A radical redesign of our urban landscape along the lines of what you suggest would be a good start, but even that is not going to happen quickly or any time soon in most of the country. There are any number of things we could do, any number of things we definitely should do, and many of the ones you list are certainly among them even if they are not in themselves sufficient. But it’s not happening, not just now. Canada remains stubbornly set on an unsustainable path. We are oil dependent to a horrifying degree. Without petroleum exports our balance of trade would be a disaster. It’s looking quite bad even while the country still is a major oil exporter. Agriculture is about to take a hit from climate change. Things will continue getting worse before they get better even if our politicians do suddenly come to their senses and start getting serious about redesigning the way our cities and economy function.
Meanwhile we will continue to have the worst of both worlds: Rapid population growth driven by net migration, as well as tightly-controlled borders to keep out the officially undesirable people.
We’re actually not that bad when it comes to fossil fuels. Yes, petroleum exports are pretty bad (14% of all exports by value), but from an energy generation standpoint, oil only comes in after both wind and nuclear. Most of our electricity actually comes from hydro, despite the prairies having zero waterfalls. Our carbon emissions are actually mostly coming from home heating, which is pretty bad admittedly, but we’re finally starting to do something about it by subsidizing heat pumps, at least on the east coast.
As for the housing bit, yea. For-profit organizations are always going to do whatever is the combination of easiest and most profitable. Things won’t change unless if you make things either horribly unprofitable, or the government steps in and does it themselves. And of the two, I think the latter is the only way to make worthwhile change quickly. The government can quickly change the laws and nullify things like housing associations so that proper mixed use housing can be legalized in most places, then actually contract companies to make them, and make them quickly. It only takes two years to turn a plot of land into a fully functional mid-rise building, and that’s taking into consideration Toronto’s bad soil qualities for construction. One year for places with stable soil.
And if the government owns the buildings, it easily has the resources to actually have these buildings built, and could start raking in the profits as they’ll be filled out with pre-purchases immediately.
We’re actually not that bad when it comes to fossil fuels.
Where did you get that idea? Not that it’s the only problem, but fossil fuel use in Canada is currently bouncing back towards its pre-pandemic all-time highs.
I was talking about how our electricity generation isn’t that bad: https://www.statista.com/statistics/248155/electricity-generation-in-canada-by-type/
Admittedly I was wrong about how high wind was, but for this one metric, the numbers aren’t that bad. The issue is that most of the fossil fuel is used in heating, which is different from electricity generation, and is difficult to deal with because it’s completely decentralized. On the other hand, it’s not nearly as bad as other places, as proper subsidies on heat pumps nation wide.
Canada is definitely at the top of energy usage per capita, but that’s not a problem as long as that energy source is from somewhere that isn’t polluting. We’re not there yet, but the solution isn’t difficult. Hell, there isn’t even any sort of public pushback against the sort of change that is needed, unlike in Germany or something.
I thought of your comment when I saw this story: Every developer has opted to pay Montreal instead of building affordable housing, under new bylaw
A radical redesign of our urban landscape along the lines of what you suggest would be a good start, but even that is not going to happen quickly or any time soon in most of the country. There are any number of things we could do, any number of things we definitely should do, and many of the ones you list are certainly among them even if they are not in themselves sufficient. But it’s not happening, not just now. Canada remains stubbornly set on an unsustainable path. We are oil dependent to a horrifying degree. Without petroleum exports our balance of trade would be a disaster. It’s looking quite bad even while the country still is a major oil exporter. Agriculture is about to take a hit from climate change. Things will continue getting worse before they get better even if our politicians do suddenly come to their senses and start getting serious about redesigning the way our cities and economy function.
Meanwhile we will continue to have the worst of both worlds: Rapid population growth driven by net migration, as well as tightly-controlled borders to keep out the officially undesirable people.
We’re actually not that bad when it comes to fossil fuels. Yes, petroleum exports are pretty bad (14% of all exports by value), but from an energy generation standpoint, oil only comes in after both wind and nuclear. Most of our electricity actually comes from hydro, despite the prairies having zero waterfalls. Our carbon emissions are actually mostly coming from home heating, which is pretty bad admittedly, but we’re finally starting to do something about it by subsidizing heat pumps, at least on the east coast.
As for the housing bit, yea. For-profit organizations are always going to do whatever is the combination of easiest and most profitable. Things won’t change unless if you make things either horribly unprofitable, or the government steps in and does it themselves. And of the two, I think the latter is the only way to make worthwhile change quickly. The government can quickly change the laws and nullify things like housing associations so that proper mixed use housing can be legalized in most places, then actually contract companies to make them, and make them quickly. It only takes two years to turn a plot of land into a fully functional mid-rise building, and that’s taking into consideration Toronto’s bad soil qualities for construction. One year for places with stable soil.
And if the government owns the buildings, it easily has the resources to actually have these buildings built, and could start raking in the profits as they’ll be filled out with pre-purchases immediately.
Where did you get that idea? Not that it’s the only problem, but fossil fuel use in Canada is currently bouncing back towards its pre-pandemic all-time highs.
canada energy consumption by source
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/consumption-based-energy-per-capita
I was talking about how our electricity generation isn’t that bad: https://www.statista.com/statistics/248155/electricity-generation-in-canada-by-type/ Admittedly I was wrong about how high wind was, but for this one metric, the numbers aren’t that bad. The issue is that most of the fossil fuel is used in heating, which is different from electricity generation, and is difficult to deal with because it’s completely decentralized. On the other hand, it’s not nearly as bad as other places, as proper subsidies on heat pumps nation wide.
Canada is definitely at the top of energy usage per capita, but that’s not a problem as long as that energy source is from somewhere that isn’t polluting. We’re not there yet, but the solution isn’t difficult. Hell, there isn’t even any sort of public pushback against the sort of change that is needed, unlike in Germany or something.