OP commment: Alec Adams, AWARE Orillia

Response with respect to growth

By Alec Adams AWARE Orillia July 2012

The focus of the Official Plan is the location and management of growth. It seems to be assumed that growth is either beneficial to communities, both economically and socially, or is inevitable. While it is true that most economists, and politicians at all levels of government, repeat the mantra that more growth is essential for the solution to our many problems, constant repetition does not make it true. 

The fact is that there are many obvious red flags that should alert us to the fact that endless growth in a finite world is impossible, and that our relentless quest for growth has already had a profound and negative impact on the climate, the ability of renewable resources to renew and is leading to the rapid decline of economically accessible non renewable resources. 

Renewable resources – air, fresh water, farmland, forests, fisheries, and the oceans themselves, are all in serious decline and all are further threatened by over exploitation and continuing climate change.

The key non renewable resource is oil. Population growth, food production, transportation and resource exploitation have all depended on increased oil supplies for a hundred years. But now the easy oil has gone so, in order to avoid economic collapse, we are driven to seek more costly and more environmentally hazardous supplies from deep under the oceans, in the arctic, from oil sands and from hydraulic fracking. 

While oil will continue to be available, decreasing supply and increasing cost will have profound and unavoidable impacts on agriculture, transportation and life styles.

Other non renewable resources are also being impacted by continuing growth and the increasing cost of energy. As with oil, the easiest to reach deposits have already been exploited. As yields per ton of ore decline, the cost of extraction and the environmental costs (toxic tailings, water pollution etc) also increase. 

While Canada is the second largest country on the planet, only 4% is classified as dependable agricultural land (classes 1 – 4) and only .3% of its area is class 1. Canada and Ontario have done a terrible job of protecting agricultural land. Ontario has 56% of Canada’s Class 1 land but lost 18% or 150,000 acres to urban sprawl and other non agricultural uses in the period 1976 – 1996.

When considering the wisdom of pursuing growth we should appreciate that food and energy supplies are prerequisites for a reasonable quality of life. 

The fact that climate change is happening faster than even the most pessimistic forecasts predicted should make everyone aware that mankind is facing an unprecedented crisis that requires an urgent response. Climate scientists warn that an inevitable result of global warming is that weather will become more erratic and violent, while droughts and floods will become more common. Business as usual will lead to catastrophe!

Recent weather has demonstrated the dramatic effect that climate change can have on crop yields. It is surely imprudent to expand population, and to allow continuing urban growth on agricultural land, when agricultural land is limited and the consequences of climate change are almost certain to be negative, around the world and in Canada. 

Fertility rates in Canada average about 1.6 compared to the replacement rate of 2.1. Canadian population growth comes entirely from immigration, so it is evident that Canada has the ability to determine its population. We can determine what would be an optimum population, allowing for climate change, food supplies and energy costs. The optimum sustainable population might well be lower than our existing population.

While it is clear that some corporations and individuals benefit from growth, it is also clear that most citizens do not. While Canada’s population has increased from 23 to 34 million, and productivity has doubled, since 1975, most people are no better off. They are under more economic stress, are deeper in debt, work longer, have less job security and are no happier. 

When considering growth we should therefore consider who benefits and who pays. AWARE has concluded that overall, the cost of growth outweighs the benefits, and in any event growth is not sustainable. We therefore challenge the implicit assumptions of the Official Plan – that growth is either beneficial to communities, both economically and socially, or is inevitable. Those who advocate for, or facilitate, growth in general or for a particular project, should be required to demonstrate how the community as a whole will benefit. 

Instead of planning for growth, the Official Plan should anticipate probable changes to climate, energy and resource costs and plan instead to maintain the best possible living conditions for the majority of citizens. Such plans will necessarily include protection of agricultural land and protection of the environment.  

Given that we are entering a time of ever increasing scarcity of nonrenewable natural resources and that we are overtaxing renewable natural resources, the following questions should be addressed with respect to every proposed development:

1. What will be the impact on the environment?

2. In particular, what will be the impact on Lake Simcoe and the Nottawassaga River?

3. What will be the impact on agricultural land?

4. What will be the additional need for infrastructure, immediately or in the future?

5. Will the existing population have to contribute to additional infrastructure costs, either in the short term or in the longer term?

6. Will the proposed development have any negative economic, social or quality of life impacts on the existing population?

7. Does the proposed development meet the need to reduce reliance on automobile travel and enhance the opportunity for active transportation? 

8. Is the proposed development designed and located in such a way that residents or employees will be dependent on automobile transportation?

9. In what ways, if any, will the proposed development benefit the existing population?