Over the past four years, several Community Associations and CAFES members, along with Ecology Ottawa, have advocated for strengthening the City’s outdated 2007 Idling Control By-Law.
On Thursday September 19th, Councillors will review a staff report recommending changes to the by-law. Two Committees are involved in the review, ECCC and Emergency Preparedness. The documents have now been posted including an interesting "What we Learned Report".
Attached are our recommendations sent to Councillor Shawn Menard in June 2022. Following discussions with us, Councillor Menard/ECCC directed staff to review the by-law.
While the by-law proposed is not all we wanted, it's an improvement. The reduced idling time is a positive step forward (from three minutes to one minute) as is the lower temperature threshold (0 degrees C from 5 degrees C), plus a limit of 5 minutes for both temps below 0 and above 27 degrees C (there was previously no time limit). There's also clarity on exemptions and alignment with city vehicle policy.
Statistics showing the greenhouse gases that would be eliminated by the change are useful, as are statistics showing that there are still vastly more ICE vehicles (compared to EVs/Hybrids), which justifies the by-law revision.
However, there is no funding for signs (eg. signage discouraging idling in critical zones such as schools), nor for an educational flyer distributed to households, such as the one we recently received about the 3-bag garbage limit. There is also no mention of Ottawa Public Health, and there was a disappointing response from school boards and the student transportation authority.
While for us this is a no brainer, there are several Councillors who are likely to vote 'no' to the proposed changes, and a number of Councillors whose support is questionable. That’s why CAFES plans to make a public delegation at the September 19th ECCC and Emergency Preparedness committee meeting. We will discuss our position at a meeting of the CAFES Climate Caucus at noon Tue September 17 (RSVP Here). We encourage others who support a stronger idling by-law to speak up by registering for a delegation or submitting written comments.
For a quick read, see the following highlights by CTV.
