into their neighbourhoods?

00:24:00.060 How do citizens feel about planning that enforces international building codes

00:24:05.300 and international plumbing and electrical codes

00:24:08.100 designed to require major retrofitting in existing and new buildings

00:24:12.780 to comply with results in a one-size-fits-all society?

00:24:17.540 How do citizens feel about planning that uses the power of eminent domain

00:24:21.540 to take properties and destroy small, locally-owned businesses?

00:24:24.960 These are the realities of sustainable development planning programs,

00:24:31.540 usually under the term strategic growth.

00:24:34.800 It is recommended that Durham Region move away from strategic growth policies

00:24:39.180 that prioritize density and transit infrastructure

00:24:42.280 over property rights and rural needs.

00:24:44.880 We need to withdraw from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, ICLEI,

00:24:51.460 Partners for Climate Protection Programs,

00:24:54.240 end the climate emergency declaration

00:24:56.240 and dissolve the climate action plan.

00:24:59.000 Instead, we should focus on practical solutions

00:25:01.340 that protect property rights, respect rural lifestyles,

00:25:04.880 and provide affordable infrastructures for all residents.

00:25:07.860 Thank you.

00:25:14.880 Thank you.

Action4Canada - October 30, 2024

A4C Oshawa Leader, Members and Durham residents delegate against Envision Durham Plan - Oct. 1, 2024

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