Can Niagara, Ontario Stake Claim To The Title – ‘Green Capital of Canada’?

A Commentary by Doug Draper

Niagara is already world-famous for the Falls and for its title as the ‘Honeymoon Capital’. And more recently, the Ontario side of our greater Niagara region was named by Canada’s federal government as this year’s ‘Cultural Capital’, partially as a nod to however many local artists and art centres we have here, and to the many commemorative events that will unfold across the region for the bicentennial of the War of 1812.

Niagara hydro facilities a source of clean, renewable "green" energy.

Yet why stop there? The late Joe McCaffery, who was mayor of the Niagara city of St. Catharines some 20 years ago, began almost every speech he gave with the declarations that the city  was the ‘Rowing Capital of the World’, the ‘Recycling Capital of the Universe’, the ‘Doughnut Capital’ because of the disproportionately large (or should I say enlarging as in fattening)  number of doughnut shops per capita, the ‘Polka Capital’ because Canada’s “Polka King” Walter Ostanek lives in the city, and on and on. I think that if a bunch of revelers stumbled out of a pub on St. Patrick’s Day and swore they say a herd of unicorns galloping through the streets of downtown St. Catharines, Mayor Joe, as he was affectionately called, would have wasted less time than it takes to down another shot of Irish Whiskey to declare the city the Unicorn Capital too.

So along with the ‘Honeymoon Capital’ and ‘Cultural Capital’ and ‘Wine Country’ and whatever other brand I may be missing at the moment, why not dub Niagara, Ontario Canada’s ‘Green Capital’?

That was the motion Niagara Falls Mayor Jim Diodati tabled at this March 1^st’s regional council meeting and that the rest of the council is now considering.

“There are a lot of reasons why we can rightfully take our place as a Green Capital,” said an enthusiastic Diodati, who reminded his listeners that Niagara plays host to Sir Adam Beck and other facilities that together make up the largest single source of “clean hydro energy” in the country.

Diodati went on to point to Niagara College’s recent opening of the Rankin Technology Centre for training students in rapidly growing field of renewable energy and to the number of businesses across the region that are taking steps to conserve energy, water and other resources. It all sounded pretty impressive the way the Niagara Falls mayor described it, though not everyone on the council was as ready as he is to hug the ‘Green Capital’ title.

St. Catharines regional councillor Andy Petrowski, who at one point made reference to the late Mayor McCaffery’s declarations, wondered out loud if dubbing Niagara the ‘Green Capital’ label was “just bragging rights”. Niagara Falls regional councillor Bart Maves cautioned that branding Niagara “green” may fill people, including visitors to the region, with expectations that can’t be realized.

There is a place for some caution here. It can hardly be said that Niagara has one of the best public transit networks in Ontario, let alone the country, and an inter-municipal transit system launched last September often features mostly empty buses because many Niagara residents either prefer to drive their own cars or either still aren’t aware of the system or don’t find it attractive enough to use.

Niagara Falls, Ontario Mayor Jim Diodati wants to paint region "green."

 There is also the matter of “smart growth” where Niagara talks the talk yet our politicians with the tacit approval of many residents move forward with allowing a mish mash of strip malls and big box stores, not to mention a regional hospital complex, on former farmlands on the outskirts of west St. Catharines.

We’ve got block after block of low-density residential sprawl moving further out into the fields and forests of west Niagara Falls and Welland has been in the process of moving its retail centre onto acres of old fields off Woodlawn Road and the 406 Highway. Niagara’s regional council is also supporting a bid to expand the urban boundaries in rural West Lincoln and the regional government is on record as being a long-time proponent of a new 400-series “mid-peninsula highway that would could through the farmlands of that municipality and others. So we are hardly in a position to hold this region up as the best model for sustainable, environmentally friendly (let alone economically friendly from a cost-of-infrastructure point of view) growth.

Then there is the matter of wind power facilities and the amount of opposition there is to proposals to erect wind-turbine towers on rural lands in West Lincoln and Wainfleet. At the March 1 council meeting where the idea of painting the region green was being debated, West Lincoln Mayor Douglas Joyner and Wainfleet Mayor April Jeffs both said that branding Niagara the country’s ‘Green Capital’ would like make their job of addressing the concerns so many of their residents have about any negative impacts of these facilities more difficult.

“I am in favour of green energy,” said Joyner, but there are strong concerns about wind farms, he added, as he joined Jeffs in arguing that it may be “premature” to take on a Green Capital’ label that may signal to some that Niagara is open to the wind farms now being proposed.

Despite Diodati’s counter argument that adopting the label doesn’t necessarily mean the region has to be totally pure in its greenness – after all even the ‘Honeymoon Capital’, he said, is home to some people who get divorced – Joyner, Jeffs and a majority of others on the council decided to wait and see what changes Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty may make to the province’s Green Energy Act before it makes a final decision.

What difference any actions McGuinty takes in the weeks ahead to either strengthen or weaken his government’s green energy legislation would make to any claim Niagara has to crown itself the country’s ‘Green Capital’ is not clear. If McGuinty changes the act in ways that make it harder for the wind farm plans for West Lincoln and Wainfleet to get approved, would that make Niagara any greener?

Well at least a few of us are scratching our heads trying to figure that out, here is your chance to say how capital an idea you think this is. Share your views with your mayor and your directly elected regional councillors (if you have one or more regional councillors in your municipality) and, by all means, let us know what you think in the comment boxes below.

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