FCM Sustainable Conference mini-update

I have been having a great deal of fun attending the Federation of Canadian Municipalities’ Sustainable Communities Conference this week, talking with all sorts of people from Nunavut to Newfoundland.

  • Registering people, despite being a largely dull job, was actually fairly interesting, because you get little 30-sec bios of where they are from, something that happening there, etc.
  • A great highlight was a bike tour of various rain gardens and low-impact developments — including the CRD Building and the Atrium — with the Fraser Basin Council‘s Angela Evans and the CRD along with 11 people from across Canada all at various skill levels with bicycling. It was interesting see some of our infrastructure from a new cyclist’s eyes, especially the abysmal Johnson St. Bridge (it just can’t go fast enough) and just how good some of it is, including the superlative Galloping Goose (although they tended to right two abreast, not realizing that this wasn’t just a recreational cycling path).
  • Talking funding of active transportation with the FCM’s Green Municipal Fund people, Transport Canada, and Infrastructure Canada.
  • Listening to CropLife Canada spin that they are not an evil GMO-pushing multinational-front that hates pesticide bans. Honest! They just want “science-based” decision-making. Preferably at the federal level where they can buy the votes to prevent pesticide/herbicide bans like Oak Bay’s from ever seeing the light of day.

I am off today to see more, if the 12-hour days don’t get me first.