# Talking Trash with Kieran McKenzie

An episode of [Rose City Politics](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1247337855), 16 Nov 2023, 44 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/57665301/talking_trash_with_kieran_mckenzie.mp3

Doug sat down with Ward 9 Councillor Kieran McKenzie to talk about solid waste in Windsor / Essex and Windsor's prospects for meeting it's climate goals.

## Transcript

[0:23] A little bit of a Rose City politics special today. Doug Startry here joined
[0:29] by Counselor Kieran mackenzie. How you doing, Kieren? I'm doing well.
[0:32] Thanks for having me on, Doug, Yeah, I really appreciate you.
[0:36] And in the studio too. I think you're the first elected official to show
[0:39] up in the studio. So uh there we we'll remember to put that gold
[0:43] star by your by your name in the yearbook. I'm number one. Yeah,
[0:47] so today and I know normally when we get together you would be used
[0:51] to trash talking, but actually today we're going to talk trash as I understand
[0:56] it. So Kieran, you we're kind of the windsor face of organic waste
[1:03] in this recent thank you, in this recent in this recent discussion. Do
[1:08] you want to bring us up to speed on what's happening in Windsor sure?
[1:11] Okay, So for folks that are listening, buckle up. This is a
[1:15] good two to three minutes at least, maybe closer to five. But there
[1:19] is a story here, so bear with me. Goes back to last term
[1:23] of council, the province actually did a mandated province wide that municipalities across Ontario
[1:30] a great number of municipalities across Ontario are going to have to by twenty twenty
[1:36] five divert organic waste out of the landfill and into some form of a recycling
[1:42] stream. Different municipalities have different targets based on population density and a range of
[1:49] other factors. So what became a challenge for us in Windsor, Essex was
[1:56] even though we do a great majority of our waste collection services collectively through the
[2:01] Essex Windsor Solid Waste Authority, and I was sitting on that board last term,
[2:06] I sat on that board this term and I came back to that board,
[2:08] by the way, because I wanted to be a part of these these
[2:10] these discussions around a RANDO organic waste and how we divert it. It was
[2:17] the idea that we as at that board level, need to do that,
[2:22] which should look at doing that collectively, despite the fact that there were different
[2:24] diversion targets for different municipalities in our regions. So as a for example,
[2:30] the city of Windsor had is mandated to divert seventy percent of its organic waste
[2:36] out of the landfill into some sort of recycling stream. The town of tacom
[2:40] See and LaSalle for example fifty percent, Leamington fifty percent, I think Amersburg
[2:46] thirty and then the other municipalities had no obligation to divert any of their works
[2:54] for the mandate. So what we did at solid that actually complied the discussion
[3:00] to some extent at the Solid Waste Authority. Sorry, Karen, in a
[3:04] market and you got to bring it back. I you did the wrong channel
[3:07] when I coughed. Okay, sorry, man, Yeah, give me about
[3:10] the last ten seconds again. Okay, that actually complicated the discussion at the
[3:16] Solid Waste Authority because what ideally we would look at doing is creating a common
[3:23] collection system for those for that waste. And even while we're at it,
[3:27] let's look at if we're already doing organics coming to pick up organics curbside at
[3:31] everybody's at everybody's front door, so to speak, that we should maybe look
[3:37] at doing all of those waste collection services for all of the material that would
[3:42] either go to the landfill or the organics, all in one sort of package,
[3:46] one contract that we would negotiate with a proponent that was that met with
[3:52] some challenges and some pushback, and unsurprisingly because different municipalities in our region had
[3:58] different diversion targets that the province was had mandated for them, so you know,
[4:03] and then there was also the question of what we would do with the
[4:06] material on it once it's collected. So there was a study that was commissioned
[4:11] by the City of Windsor and the lead at when it almost when it was
[4:14] originally mandated by the province, the Solid Waste Authority was a little bit behind
[4:18] and actually relied on the analysis that was conducted by the consultants from the City
[4:24] of Windsor that brought forward a number of recommendations. Among them, one of
[4:29] the things that was recommended in terms of what we were just recently dealing with
[4:31] was we should all work together to collect the organic waste in the region because
[4:38] a we can do it more affordably. If we work together, we can
[4:42] collectively extend the life of the landfill. If we work together, you'll meet
[4:46] some of your climate change goals through all of this. So it's good for
[4:50] financially. It's good service delivery because you have a across the entire region,
[4:57] a common collection system that everybody can under stand and everybody sort of on the
[5:00] same page and getting the same level of service and then it's good for it's
[5:05] good for the environment. Having said that, there's obviously changes that would need
[5:12] to or that were going to come based on what that service would actually look
[5:15] like. So we finally got to the end of the mandate of the last
[5:18] term with everybody on the same page saying, let's work together and do this
[5:24] collectively coming into this new term of council. What as recently the decision that
[5:30] was recently rendered was basically municipalities across the region were asked to look at the
[5:35] specifics of what that program would look like. So what was proposed, the
[5:41] long and short of it was that there would be a bi weekly collection of
[5:45] all of the let's call it regular waste that would end up at the landfill.
[5:50] So for most municipalities, including the city Windsor, that would mean and
[5:54] some people were interpreting that as a reduction in service, meaning rather than getting
[5:58] their garb which collected every week, it would be every other week. So
[6:02] concerns around that, and I'll address that in a moment, but that we
[6:05] would show up weekly to pick up all of the organic waste, so and
[6:12] we would add also a bi weekly collection for yard waste. So there was
[6:18] actually when you actually look at the total service proposal, it's actually an augmentation
[6:24] in service for everybody across the entire region because you're actually getting it if you
[6:28] can, if you wanted to break it down into the number of times you
[6:30] show up at your curb, it's actually I think one full extra collection per
[6:36] per cycle, if you will. So having said that, there was pushback,
[6:42] and you know what led what where we landed is just recently the municipalities
[6:47] across individual municipalities across the county weren't able to achieve a majority to endorse the
[6:58] proposal that came from the Solid Waste Authority. So the city winsor said yes
[7:02] not part of the county framework. The county has their triple majority process they
[7:08] started with they started off well, it was they endorsed it at the county
[7:13] council level. Then as a part of this process, this triple majority,
[7:16] it goes to each individual municipality and each individual council has the opportunity to vote
[7:23] on it. In order for it to pass at that stage, you need
[7:26] to have four of the seven municipalities representing over fifty percent of the electorate to
[7:31] say yes. So the way that that vote went down. Leamington was a
[7:35] yes, to come see was a yes, Amersburg was a yes, and
[7:41] then all of the other municipalities were no. So that's three. So this
[7:47] is where we are today. I see, So is that clear? Yes?
[7:53] I have a couple of questions. I'm curious, like the so some
[7:58] municipalities have zero zero percent diversion that mandate, but some have thirty and seventy
[8:03] And I'm really curious. And I know maybe this is a technical like we're
[8:05] getting too technical, but whatever, it's our show. What is the difference,
[8:11] like the material difference in your obligation? If you are like, is
[8:15] this is this something that is measured measured empirically or is it estimated based on
[8:22] what your program is? So what it'll be looking the way that they'll calculate.
[8:26] I finder saying your question, how do we calculate how much you're diverting?
[8:30] So each municipality does actually through their tipping fees, we know how much
[8:35] how much waste they're bringing to the landfill. So they'll start off with that
[8:37] baseline number of what it is what from whatever year is the is the is
[8:43] the year that is whatever that baseline is, So based on that that creates
[8:48] the diversion target. So I don't want to say the numbers is right.
[8:54] So then I'm assuming there's some like complex calculation indexing for population changes and so
[8:58] forth. And you look at like you're if you are meant to be diverting
[9:05] seventy percent of your organic waste, and organic waste makes up this much of
[9:07] the volume of the landfill, we should see a corresponding shrinkage in the amount
[9:13] of stuff going in the landfill. Correct, So then thank you for that.
[9:18] So then a municipality that has a thirty percent obligation, would they have
[9:24] more options and more ways to reach that threshold besides the kind of program that
[9:31] was proposed, they would. So if you're at that seventy percent benchmark,
[9:35] you are legislated, legislatively obligated to have a curbside collection program. So anything
[9:43] below that threshold fifty is some other diversion program. But you still have to
[9:50] hit that threshold. You just don't have to show up at the curb to
[9:52] pick it up at everybody's at everybody's residence, so you know, and in
[9:58] thinking about that, the question of how achievable is it to get to fifty
[10:03] percent If you're not coming to people's doors, so you're kind of even there's
[10:07] an even greater degree of reliance then on residents to be thoughtful and to do
[10:16] something different that might potentially be even more onerous in terms of diverting that waste
[10:20] one way or another or some other. Maybe they there's a program that the
[10:26] municipality encourages their residence through some kind of incentive to compost. Maybe it's some
[10:33] common collection, a space where people bring their composer or their organics to some
[10:41] kind of a transfer station or depot or receptacle or whatever it might be.
[10:45] But you know, or rationing, right, it can achieve a reduction by
[10:48] rational Well that's okay, that's another way to do it. You're one hundred
[10:52] percent correct, So it would be through those things. But to you know,
[10:54] frankly, the best way to get people to separate their organics out of
[11:03] their waste stream is to have a common is to have a collection system that's
[11:07] reliable, that can get the waste out of the house, if you will,
[11:11] in a timely manner, efficient and easy, and so the more onerous
[11:18] the program is, the less adoption. Sure you're going to get and you
[11:22] know you'll fall short of those targets, so you know, to me and
[11:26] the other piece to this in terms of those mandates, those mandates and those
[11:31] those thresholds, diversion targets have been set at a point. You know,
[11:35] this is like year five will be year one of the province mandating this across
[11:43] all of Ontario. Presumably once there's programs established and let's call it a supply
[11:48] chain and all of those different pieces are more entrenched and reliable, those thresholds
[11:56] are going up for everybody, and the zero's go to thirty, maybe the
[12:01] fifties will go to seventy, and the seventies will go to ninety maybe what
[12:05] maybe one hundred. I'm not sure that that's achievable, but those thresholds are
[12:09] going to go up from here for everybody. So it makes a whole lot
[12:13] of sense when you start thinking about the economics of it, for you know,
[12:18] the municipalities that choose to say no at this point, and depending on
[12:24] what they may choose to do in the near or media near term, medium
[12:28] term, long term, at some point, there's going to be an organic
[12:33] collection system that'll be established in our region, and it'll be established by twenty
[12:39] twenty five, and there'll be a who's in and who's out. Those diversion
[12:43] targets will change, and then suddenly you'll have some municipalities that'll be thinking about,
[12:48] well, geez, how do we get to seventy percent or how do
[12:52] we get to thirty percent? We don't you know, well, you know
[12:56] Windsor has a program. What's it going to take to now buy into that
[13:01] when you weren't in on it on the ground floor. There's also the questions
[13:05] that we should be asking about whether or not from a tipping fees perspective,
[13:09] municipalities that are opting not to divert their waste out of the landfill, so
[13:16] whether or not there should be a rate that's different than municipalities that are diverting
[13:20] waste out of the landfill. And that's that's definitely a serious discussion that is
[13:26] going to have to go forward now at the Solid Waste Authority to look at
[13:30] whether or not if you know, we're all in, we're all in it
[13:35] together. With respect to the landfill. We all have a vested interest and
[13:39] an equal vested interest pro rated for population or whatnot, but we all have
[13:43] the same interest in extending the life of that space. If there's certain municipalities
[13:52] that aren't pulling their weight, should they pay more. I'm not saying yes
[13:56] or I'm not saying no. I'm asking the question. That question, that
[14:01] question will be dealt with at the at the solid waste authority one way or
[14:05] another, especially if we're not able to find a way. Uh, and
[14:09] I'll use the you know, my position on this has been made very very
[14:11] clear. To write the ship and get everybody rowing in the same direction.
[14:15] Again, what do you think the timeframe would be for escalation of those targets?
[14:20] I you know, I think we're years probably maybe five years or so,
[14:26] because there there's a few other things that are that are happening in the
[14:28] waste management universe, if you will, right now, that I think are
[14:31] quite exciting. There's the producer responsibility piece, which is maybe a whole other
[14:35] show, a completely different topic, but there's there's there's some there's some really
[14:41] significant changes that are altering the landscape of how we do waste management, how
[14:48] those services are delivered, what we do with the material, who's responsible for
[14:52] paying for those services to be delivered. So in this case, in this
[14:58] case organics, again the landfill and the idea of sighting a landfill. You
[15:05] know, it's something municipalities have to do. Figure out what to do with
[15:07] your waste. That's a core service that municipalities have to deliver in some some
[15:13] place. In some places they truck it off to some far away land.
[15:16] In our region, we've always been able to find a place somewhere in Essex
[15:20] Windsor Essex County where all of that waste gets piled up. And for anyone
[15:24] who's never been to the landfill, and I'm not talking about the transfer station,
[15:28] that's one thing that that facility on Central Avenue, Windsor it's most Windsor
[15:33] rights will be familiar with that. But the landfill is an entirely different entity.
[15:37] And it's all the things you would imagine mountains, literal mountains of garbage,
[15:43] the birds, there's a flaring, there's flaring systems because the landfill itself
[15:48] generates methane gas. It's a it's a sight to behold, uh And it's
[15:54] not a it's not a thing of beauty by any stretch of the imagination.
[15:56] So you know, and I invite any of my call to sit on solid
[16:00] waste, and anyone who's elected to go to that, to go to that
[16:03] site and look at it and recognize what that represents and what it would be
[16:07] like to try to figure out a new place to do all of that somewhere
[16:14] in our region. So again I'll come back to this issue. It's not
[16:17] just fun. There's a financial interest. It's the idea of trying to cite
[16:19] a landfill. It'll happen at some point in our future. Whoever's sitting in
[16:26] any of the decision making chairs at the time. It will not be fun.
[16:32] It will be very, very challenged. This isn't This isn't a thing
[16:36] where people are going to clamor for it like an Amazon. There's they'll there'll
[16:40] be no right decision, no matter what right, And that's the that's that's
[16:44] the but it's it's that it'll be a decision that has to be made.
[16:48] So again, the longer we can make this work, the better. And
[16:52] and I can tell you right now, having toured the landfill, I know
[16:56] like they spend every single day looking at different ways to maximize every single inch
[17:03] of that property. So you know, I think and I'm confident in saying
[17:08] we're doing all of our due diligence in terms of managing the site. But
[17:14] again, the day's gonna come. So even just setting aside, there's like
[17:19] I said, there's good economic reasons, there's good environmental reasons to do that,
[17:23] to to do this waste diversion the landfill itself and extending the life of
[17:29] that landfill by doing this and organics represents forty percent of the waste that we
[17:37] put into the total waste that we put in the landfill. Now, having
[17:40] said that, in terms of the space it occupies, because of the nature
[17:42] of the material, it's more compactible. You got to be really deep in
[17:47] the weeds on this. So it doesn't take it's forty percent of the waste,
[17:49] but it doesn't take up forty percent of the space. But it still
[17:52] takes up like twenty five to thirty percent of the space. So imagine if
[17:56] you could take that out of the landfill. What is that mean in terms
[18:00] of years? It's hard to predict. Right now, it's twenty forty is
[18:03] the predicted life cycle of that space. We probably can squeeze a few more
[18:07] years out of it, even if just through good management practices. But you
[18:12] know, taking twenty five to thirty percent of the waste, that's between now
[18:18] and twenty forty out do the math on that. There's a lot of other
[18:22] variables that enter into it in terms of are we going to produce more waste
[18:26] than we do now? Maybe we'll produce less, Maybe we will. I
[18:29] hope we do, but maybe we won't. I don't know what the future
[18:33] holds. But if the future is a future where we're consuming less and putting
[18:38] less things in the garbage, then maybe twenty forty. Maybe it's longer than
[18:44] that. But one thing we do know is if we take organics out,
[18:48] that site will have a longer lifespan than it otherwise would. Okay, that
[18:56] was that was quite a journey that we took, very informative, Kieran.
[19:00] I really appreciate the insight. You know. I want to kind of go
[19:04] back to that triple majority process because that is so interesting to me. How
[19:10] often does that is that process required, like going beyond just sort of the
[19:15] solid waste decision, Like how often does that have to happen? So that's
[19:18] a good question, Doug. I wish I had a good answer for that.
[19:21] Here's the really I don't know. I'll just say it this way the
[19:25] way I understand it, because it's triggered whenever, the way I understand it,
[19:30] whenever there's a service that would sort of that all of the municipalities that
[19:34] are involved in the county governance framework would have an equal interest that well proorted
[19:41] to the size of their municipality. But it's so if it's a service that
[19:45] affects all of them, then it has to go through something this quote triple
[19:49] majority process. So we got only to the second leg on this, so
[19:56] it it's something that I wasn't familiar with beforehand. I always kind of knew
[20:00] in the back of my mind there must be a way that they that they
[20:03] that they figure out when there's something that affects all of them, how they
[20:07] you know, everybody who's elected, I'm sure gets a kick at the can
[20:11] to some extent, and that's what this is. But you know, again
[20:15] and without you know, I'll just say this, I'm no fan of the
[20:18] current provincial government, but I don't think they made a mistake in terms of
[20:22] how they rolled this out. I think it made sense to do different diversion
[20:26] targets on organics for different municipalities, given just the different capacities that geographic realities
[20:32] and all of that there's no way that they could have created a policy province
[20:36] wide that addressed windsor Essex County's unique waste management framework. But given the fact
[20:44] that we have a a region that has eight different municipal governments and then in
[20:52] this context had different obligations in terms of a core municipal the impact on a
[20:57] core municipal service waste collection, it really created a challenge for us. And
[21:03] it's kind of unsurprising in my mind that it didn't pass through the triple majority
[21:07] process because it's almost set up to fail. But I was I had great
[21:11] hope because I think again going back to those things that we all have the
[21:14] common interest in, you can do it cheaper together. You're going to extend
[21:17] the landfill, the life of the landfill. We all agree there's a climate
[21:21] change emergency. That's to me, I thought that was enough to overcome some
[21:26] of those individual concerns at the hyper local level of like having complete control over
[21:36] a core municipal service like waste collection. So it's interesting, I think because
[21:41] beyond beyond the issue itself, there is it's a moment here where I think
[21:48] that people can look at at the actual difference between having a regional government and
[21:53] having what we've got, having a bunch of municipalities that sort of cooperate because
[22:02] here, I don't think that it's crazy to say that if we had a
[22:07] unified, if we had an amalgamated county government, that we would likely be
[22:11] getting door to door collection of organic ways throughout the county. I think that
[22:18] that's one correct And so you know, again, when amalgamation went forward as
[22:25] challenging as it was across the province, for whatever reason, windsor got sort
[22:29] of left out of that, And I know that there is some politics that
[22:33] played out in terms of those decisions, but this is one of the outgrowths
[22:37] of that. Yes, perhaps you have more direct municipality control over things that
[22:45] fall within the municipal governance framework, but it also means that it makes anything
[22:53] that could be done on a regional level, whether it's transit, waste collection,
[23:00] policing services and the range of other services that we could look at too,
[23:06] to do together, makes it that much more challenging. It makes it
[23:08] a very very steep challenge. In fact, Okay, Kieran, do you
[23:15] mind sticking around and chatting about some other stuff? Of course? Okay,
[23:18] awesome, all right the uh, because we're doing this in the middle of
[23:22] the afternoon. Only only I was able to appear in the middle of the
[23:27] day on a Wednesday. But I did ask the rest of the RCP panel
[23:32] if they had any questions for you. I particularly asked about gotcha questions.
[23:37] So I've got one in front of me that I think I need to I
[23:41] think that we need to set the table here because I I this question is
[23:47] coming in kind of hot, So let's let's set the table. We talked
[23:52] a couple of weeks ago on the show about the about the city's climate targets
[23:57] and the emissions mix of the city of Windsor, and we talked about the
[24:03] significant amount of emissions in Windsor that come via vehicular traffic. It was a
[24:11] lively discussion. I encourage you to listen to it, but I want to
[24:15] give you an opportunity to weigh in on this question. Windsor currently seems to
[24:26] be proceeding at a pace that is slower than its neighbors and slower than its
[24:30] peer municipalities in terms of investing in and developing alternative forms of transportation, particularly
[24:38] for commuters. You know, and I really want to pay I really want
[24:42] to zero in on that piece, like particularly for people who need to get
[24:47] to their place of employment, need to get to work. I feel and
[24:52] I think it's objectively true that neighboring municipalities, peer municipalities are just doing more.
[25:00] What Kieran should a resident of Windsor think about this in terms of how
[25:07] serious we are about meeting our climate targets and in terms of in terms of
[25:15] whether we're going to get there at all, it's a good question. I
[25:19] will listen to this. I didn't listen to the show, and I said
[25:22] during that debate when it came to the Environment, Transportation, Public City Standing
[25:27] Committee, this is one of the most important reports that we're going to deal
[25:32] with, even though the recommendation was just a motion to receive because there's no
[25:36] action that's being specifically directed through that report. That report is just to tell
[25:41] us where we're at and what we need to be thinking about in terms of
[25:47] opportunities to address where address our ability to meet our climate change goals, particularly
[25:56] with greenhouse gas emissions. So you're right, transportation is a if you look
[26:00] at the pie where the opportunities lie, transportation is either number one or number
[26:04] two in terms of where we need to where we need to take some take
[26:08] some significant action. So part of that, obviously when what you know,
[26:12] what we're talking about active transportation, public transit, and the capacities that we
[26:18] have on both that infrastructure and service delivery capability to to bring that forward and
[26:25] get people comfortable with making the decision not to use their private vehicle to get
[26:30] from place to place all of the places they need to get to in their
[26:33] daily lives and you know, use other some other form of transportation that is
[26:38] a either low or zero mission type of type of option. So having said
[26:45] all of that, do we have the is it achievable still? Yes,
[26:51] the answer to that question is yes, I believe it is, but even
[26:56] recent council decisions have made it even moreallenging than it otherwise might. Now let's
[27:02] talk transit. That to me is one of the most best opportunities, one
[27:07] of the best opportunities that we have to lower greenose gas emissions based on in
[27:12] the transportation piece of the pie. But in order to be able to do
[27:17] that, a the system itself needs to be more reliable and viable. But
[27:22] also, and this is this is the real challenge, and this is one
[27:25] of the things that I said in the debate, and I wanted to you
[27:27] know, I was trying to emphasize it. So my colleagues hurt it and
[27:30] they heard it again, and they're going to hear it again when it comes
[27:33] to full council. Is we talked about, you know, there's the there's
[27:37] there's the decision on transit around the garage, you know, in the garage,
[27:41] Mahal and that unfortunate language. The the garage is critically important because in
[27:48] order for us to realize what's contemplated in that masterplan for transit and to bring
[27:53] it to a level of service that is comparable to peer municipalities and will actually
[28:00] help us to achieve those climate change targets, is we need to have enough
[28:04] buses to be able to meet the demand. And even up to just today,
[28:10] I can guarantee even driving here today in my personal vehicle, Sorry about
[28:15] that, but I saw at least two buses that were out of service because
[28:21] capacity was full. So we have an interesting problem there. A lot of
[28:26] folks have been saying over the years that we're a cartown and people don't want
[28:30] to use the bus. Well, the buses are full, and if you
[28:33] talk to the transit director. One of the biggest problems he has right now
[28:37] is the fact that we haven't replaced buses and we haven't seen a net increase.
[28:44] So I shouldn't say we haven't replaced. We've replaced buses, but we
[28:48] haven't seen a net increase in a few years. That's a challenge. Now,
[28:52] going back to the garage, the reason the garage is critical is because
[28:56] we are going to get to a point where we won't be able to have
[29:00] space to house the garage or the buses that we need in order to be
[29:04] able to fully realize the master plan. So we don't have enough buses to
[29:10] do the service at the level that it needs to be done. There's no
[29:11] way it's gonna help us to reach those targets to the maximum that it will
[29:17] be able to. And again, it's a big, big chunk of the
[29:21] greenhouse gas emissions pie. So what I wanted to make sure was impressed upon
[29:26] my colleagues in the community is these decisions. When you hear this idea of
[29:32] oh, it's a three hundred and fifty million dollars investment to build a new
[29:37] transit garage, it's a lot of money I'm acknowledging that again core municipal service.
[29:44] One of the things that makes cities good cities to live in is a
[29:47] really good and robust public transit system, but also one of the key things
[29:52] that we need to have in place and get right in order to be able
[29:53] to achieve our climate change wiles. And when you say you don't want to
[29:56] make that investment in the garage, all also saying I'm not interested in meeting
[30:02] our climate change objectives. There's no you can't have one without the other.
[30:07] So there's a binary choice that's not attached to a specific report. When we
[30:12] had the garage, yes there was some discussion about climate change, but it
[30:17] was about the cost that was the discussion. That's where that discussion landed.
[30:21] And now just recently we're talking about our GHD emissions and we look at that
[30:25] service trans and we'd say, well, geez, if we had a better
[30:26] transit system and more people were riding the bus, less people taking the car
[30:30] their car to get to work, groceries, you name it, then we'd
[30:36] be in a much better position to be able to achieve those climate change goals.
[30:37] So it's understanding that these things are connected. Same with active transportation if
[30:45] we want to be able to meet those climate change objectives. Again, another
[30:48] option to get people out of their vehicles is to ride your bikes for people
[30:52] who are capable and comfortable doing that. But one of the ways to make
[30:56] people comfortable doing that is investing in the infrastructure that can make them feel comfortable
[31:02] riding their bikes, whether it's down to Compseee Road or on any of these
[31:06] main arterial roads where the traffic volumes are high. We need to a because
[31:11] I don't know that the culture of cycling is deeply embedded. I think there's
[31:17] people who love to cycle, and our commuter cyclists in our community, but
[31:19] I don't think it's a thing that has as as much of a community buy
[31:25] in as I would like to see. Part of that I think isn't so
[31:29] much this idea of this car culture town. It's the infrastructure that that isn't
[31:33] in place that can help people to feel comfortable to make that choice. If
[31:37] you don't have any basketball courts, you're not going to generate any basketball place.
[31:41] That's exactly right. Yeah, very interesting. So one of the things
[31:45] that we talked about in our discussion, I brought up the idea that you
[31:49] know, the climate change is a global problem in a Canadian context as a
[31:53] national problem, and there are probably going to be cities that are climate leaders
[31:59] and cities are climate laggards. And I argued that Windsor is likely destined to
[32:02] be a climate laggard because of this, this sort of some of the fundamentals
[32:08] of our situation. And I think of all the people around the table,
[32:13] you would probably be the person who would most strenuously object to that characterization and
[32:17] would like things to be different. So what I guess then, I'm gonna
[32:22] sort of put that to you as a challenge, like, am I wrong?
[32:27] Is Windsor destined to be a climate laggard? And where will Windsor find
[32:31] the will to push harder than it's been willing to push so far? That's
[32:37] you know, that's a really good question. I'll say this one of the
[32:42] things that we have in place, and we've actually we've perceived awards from various
[32:49] environmental organizations around some of the things that we're doing in the city of Windsor.
[32:54] And I thought about the word as I was saying, and I said,
[32:58] we're doing it's more some of the things we plan to do or say
[33:01] we plan to do. We have some excellent, excellent plans in place,
[33:07] and we are doing some of those things. By the way, we are
[33:10] augmenting our renewable energy capacity. I know you could you could raise the issue
[33:19] of the gas plan and the peaking facility that that was passed early in the
[33:22] council term. Hopefully we never come to the point where we need to use
[33:24] that use that energy. But having said that, we have the Degrees of
[33:31] Change document, the one that we just looked at the other day, the
[33:36] update to the our Climate Change our Climate Change master Plan. So and you're
[33:44] seeing an increasingly and I think you're going to see more of it the municipality.
[33:51] Whenever they're building infrastructure, particularly buildings themselves, you're seeing them done with
[33:55] a a stronger focus on on passive passive energy use and other types of features
[34:06] that you would look at that you can say these are these are specific measures
[34:08] we're undertaking to address climate change in the city Windsor. But it's going to
[34:14] come down to a will to do implementation to make the investments that again transit
[34:23] active transportation. But then even beyond that, there's we're going to have to
[34:30] be players also in the renewable energy space. We we kind of are,
[34:34] we can do more. We need to look at organics and other waste management
[34:40] practices and those are going to be not just city windsor those are regional discussions
[34:45] as we already talked about, but there will be other issues that are going
[34:49] to come forward and present opportunities for us to work collectively. So being on
[34:52] the same page on those fronts supporting each other in tree planting as a for
[35:00] example, so the conservation Authority has a role to play in funding the conservation
[35:04] authority to do those activities and seeing it well, look, if you've got
[35:08] a tree planting project in Kingsville that's good for windsor and understanding how you know
[35:14] the all of those connections and us, if we work together, we can
[35:16] do a much better job of addressing all of those all of those challenges.
[35:20] So I guess, I guess you know your answer or my answer to your
[35:22] question, and a really good question is it's I'm optimistic and I know that
[35:29] we have the roadmap. It will come down to political will is at the
[35:36] end of the day, that's what it will come down to. And my
[35:39] hope is that you know, folks sitting around these decision making tables really take
[35:44] that responsibility of environmental stewardship seriously as seriously as they take the decision making processes
[35:50] that they undertake when they're looking at financial investments. So, of course,
[35:55] the folks around the table are representatives, and they are representatives of the voting
[36:00] public in the wards of the city. And so my question to you is,
[36:06] you talk to a lot of people. You have spoken to a lot
[36:09] of people in your own ward at the door, and my sense is that
[36:15] climate change is an issue that for some people in this city is critically important.
[36:23] You know, there are some people in the city who feel that the
[36:25] climate change is the defining issue of their life. But I think that for
[36:31] more people in Windsor, and I haven't knocked on as many doors as you.
[36:36] This is just my sense of it. For more people in Windsor,
[36:38] climate change is an abstract issue that's not as important, especially when it comes
[36:44] to electing a municipal representative. It's not as important to them as the pocketbook
[36:49] issues that they can see in touch. And that's my sense. But I'm
[36:52] curious what your sense is of what Windsor writes at the door and in the
[36:57] street. Feel about climate change. Your characterization isn't wrong, but I would
[37:00] I disagree with that vehemently that position vehemently. I think we actually have almost
[37:06] we have more opportunity on an individual level or on a per capita basis to
[37:10] have a positive impact on all of those all of those outcomes. We're the
[37:15] ones that control your transit system. We're the ones that make those investments in
[37:20] that infrastructure that we talked about. We can do energy if we if we
[37:23] want to get into that space, or if there's a need for us to
[37:25] get into that space. We have I think we do your waste collection.
[37:30] So so just even thinking about all of the services that we deliver, just
[37:35] that we take for granted. And one of the things that that comes out
[37:38] in the in these reports and the degrees of change and the one that we
[37:42] just dealt with on greenose gas emissions is I always ask the question to our
[37:46] environmental services manager, Koreana Richters, what is the cost of doing nothing?
[37:52] So let's look at that, so we can choose to do nothing and then
[37:55] okay, extreme extreme weather events, if we were making investments, as for
[38:00] example through the sewer surcharge, then you know, think about what happened in
[38:06] that in the in the big rainstorm in August, there was some flooding across
[38:09] the region, at least in my war, particularly in the areas that I
[38:14] know are extremely flood prone. I had. I got no calls or emails
[38:19] around water in people's basement. I'm not saying it didn't happen. I'm saying
[38:23] five years ago, six thousand basements flooded across the city of Windsor. We
[38:29] had I think a very similar from an intensity standpoint, weather event happened recently
[38:36] with at least in the city Windsor, very minimal flooding kind of compared to
[38:39] that previous event. Those investments are having a direct and material impact on people's
[38:46] lives on that like day to day, every day kind of. So it's
[38:52] making that argument to folks it matters not because you're going to save the planet.
[38:57] It matters because we're going to through all of us doing these things.
[39:00] We're going to keep water out of your basement. We're going to extend the
[39:04] life of your landfill, so your taxes can aren't going to be increased because
[39:07] your waste collection services aren't going to cost us more. There's a number of
[39:10] different things that we now can do if we work together, we recognize we
[39:15] all have a role to play that can a help us achieve those targets,
[39:22] not because it's the morally or environmentally right thing to do, but also because
[39:29] from a fiscal and financial standpoint, if we are better stewards collectively of the
[39:32] environment, it costs us less. These are fabulous arguments, Karen, and
[39:38] I find them utterly convincing. And now I think is time to actually move
[39:44] from those electors back to the representatives and back to the people who have to
[39:47] sell themselves to representatives. I hear that, and it's extremely compelling. It's
[39:54] also a complicated argument. Is it's also an argument that just took longer at
[39:59] the door than I would as you to spend. But that's what I do,
[40:02] so ask my canvas partner. Yeah, fair enough. But so all
[40:08] that to say, like, it seems to me that there are some structural
[40:12] challenges for this position unless it has champions, Unless it has champions around the
[40:16] table. So now I would ask you what would you say to your council
[40:22] colleagues that if you were appealing to them to be better climate champions, what
[40:28] would you say to them? Well, look, I would for those that
[40:34] need stronger arguments than just we need to do everything we can to save the
[40:38] planet, it's to go. It's to take a good hard look at those
[40:42] financials and be able if you want to reach people on this issue and get
[40:46] people to support you on the things that are going to make a difference in
[40:52] terms of our greenhouse gas emissions. It's trying to it's creating that link between
[40:59] separating your food waste out of the garbage can and into some other receptacle that
[41:06] you're going to bring to this curb once a week. Acknowledge that even to
[41:12] the extent that it's not really that hard to do that, we get it.
[41:15] It's an inconvenience. But if we do this, and if everybody does
[41:19] this, then that is better for all of us on those fronts. So
[41:24] it takes a two things. You have to understand it. So you've got
[41:30] to do the work of understanding why a certain thing is being proposed and being
[41:36] able to articulate. But presumably if you're seeking elected office and you want to
[41:43] make a difference in the community, it's because you believe in certain things and
[41:46] you have an ability one way or another to communicate that to the people that
[41:52] you represent, and that, frankly is your job. It's being that,
[41:55] not just the voice or the reflection I hear that which is reflecting my constituents
[42:00] have been telling me. Sometimes there's an obligation also to lead. It's a
[42:07] leadership position. So it's listening, but it's also being engaged in that conversation
[42:15] and not being afraid to say, I hear you. But if we do
[42:20] it this way, that means this good thing, this good thing, and
[42:23] that other good thing will all happen, even though it's a change, and
[42:28] even though it may be in some respects less convenient than it otherwise would be.
[42:35] And that doesn't you know, I don't underestimate the amount of courage that
[42:38] that takes. I know how much it takes. But again, it's that's
[42:45] leadership. So you know, I think the question was what is it going
[42:49] to take. It's going to take people who believe in believe in the that
[42:53] we can achieve these things and are willing to I don't want to use the
[42:58] term fight, but add the Kate is certainly the right is to advocate,
[43:01] even in the face of like a person who may or may not ever choose
[43:06] to vote for you again, because you know you're you want to hug too
[43:09] many trees. In their opinion, you're not going to get one hundred percent
[43:14] of the votes no matter what you do. So it's standing for something,
[43:16] believing in it, and being able to communicate it to the people that you're
[43:22] trying to represent. Right on. Okay, Kiaren, this has been just
[43:25] a great conversation. It always is, man. Yeah, you know,
[43:30] I I saw that the other Mackenzie on council put a podcast out this week,
[43:36] and I was thinking, like, my frickin' monkey's pot. Yes,
[43:38] I wanted Mackenzie back on a podcast, but I got the wrong one.
[43:42] But now now I got YouTube, so maybe maybe it wasn't the monkey's pot
[43:45] after all. Thank you so much. Mark and I talked about I'm probably
[43:49] going to do a bit on his show one time one of these days too
[43:51] as well. There you go, Yeah you got to you got an episode
[43:53] title lined up for that way, we'll work on that. Thanks a lot,
[43:58] Kieren anytime that. Thanks for having me. Bye. Pass

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