Climate and the environment

There is no question that climate change is impacting our daily lives. In just the last few years, Ottawa has been faced with two record-breaking floods, multiple tornadoes, and the rare Derecho storm we saw this past May.

Climatologists and scientists have told us that severe weather events like this will only continue to increase as our planet warms, and the damage already done is irreversible. We only have one planet and we must act fast to create a greener world for our future generations. 

While city hall has claimed a climate emergency, we have seen a lot of talk and little action. As we build our communities, we must ensure the topic of climate is top of mind. We need to stop cutting down mature trees and save our existing greenspace. 

Barrhaven has the second worst tree canopy in all of Ottawa. In the suburbs, it gets incredibly hot in the summer and we need to ensure there are shaded places where people can go and cool off. That means planting more trees and designing areas for more shade. This will also mean we can help reduce the temperatures seen in our warming planet. 

While Barrhaven didn’t suffer nearly the same damage as some of our neighbouring communities did during the May long-weekend storms, we still saw many decades old trees fall in parks and on peoples lawns. We need to plant more trees in local parks and find ways to encourage people to plant their own trees. 

We must ensure we have a more reliable transit system in place to help get some cars off the road. Barrhaven will always be a car-friendly neighborhood; it’s the suburbs and cars are almost always needed here to get around. But at the same time we need to provide those alternative options for getting to shopping in the community or heading to work. 

 Additionally, being an EV car owner myself, I would also encourage use of EV vehicles for City of Ottawa fleet (including OC Transpo) in addition to partnering with private sector to build cost recovery charging infrastructure. We need to study charging infrastructure success in other countries and implement the best option for our residents.