Join CAFES in opposing Bill 5, the Ford government's latest attack on the environment!
The Protect Ontario by Unleashing our Economy Act, known as Bill 5, would allow the province to overhaul existing environmental protections to expedite new energy and infrastructure development or mineral extraction projects. The Bill would also repeal the Endangered Species Act, weaken environmental assessment laws, and expedite mining projects. In short, it would give the Premier unlimited power to pursue environmentally-destructive development projects without proper oversight.
First Nations leaders have criticized the Bill for infringing on their treaty rights, and warn that they are prepared to take legal action if it passes. In response, the Ford government put forward amendments this week saying that the government will create special "Indigenous-led economic zones", but no definition has been provided in terms of what this means.
At present, Liberal and NDP MPPs have stalled the third and final reading. The committee process will resume on Monday at the earliest.
CAFES is currently pushing for Ottawa's City Council to pass a municipal motion opposing Bill 5, following the examples of Kingston and Cornwall (see draft motion below).
There's still time to take action!
1. Sign and share these petitions:
2. Contact Premier Ford (premier@ontario.ca) and your MPP to express your concern and urge them to oppose Bill 5.
3. Share this information widely on social media, in your networks, or with local environmental groups who may not yet be aware of the bill's full scope.
On Thursday June 5th, the Agriculture and Rural Affairs Committee (ARAC) will meet to discuss Evolugen's application for the Marchurst Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) Municipal Support Resolution (MSR). CAFES is urging citizens to give a 5-minute delegation in support of the City of Ottawa Council giving an MSR to Evolugen for the Marchurst proposed project.
CAFES has carefully looked at the concerns expressed by the anti-BESS residents, including safety and ecological concerns. We have studied the literature on the risks and benefits of the BESS technology. We have interrogated the Evolugen project proponent on a number of points requiring clarification. We have attended the February 23rd Open House. We have come to the conclusion that the Marchurst site selected by Evolugen is low impact locally with very low risks. At the same time, the benefits of BESS are considerable and numerous, both for residents of Dunrobin, for residents of West Carleton and for the households and businesses served by the grid in the greater Ottawa area.
If you wish to speak, register your request to make a delegation with the committee coordinator Christopher Zwierzchowski (christopher.zwierzchowski@ottawa.ca). Requests to speak must be submitted before 9:00am on the day of committee, and visual presentations must be submitted by 4pm on June 4th.
After the ARAC deliberation and recommendation, the MSR vote will go to City Council on June 11th for a vote. If you wish to support the BESS project, please consider writing to your own councillor before June 10th, urging them to vote in support of the Marchurst BESS MSR.
The CAFES Climate Misinformation team has prepared responses to common concerns and misinformation about BESS projects. These responses will enable you to counter BESS misinformation in a productive, research-backed manner. Check them out now!
It's time to have your say on Draft 2 of the new Comprehensive Zoning By-law! From now until June 30th, the public consultation period is open for you to submit your comments, concerns and ideas to the city's planning team.
The city is holding three public consultation open houses - the first one was just last night on Thursday May 29th. The open houses will include presentations from city planning staff on the major changes from Draft 1 to Draft 2, which includes changes to Neighbourhood Zones, height transitions in Mainstreet Zones, communal parking lots in neighbourhoods, and changes to permitted uses in Industrial Zones. At the end there will be a question and answer period. Public attendance will likely be high and it will be best to come prepared with your questions. See details below for the next two open houses:
You can also submit your comments in writing to NewZoning@ottawa.ca. Again the deadline is June 30th. At some point in June, there will be focused surveys coming to Engage Ottawa as well - stayed tuned for those and watch for more updates on the Engage Ottawa Zoning page. Draft 3 is expected to be released on September 8th, 2025 and will go to Joint Committee and Council on December 17th 2025 and January 28th 2026, respectively. The final version of the by-law is expected to be enacted in Q1 2026.
Continue reading below for a background on CAFES' involvement with Draft 2 with respect to trees, and the new Zoning By-law as a whole.
On Monday, March 31st, 2025 the Joint Planning and Housing and Agriculture and Rural Affairs Committee met to receive Draft 2 of the New Comprehensive Zoning By-law. Erica Shardlow, speaking for the CAFES network, provided a public delegation in support of zoning metrics that protect and regulate the space for canopy trees through required soil volumes, soft landscaping minimums and setbacks on residential lots. The March 31st committee meeting can be viewed on Youtube here.
CAFES' comments and recommendations on Draft 2 are summarized in the following points, and you can see our full presentation below.
CAFES has been engaged in the New Comprehensive Zoning By-law since January of 2024 when a group of experienced volunteers formed a working group and co-wrote a recommendations paper on how zoning can regulate trees. We have been continuing to update our paper throughout the development of the new by-law and submitted version 3.0 to the city in October 2024. Also in October, we submitted a detailed recommendations document on Draft 1 as part of the Peoples Official Plan Coalition (POP).
If you have questions or comments please contact Erica at eshardlow@cafesottawa.ca
Ever heard someone say that Canadian wildfires are no big deal, that natural gas exports reduce emissions, or even that more CO2 is good for the planet?
With a recent investigation by Canada's National Observer revealing that AI chatbots are being used to flood municipal councils with climate misinformation, countering these pervasive myths is more important than ever.
For CAFES, addressing climate misinformation is key to our work, and we've created several resources to empower you to respond to climate misinformation in your daily life.
The CAFES Climate Misinformation team has prepared a webpage to equip you with credible information debunking common myths surrounding climate science, renewable energy and batteries, transportation, and urban planning. We further provide resources to support you in advocating for meaningful climate action in municipal policy-making spaces.
In addition to the webpage, CAFES Executive Director Angela Keller-Herzog recently penned an op-ed in the West Carleton Online addressing misinformation surrounding the proposed South March Battery Energy Storage System in West Carleton. Check it out!
CAFES has launched a NEW petition to urge the City of Ottawa to report on the city's greenhouse gas emissions and release missing inventory reports from the past four years.
The City of Ottawa committed to ANNUAL reporting of both community and corporate greenhouse gas emissions, but has failed to do since the 2021 emissions inventory report (which was based on 2020 data). Annual reports were promised to be publicly available to the residents of Ottawa. The Environment and Climate Change Committee was told by staff that the overdue report would be forthcoming in December 2024, yet no report has been released.
We are petitioning Ottawa City Council as follows:
Timely measurement and transparent reporting of emissions are essential to managing climate action effectively and ensuring public accountability. Please demonstrate your support by signing our petition NOW.
Remember to also email your Councillor urging them to take action on emissions reporting - find your ward counsellor here. Please share this petition widely - every signature counts!
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On April 22nd, CAFES delivered a public delegation to the Community Services Committee regarding the staff report and strategic proposal for a new Community-led Green Initiatives and Garden Program. We were joined by other impactful delegations by Just Food, Maitland Area Pollinator Projects (MAPP), and many more!
As a background - on October 25th, 2023, Council approved a Motion that directed City staff to update and review the Community Garden Action Plan (CGAP), with recommendations on processes, scope and resources for facilitating community gardens and other community-led green initiatives on City land.
The City contracted an external consultant, Hoffmann Hayes, to conduct an internal review and scan of best practices from other Canadian municipalities on community gardens and community-led green initiatives. The internal review identified opportunities and gaps in current programming, policies and processes, and about 1,000 residents were consulted through engagement sessions and an online survey. During this process, there has been a moratorium on all community gardening requests.
Based on the findings, the staff report presented at the April 22nd meeting recommended the development of a long-term strategic framework and to streamline internal operations, including:
At the meeting Councillor Marty Carr provided a direction to staff on including a streamlined intake process and including invasives in the scope, which should coordinate with the invasives work already being undertaken by Public Works. Staff are to come back with this in Q4 2025.
In our delegation (see PowerPoint below), we expressed that we welcome a clear, streamlined intake process with a single point of contact for ALL community-led planting requests, including tree planting, growing food, pollinator gardening, invasive plant species removal and replacement, rain gardens, cultural gardens, public education activities, and more. We highlighted the successful and accessible Toronto Nature Stewards program - in which volunteers restore city-owned natural areas and utilize a simplified waiver process - and suggested Ottawa strike up a pilot based off this program model.
Overall, many Councillors echoed community concerns about the lack of details included in the staff report and the absence of any sort of timeline for program implementation. We will be eagerly awaiting further operational details and hope for in-depth community consultation. The proposed program will come to the next City Council meeting on April 30th.
We would like to share another significant win for the Kebaowek First Nation as the federal court recognized the approved plans for a Near-Surface Disposal Facility (NSDF) at Chalk River as a threat to several key species at-risk, including two species of endangered bats and the Blanding's Turtle.
This ruling will require the Environment Minister to reconsider the species-at-risk permit issued by the government and determine whether there are other viable locations that would have fewer impacts on wildlife. As a result, plans to move forward with the NSDF have been put on hold.
This ruling comes after a previous win for the Kebaowek First Nation in February 2025 in which the federal court recognized that the duty to provide free, prior and informed consent was not properly upheld by the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC). The court ordered CSNC and Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL) to resume consultation with Kebaowek First Nation to ensure that not only consent, but Indigenous laws, knowledge and processes, are integrated into the decision-making for the nuclear waste project.
These are a significant victories and we must all continue to work together to centre Indigenous leadership and protect our shared lands and waters.
Visit the links below for additional readings and resources on the NSDF site and the judicial reviews.
CAFES held its Keynote Speaker Event and 2025 Annual General Meeting (AGM) on March 27th, 2025 to a large and eager-to-learn online audience. We opened the event with engaging presentations from our keynote speakers, Mike Ewall (Energy Justice Network) and Liz Benneian (Ontario Zero Waste Coalition) on the question of 'A Solid Waste Incinerator for Ottawa?' The presentations were highly informative and ignited a lively discussion during the Q&A session that followed!
If you missed the Keynote Speaker Event, don't worry, you can:
Right after the keynote portion of the event we moved on the our 2025 AGM. Important topics about CAFES were discussed with members, such as our annual report, financial review, tabling of new motions including a change to our organization's operating name, collecting member feedback, and renewing the CAFES Board of Director for 2025.
Some of the key outputs of AGM included:
You can view the 2025 CAFES AGM recording here.
Lastly, please take 5-10 minutes to fill out our network survey HERE to share your thoughts on CAFES and express your priorities for the year ahead. Your responses are hugely appreciated!
CAFES is pleased to introduce our new Board of Directors elected at our recent Annual General Meeting held on March 27th, 2025. CAFES has always attracted high-calibre board members and this year is no different! Each of our board members come with impressive skills and experience and we look forward to what our 2025 CAFES Board will achieve in the year ahead! Our board members also represent a large cross-section of Ottawa, coming from rural, suburban and urban areas of our community.
Read the bios of the 2025 CAFES Board of Director here.
A special thanks to our 2024 Board for all their hard work and dedication to CAFES over the last year. Our latest Impact Report demonstrates the amazing things CAFES achieved in 2024 under their watch! We'd also like to extend our gratitude and a fond farewell to our outgoing board members; James Stevenson (Chair of the Board), Guy Dubuc (Treasurer of the Board), Dr. Emma Bider (Member of the Board) and Ariella Ritter Gubbay (Member of the Board).
To better reflect CAFES' growing network, a motion to change our operating name was presented and accepted by our members at the CAFES 2025 Annual General Meeting on March 27th. We're happy to announce that going forward, Community Associations for Environmental Sustainability (CAFES) will now be know as Community Action for Environmental Sustainability (CAFES).
Over the last few years the CAFES membership has evolved from being mostly community associations into a more diverse network that now includes many civic and environmental organizations as well as numerous individual members, all dedicated to environmental action in Ottawa.
We believe the name change will help others in the community to more easily identify our mission and will attract an even larger cross-section of people interested in taking Community Action for Environmental Sustainability in Ottawa!
