Local Food & Climate Change

What's on my mind these days, and a suitable topic for 2009 Blog Action Day on climate change, is local food production and how municipalities might help to make it easier for residents to produce food themselves and to buy locally-produced food.

The March 2009 issue of Municipal World ("Canada's municipal magazine since 1891") had an article talking about "foodshed strategy." It provides inspiring examples of ways that municipal governments and other organizations are finding ways to "shorten food chains and build community capacity."

A foodshed strategy, according to the article, includes three basic elements that depend on local resources and experiences:

- direct-marketing venues

- processes that connect producers and consumers

- avenues to develop greater access and security to food

There are aspects of these elements already in place in small ways in our region, and although we haven't completely lost our connection between food production and consumption in this area, we increasingly rely on food that comes from a great distance. Transporting food is a contributor to climate change; it also makes us vulnerable to disruptions in supply.

As a small step in this direction, since Peace River is currently reviewing its Animal Control Bylaw, I asked a local food advocate to do a presentation to inform Council (October 19, 5:30) about whether small scale poultry production Peace River might fit. It will be interesting to see how residents respond to this idea and to the more general idea of increasing local food production capacity.

There are visionary people in the region already working in practical ways on food issues. Municipal governments can provide support and leadership through appropriate bylaws, programs and other initiatives that could lead to a Peace regional foodshed strategy. The Town of Peace River is in the midst of developing a municipal sustainability plan; a foodshed strategy would fit in nicely. I'm looking forward to more discussion, but more importantly, action in this direction.

Peace River's Sustainability Survey

I encourage Peace River residents to take the time to do the survey on sustainability that is now on the Town's website. The results will provide important information for our municipal sustainability plan and the review of our Municipal Development Plan.

Grab a cup of tea and settle in--the survey takes awhile to complete (give yourself 15-20 minutes)--and know that you are making an important contribution by taking this time to respond.

Councillor Activities October-November

For my own records as well as anyone wondering what Town Council members do, here's a summary of some of my activities over the past two months:

Committees:

Aboriginal Interagency Committee: Regular monthly meetings.

Peace River Municipal Library Board: Regular monthly meetings. As well, board members canvassed for the Rotary Radio Auction, which is a major library fundraiser, and worked the phones during the auction. I'd never done that before and it was quite an experience! Many thanks to everyone who helped to make the event a success.

Town of Peace River Health & Safety Committee: Regular monthly meeting.

Municipal Planning Commission: Regular twice-monthly meetings. We also have a half day of training in the coming week, provided by a planner from the Mackenzie Municipal Planning Agency (MMSA).

East Peace Regional Landfill Authority: I'm an alternate and attended my first meeting in November.

Other activities:

Town of Peace River/Northern Sunrise County: Councils and CAOs attended a two-day session with facilitator Gord McIntosh where we identified issues and areas for potential collaboration. We have a list of items that we're exploring and moving ahead on, which is a very exciting follow-up to the signing of the protocol agreement in the summer.

Using Rural Connections to Support Alberta's Rural Development Strategy Virtual Conference: I worked with Communities Without Boundaries and Peace Country Community Futures to bring this conference to Peace River. It was a very successful day with over 20 sites around the province and over 200 participants. Peace River had the best-attended venue north of Edmonton. (There are a couple of other blog entries about this event, with links to the sessions.)

Metis Nation of Alberta Zone 6 Dinner: Deputy Mayor Berry Heinen brought greetings to the AGM in the morning and then he and I attended the evening dinner, with our spouses, on behalf of the Town of Peace River.

Lower West Peace Public Session: Engineer Paul Machibroda presented the results of his research to the residents, media, and Town staff and councillors at this session. BC Hydro and Alberta government staff were also present and there was a good discussion about the proposed next steps to study how to alleviate the seepage problems. Four de-watering wells will be installed by January 2009, with more likely installed later in the year once there is a better understanding of water dynamics, the optimal placement of the wells, etc. With a full complement of wells in place, it will be easier to see whether further measures need to be implemented. BC Hydro is also continuing to work with affected residents to ensure they have proper sump pumps in place before winter freeze-up and to find other ways to assist. We are all hoping that there will be no secondary ice consolidation near the Town this winter, because that appears to be the biggest determinant of whether there will be the seepage that causes so much disruption for some families and worry for many other Lower West Peace residents.

CMHC Affordable Housing Web Forum: These events are a great opportunity to hear from experts on a variety of issues without leaving home. This one, with Affordable Housing Consultant and former Whistler Municipal Councillor, Tim Wake, was particularly pertinent to Peace River's situation so I was glad I could attend. Information about upcoming events.

Town of Peace River Staff Luncheon: Peace River has a great group of enthusiastic and committed staff and it was a pleasure to join them to hear CAO Norma MacQuarrie describe the variety of activities in which the Town is currently engaged (there's a lot going on!).

Community Citizenship Potluck: I was honoured to bring greetings from Mayor & Council. This is an event coordinated by the Peace Literacy Association and the Peace Association for Lifelong Learning (PAL). There were new Peace River residents from at least 10 different countries (I can remember speaking with people from Poland, Brazil, Korea, China, Japan, Germany, Mexico, Colombia, Finland, and Belize). Peace Literacy provides tutors, among other types of assistance, for English as a Second Language (ESL) and literacy education. A number of these tutors attended the dinner as well other community members who are interested in meeting newcomers. The food was sensational and we had fun with a ice-breaker activity that helped us to get to know each other a little more.

Alternative Energy Trade Fair: This event was very successful, especially for a first time effort. There were a variety of vendors at the Trade Fair who patiently explained geothermal, solar, wind, insulation and other energy-efficient technologies, and there were also excellent education sessions provided. I went on a tour of a household that uses solar tubes to generate hot water for heating. In conjunction with the event, there was a sold-out 100-Mile Dinner where I was pleased to bring greetings from Mayor & Council. Both the fair and the dinner served to highlight the importance of paying attention to the issues of peak oil and climate change and how these may impact our communities. The more we work to establish or maintain local food and energy security, the better able we'll be able to cope with whatever the future brings.

Peace River Regional Women's Shelter Festival of Trees: Mayor Callioux regularly attends the Gala for the Festival but was out of town this year, so I was pleased to attend in her place. It was a fun evening with a dinner, entertainment by a local group called Windsong, and live and silent auctions of fabulous trees and other items. What a creative community we have and it is wonderful to see the community support for this annual event.

Community Vision/BVI/MSP

Did the acronyms in the title intrigue you? Peace River has a lot going on and we're hoping that Peace River and area residents will become active in each of them!

Here's one: The Business Vitality Initiative (BVI) "measures the business-friendliness of your community, compares the results to other communities, helps you come up with strategies for improvement and launches your community into action" (CIEL website).

In July, I attended the Rural Matters! conference in Edmonton, sponsored by the Alberta Association of Municipal Districts & Counties (AAMDC). Mayor Callioux and Councillor Laurin also attended and we all learned much from the sessions we attended.

It was at one called "Tools to Build Entrepreneurial and Vital Communities" with Mike Stolte of CIEL (Centre for Innovative & Entrepreneurial Leadership) that I heard about the possibility of a pilot project in Alberta. I let Mike know that Peace River might be interested and would be an ideal community.

Now Alberta Agriculture and Rural Development has partnered with CIEL to deliver a pilot project for one of CIEL's tools, the BVI, in four rural Alberta communities and Peace River is one of them! January-February is roughly the time for this initiative. Public input is an important feature of this initiative.

Here's another: Municipal Sustainability Planning MSP. Peace River is one of a number of Alberta communities that will receive support from the Alberta Urban Municipalities Association (AUMA) for this planning, which will involve public input.

And another: Planning is underway for our community visioning process. Mark your calendar: on December 9, there will be two sessions available for Peace River and area residents to participate. More details to follow so keep an eye on the Town's website.

As we move ahead with each of these initiatives, they will build on each other and by June, we should have a comprehensive and exciting vision along with action plans to carry us forward.

Stay tuned for more details in the coming weeks and months. These are exciting opportunities for residents to help to identify a vision and set the course for the future.

Join Me at Virtual Conference on October 31st

On October 31, Peace River's Community Futures office is one of 20 sites around the province that is hosting an innovative virtual conference entitled Using Rural Connections to Support Alberta’s Rural Development Strategy.

The event is being organized by Communities without Boundaries, an organization devoted to supporting and developing local coalitions of community champions and technology providers to promote broadband usage.

At each site, participants will gather to watch and listen to the conference speakers and also have an opportunity to connect with each other.

Speakers will explain how they are using broadband Internet and the Alberta SuperNet to tackle everyday issues in the areas of education, health, economic development and rural quality of life. The closing session will explore the challenges and opportunities of developing First/Last Mile Connectivity.

Register for the event at the link above. You need to first register for the site and then register for the event venue.

The day starts at 8:30 and finishes at 3:30, with lunch and refreshments provided (that's why you need to register).

Hope to see you there!

AUMA Convention

Peace River Mayor, Council and CAO were in Edmonton last week, attending the Alberta Urban Municipalities Association (AUMA) annual convention.

Premier Stelmach addressed the convention as did the new president of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM), Jean Perrault. We heard from Municipal Affairs Minister Ray Danyluk and he also presented Municipal Excellence Awards (congratulations to all those recipients and runners-up).

Council was able to meet with provincial officials on issues specific to the Town and during open sessions with Alberta Ministers to bring up issues such as ambulance transition. This transition is particularly worrisome for municipalities like Peace River that have integrated fire and ambulance, but other communities want to ensure a smooth transition without degradation of service so there was a great deal of discussion about this during the week.

Other highlights:

MUNICIPAL LEGISLATION  FOR MUNICIPAL OFFICIALS (pre-convention session)

While this may not sound like a riveting way to spend a day (and there were moments, especially when people asked irrelevant questions ...), this all-day session provided important information for anyone working or interested in the local level of government. (And I was pleased to see how much I actually remembered from social studies and political science classes.)

Can We Be Dissolved? I asked the presenter whether the province could dissolve municipalities the way it recently dealt with health region boards. The answer was "absolutely." Responsibility for the municipal level of government was given to the provinces by the Constitution Act of 1867 (formerly known as the British North America Act) and we are therefore "creatures of the province." (Other responsibilities given to the provinces were natural resources and education and there was lively discussion about the boundaries of those responsibilities.)

We also had discussions about the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Alberta Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy (FOIP) legislation and how these impact on local government.

MUNICIPALITIES: THE CLOSEST TO THE PEOPLE AND THE MOST TRANSPARENT LEVEL OF GOVERNMENT

It might surprise some Peace River residents who feel that their local government is not transparent (or as transparent as they would like), but compared with how the provincial and federal governments operate, we heard repeatedly that we are indeed the most accessible and the most transparent because under the provisions of the Municipal Government Act (MGA), we are required to conduct the majority of our business in public. There is always room for improvement, of course, and the Town is working on new ways to keep residents informed about programs as well as the work of Council.

MUNICIPALITIES IN ALBERTA ARE STRUGGLING: THE IMPORTANCE OF WORKING TOGETHER

Municipal Affairs has in the past year or so dealt with over 60 Alberta municipalities that are struggling to be sustainable, and the issues aren't always just financial. Some are having great difficulty recruiting and retaining staff or even forming a council. The times call for some creativity and flexibility.

In the session on governance and collaboration with Dr. Roger Gibbins of the Canada West Foundation and Dr. Matthew McKinney from the University of Montana's Public Policy Research Institute, we were reminded that Minister Danyluk has made it clear to municipalities that if we don't get regional issues sorted out on our own, he'll do it for us.

Dr. McKinney described what he has learned about working across boundaries, and how "homegrown" solutions (rather than those imposed on a region) are generally the most successful.

When Dr. Gibbins was asked about how our municipalities can work with others who seem content with the status quo, he reflected on those 60 communities that are struggling even in these good times and how we need to be prepared to move ahead even in tough times. He asked us whether we want to be the architect of change or just let it happen to us? What an important question that is! Change happens and if we want it to work for us, we need to take an active role, no matter how difficult it may be.

It was an excellent 4 days of learning and networking. The slides from all the presentations will be available in a few weeks on the AUMA website, so check them out if you're interested in learning more.

COUNCILLOR’S REPORT: APRIL 28, 2008

I attended the Municipal Sustainability Planning workshop presented by the Alberta Urban Municipalities Association (AUMA) as a pre-conference session for the Alberta’s Environment Conference, April 21-22, in Edmonton.

AUMA is actively promoting the idea of municipal sustainability planning MSP which it describes as “an opportunity for municipalities to look long-term at the communities they want and take proactive steps to move there. It is an opportunity to engage citizens in a dialogue about what they value about their communities and what they want them to look like in the future.” Sustainability is “meeting the needs of the present generations without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.”

The workshop itself consisted of a keynote presentation by the Executive Director of The Natural Step Canada which has been working with AUMA and Alberta municipalities on sustainability planning. The Natural Step website describes itself as:

The Natural Step Canada is a non-profit organization providing results orientated advisory and training services to help community and business leaders integrate social, environmental and economic decision making into their operations with a holistic, proven and scientifically-rigorous framework.

The Natural Step offers eLearning courses in sustainability and the AUMA has an agreement for a discounted price of $85 for the course (it is normally $120).

The AUMA’s toolkit on municipal sustainability has used features of The Natural Step’s process and added to it, so that the framework consists of five pillars or dimensions for municipalities to engage around: Economy; Governance; Environment; Society; and Culture.

We heard presentations from each of the five pilot communities that were funded by AUMA to under MSP: Town of Olds, Village of Thorhild, Village of Chauvin, Town of Claresholm, and Town of Pincher Creek, as well as the work done by Okotoks and Canmore towards sustainability. The PowerPoint presentations can be accessed at:

There will be a new Request for Proposals from AUMA for communities to be assisted to do an MSP and I think that we could make a very good case for Peace River, tying in nicely to the strategic planning that Council is undertaking soon and the community consultation we are already planning for.

We received a copy of a new booklet for Albertans produced by the Alberta Real Estate Foundation and The Natural Step called Sustainability At Home: A toolkit. Decision-making help for your everyday choices. It will soon be available in hard copy but in the meantime is available online from the AUMA.

Following the workshop there was an optional networking dinner at which Todd Babiak, an author and Edmonton Journal columnist, spoke on the importance of arts and culture to municipalities to the quality of life and contributors to the economy. Babiak mentioned the recently-developed Edmonton Cultural Plan, The Art of Living: A Plan for Securing the Future of Arts and Heritage in the City of Edmonton and commented on how brilliant it is. I’d like to suggest that it would be worth reviewing with some members of Peace River’s art and culture community.

At Alberta’s Environment Conference, held in partnership with the AUMA, I attended the following sessions and would be pleased to share thoughts about any of them. Once the PowerPoint presentations for all sessions are available online, I’ll let Council know where these can be obtained.

• Economics: A science of decision-making (presented by Anish Neupane, a resource economist with Alberta Environment. Some of his major responsibilities include providing economic and socioeconomic advice related to policy formulation and development).

• The Impact of Energy Efficiency on the Environment (presented by John Rilett, the Director of Energy Efficiency and Conservation at Climate Change Central, a unique public-private partnership that promotes the development of innovative responses to global climate change and its impacts.)
• Where Ideas Flow: A panel on the newly created Alberta Water Research Institute
• Regulatory Considerations in a Brownfield Redevelopment Strategy (presented by Kevan van Velzen, Manager, Environmental Assessment and Liabilities, City of Calgary).
• Life Cycle Assessment of Oil Sands: A quantitative multi-sectoral approach to environmental stewardship (this was a panel on LCA, which extends traditional analyses of environmental impacts by incorporating the gamut of goods and services involved in production, use, and disposal of a product to construct a holistic reflection of total impacts from “cradle to grave.”
• Challenges, Solutions & Opportunities for Large Scale Wind Power Integration into Alberta (presented by John H Kehler, Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO) and David Huggill, Western Canada Policy Manager, Canadian Wind Energy Association.

The Environment Minister, Rob Renner, was a keynote speaker and there was a lunchtime announcement of a new certificate program in consensus building that the Alberta Government and the Alberta Arbitration and Mediation Society have established in prominent Alberta environmentalist Martha Kostuch’s name. There is also a bursary being made available for the program, funded by the Alberta Government. Ms. Kostuch died the day after the announcement and presentation of flowers to her grand-daughter.

There was a large trade fair of products and services related to the environment. I have passed along some information to staff.