It’s time for sensible solutions: Hugh Holland | Commentary

By Hugh Holland

The two major trends already affecting everything for this and the next two generations in Canada, are immigration and climate change.  Ironically, they will succeed or fail together. Without immigration, our population and economy will shrink, and we will be less able to either mitigate climate change or pay for the rapidly increasing cost of extreme weather events. These trends require decisions made based on scientific facts rather than politics. Political extremes must cooperate more to find sensible middle-ground solutions.  Let’s look at a few examples.  

Housing and the Ontario Green Belt

In 1973, Bill Davis passed legislation to protect the Niagara Escarpment and it became a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In 2001, Mike Harris added the protection of the Oak Ridges Moraine. In 2005, Dalton McGuinty added one million acres (4,000 Km2) of farmland to form what is now the world’s 4^th largest Greenbelt, bigger than PEI. In 2017, 21 urban river valleys were added. The 8,097 Km2 Greenbelt is now 8% of Southern Ontario and 1% of all Ontario. 

Ontario’s population is forecast to move from 15 million in 2021 to 17.5 million by 2030 and to 21 million by 2050. At three people per home, that translates into 2 million more homes by 2050, or about 66,700 per year, the same as the average of housing starts over the past 30 years. So, there should be no cause for panic. In 2050, southern Ontario is expected to have a population density of 118 people per square kilometer (km2), the same as France, and Ohio, and less than half of the UK or Germany. The density for all of Ontario will be 24 per Km2, like Oklahoma and Colorado.  

According to a report commissioned by Environmental Defence and completed by the former Waterloo director of community planning, Ontario has enough land to build more than 2 million homes without opening the Greenbelt, and this existing capacity is “well distributed across municipalities in the Golden Horseshoe.”  And according to the official population forecast, we don’t need 2 million homes until 2050. The report demonstrates that if we’re building the type of housing we actually need in Ontario, to accommodate future growth, at a level that’s affordable for people, we already have enough land capacity without encroaching on the Greenbelt.

The real question is how to define “affordable”. Logically, we would start with an affordable monthly cost (by location) and from that determine the size. The average house size has been increasing since the 1970s. An international survey found today’s average house size in square feet is 2,164 in the USA, 1,948 in Canada, 1,475 in Denmark, 1,206 in France, 1,173 in Germany, 1,023 in Japan, 893 in Sweden, and 818 in the UK. Of course, larger houses demand more energy, unless size is offset by more energy-efficient heating and cooling systems. The Auditor General’s investigation concluded that the decision to open the Greenbelt for development was heavily influenced by developers who stand to make over $8 billion from the plan. 

Transportation

It will be necessary to make some minor encroachments on the Greenbelt to accommodate the need for more and better transit. Fact Check – The 16 km Bradford Bypass (2.5 Km2), and the 52 km Hwy 413 addition (8 km2) will together affect less than half of 1% of the Greenbelt.  Ford is reopening the Ontario Northland Railway and, if people use it, that will also help relieve traffic congestion. But there is much more to be done on public transit and that too will have minor negative effects but much bigger positive effects on traffic congestion in the Greenbelt. 

Energy

Turning to the energy challenge, a study by the WHO, the US CDC, and the US Energy Information Agency concluded that based on fatalities per billion kwh produced, nuclear is by far the safest source of energy. But some on the Left go nuts when they hear the word nuclear. Canada has had the world’s best and safest nuclear technology for over 50 years. The Ford government is refurbishing our nuclear plants for the next 50 years and adding capacity at the Bruce plant to replace the oldest reactors at Pickering. Bruce has the space and a proven record.  

At current consumption rates, proven reserves of oil and gas will be used up by just about the time their carbon emissions have made the earth’s climate unliveable.  Canada’s carbon emissions per capita are second to only a couple of Middle East countries, and that results in our oil and gas selling at a significant discount.  Alberta has everything needed to survive and thrive in the new era of clean energy.  

But Alberta conservatives, and the federal supporters that depend on them for votes, go nuts about any attempt by the federal government to exercise their responsibility regarding natural resources or environmental matters, even when federal efforts provide significant help to Alberta’s key industry.  

A full one-third of Canada’s natural gas consumption goes to the Alberta oil fields to melt the heavy oil so it can be pumped to the surface. That gas is the source of a full 26% of Canada’s emissions, and it can now be replaced almost free by co-generation of heat as clean geothermal and small nuclear sources make clean electricity. The federal government is investing billions to support Alberta’s industry with carbon capture and storage for the short term, and small nuclear for the longer term, along with the Trans-Mountain oil pipeline and Coastal Gas Link pipeline to make our cleaner oil and gas available to countries that will still need it during the next 30 years of the global transition to clean energy. The oil and gas industry is happy to receive that help, but it does not serve the political purposes of Alberta conservatives.   

Ford made a mistake by cancelling McGuinty’s feed-in-tariff program for wind and solar power. Fact: After 25 years of intense effort, not one country in the world has come within a country mile of replacing fossil fuels with wind and solar, but they can make a valuable contribution. We need every known source of clean energy to replace fossil fuels. Diversity of sources is the best way to ensure we minimize material and skill shortages due to competition from other countries. The good news is that there are rumors Ford is considering the reinstatement of the feed-in-tariff program. There is a huge opportunity to install rooftop solar on thousands of commercial buildings in Ontario. Wind power takes little space because turbines can co-exist with crops and gardens and grazing.

Gasoline for light-duty vehicles and mobile equipment will be replaced by 60% less electrical energy for much more energy-efficient EVs. Hydrogen will replace diesel fuel for heavy-duty vehicles and equipment. The counter-seasonal nature of wind and solar output makes hybrid wind-solar modules ideal for making green hydrogen. The hydrogen itself provides the energy storage required for intermittent wind and solar, so costly and tricky-to-manage battery storage is not required.  

To the benefit of their constituents, the Ontario Conservatives and the Federal Liberals have found some productive ways to cooperate on many files. Federal opposition parties can be expected to oppose the federal government, but opposition does not serve the country and the world unless it is based on sensible solutions backed by accurate facts and solid science. We are clearly in a war against climate change. Wartime thinking and cooperation should prevail.

Hugh Holland is a retired engineering and manufacturing executive now living in Huntsville, Ontario.

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