On Reforming Capitalism

 These are the conventional definitions of capitalism.

Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their use for the purpose of obtaining profit.[1][2][3][4][5] This socioeconomic system has developed historically through several stages and is defined by a number of basic constituent elements: private property, profit motive, capital accumulation, competitive markets, commodification, wage labor, and an emphasis on innovation and economic growth.[6][7][8][9][10][11] Capitalist economies may experience business cycles of economic growth followed by recessions.[12] (Source: Wikipedia)

What is capitalism?

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Capitalism is a widely adopted economic system in which there is private ownership of the means of production. Modern capitalist systems usually include a market-oriented economy, in which the production and pricing of goods, as well as the income of individuals, are dictated to a greater extent by market forces resulting from interactions between private businesses and individuals than by central planning undertaken by a government or local institution. Capitalism is built on the concepts of private property, profit motive, and market competition. (Source: Encyclopædia Britannica)

Capitalism

A term coined to describe the use of private capital to finance economic activity. Investors and entrepreneurs use their money to create businesses, hiring workers, renting property and buying equipment as needed. Any surplus, or profit, belongs to the entrepreneur or investors. Communism is seen as the obverse of capitalism, as all economic activity is controlled by the state. (Source: The Economist)

However a more to the point definition of capitalism can be expressed this way.

Capitalism: an economic system designed to transform the labour of the working class into the wealth of the owning class. (Source: The5thColumnist)

Capitalism started unrestrained until workers organized and at the cost of thousands murdered by capital (and the Pinkertons) forced employers to bargain with them, arguing for amongst other things a fair day’s pay for a fair days’ work. Workers union organizing also led to political victories including collective bargaining and labour standards legislation, as well as workplace health and safety legislation, and of course the weekend and extending the middle class beyond, doctors, lawyers and merchants.

The capitalist class was not content with earning a fair profit and invented the belief that corporations must seek the maximum return for shareholders with no regard to the workers, the community, or the environment and found ways to do this.

It included moving production abroad to countries with lower or no labour or environmental standards and where jobs could not be moved such as the service industry converting wage jobs to piece-work jobs or co-called “independent contractor” jobs in the so- called gig or app industry.

The result has been unprecedented inequality .

So what is the solution

A purist Marxist would suggest we just wait for (or hasten) the inevitable collapse of capitalism and then “bring to birth a new world from the ashes of the old”. But such a strategy esquires the collapse of society as we know it and it will not be just the 1% (or 10%) of the wealthiest that may deserve to suffer but everybody in the middle. Only those with nothing to lose will lose nothing in this scenario.

This leaves the dreaded incrementalism as a practical solution that may even be able to achieve the political will to make it happen if done strategically.

Let us look first at the issues we want to address and I see two main issues.

Corporate concentration

The first being, despite capitalism’s claim of promoting competition, the reality is that it has lead to economies of monopolies and oligopolies with increasing corporate concentration driving the small businesses it was suppose to encourage out of business. Government regulation has been continuously weakened regarding corporate concentration particularly as it applies to the media, weakening one of the main pillars of democracy, an independent press.

This needs to be addressed and it is not a radical idea to go back to legislation and measures that existed previously while capitalism was thriving.

Economic and Political Inequality

The other being that, along with this, it has lead to massive personal economic inequality, and this massive economic power held by a few has become political power where even in so-called democracies the concept of one person one vote has been replaced one dollar one vote as far as the reality of political decision making is concerned. See: Economic inequality leads to democratic erosion, study finds | University of Chicago News.

One of the easiest ways to address inequality and redistribute wealth is through the income tax system and again I suggest we start by going back to taxation levels that existed while capitalism was thriving.

Marginal Tax Rates

Today in 2025 the marginal tax rate on the highest earners in the United States is 37% while in Canada it is 33%, but it has not always been that low.

  

Source: Comparing Income Taxes: Canada vs. USA in 2025

 Between 1951 and 1963 the United States marginal tax rate on the highest earners was over 90%, while in Canada during the same period the marginal tax rate on the highest earners varied between 90% and 75%. Capitalism was thriving over that period, albeit without the ridiculous levels of income and wealth inequality we see today. As a first (incremental) step in tax reform I propose we go back to those levels.

Source: Bradford Tax Institute

Source: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives

Wealth Tax

The next (incremental) step in tax reform to address excessive individual income and wealth inequality should be a wealth tax. As of 2021, five out of 36 OECD countries implement a wealth tax on individuals. The New Democratic Party and Canadians For Tax Fairness both propose a modest wealth tax of 1% to 3% depending on level of wealth. The United States Democratic Party does not appear to have a consistent policy on wealth taxes, but both Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have proposed wealth taxes of 2% to 3% depending on level of wealth. I would propose we start with a wealth tax similar to those proposals.

Final Stage of Tax Reform

The existence of billionaires (and now trillionaires) is, to put it bluntly, immoral. The final stage of (incremental) tax reform, after people have been eased into the idea of a wealth tax, is to use the tax system to tax back all income over a million dollars a year and all wealth over 100 million dollars. I consider this to be modest proposal as it still allows for a considerable level of inequality but not the blatantly excessive and immoral levels we currently have.

Reigning in Capitalism

Render unto the public sector the things that are the public sector’s, and unto the privater sector the things that are the private sectors

There may be a place in the economy for capitalism and the private sector but it should not dominate our lives and society as it currently does. It needs to be put in it’s place.

Health Care

Nobody should profit from someone else’s misery. It is a simple matter of ethics and morality. Health care should not be provided for profit but should be funded and delivered by a single-payer public system that provides is better health care and better economics.

Source: Canadian Medical Association

Water

Water is essential for human survival so our access to it should not be dependent on someone else making a profit. As water becomes scarcer it becomes vital that governments protect our vital water supplies and not sell them off to the highest bidder. Our water supplies should not be put at risk for data centres to store the high tech industry’s (or even government’s) surveillance data on us and certainly not for it’s ill fated so called artificial intelligence dangerous LLM bullshit. Local water supplies should not be privately owned but preferably be municipal utilities. Water resources should only be made available to the private sector when there is a surplus to public needs.

Food

Access to food should also not be dependent on monopolistic corporations making excessive profits. Something needs to be done about the corporate concentration in the oligopolistic corporate agrifood industry.

Corporate Control of Agriculture – Farm Aid

GRAIN | Top 10 agribusiness giants: corporate concentration in food & farming in 2025

The Monopoly Problem at the Heart of Canada's Food System | Perspectives Journal

Corporate concentration | Food Policy for Canada

The best way to do that is to support family farms as well as agricultural cooperatives (agricultural cooperatives in Canada) and the supply management system including marketing boards

At the retail end of the food chain, the grocery sector. there is a similar oligopoly corporate concentration problem.

Canada's grocery business doesn't have enough competition — and shoppers are paying the price, report finds | CBC News

5 takeaways from the Competition Bureau’s study into Canada’s grocery sector - National | Globalnews.ca

Increasing Retail Monopoly Power Poses a Threat to Canada’s Post-Pandemic Economic Recovery [Op-Ed]

Walmart’s dominance of groceries should receive antitrust scrutiny, group says | CNN Business

The best way to counter that is for consumers to have a real choice to not support the monopoly grocery industry. Governments can best aid that by supporting non-profit food food co-operatives to ensure all consumers have a choice.

Grocery co-ops an alternative to corporate grocers amid anger, mistrust: experts

Co-Ops, Mutual Aid, and the Movements Against the Grocery Industrial Complex | Loose Lips Magazine

Toward fair and sustainable food systems: The role of food cooperatives and solidarity grocery stores – Food Secure Canada

Housing

North America’s dependence on the private sector for housing has not helped the current homelessness crisis, indeed it probably contributed to it. On the other side of the ocean in Finland at the end of 2021 long-term homelessness only affected 1,318 people and that is considered unacceptable under Finland’s Housing First Initiative which is not only the right thing to do but less costly than providing the social programs need to deal with homelessness.

North America needs to adopt a more European approach to public and social housing where public housing is not just for the very poor but also for ordinary working people.

Canada is facing a housing crisis. Could it take a page from Europe? | CBC News

What European housing models could do for Canada’s affordability problems

Europe’s affordable housing revolution: The power of leading by example - Affordable Housing Initiative European Partnership

We need to provide enough public or co-operative (being preferable) housing so that all Canadians that want to can access affordable housing on a rent geared to their income without being forced to deal with the predatory private market. The private market can still compete in niche and higher end markets and of course home construction will still be dominated by the private sector. Governments should also provide incentives and assistance for families that want to purchase their own modest homes.

Energy Choices and Climate Change

No discussion of capitalism would be complete without dealing with energy policy and climate change. We built an economy based on planned obsolescence and waste because that was good for capitalist profits. And we powered that economy with fossil fuels. The result:

• Climate change is real.

• Climate change is caused by human’s energy choices.

• Climate change has done irreversible harm, and

• Climate change s poised to do catastrophic harm.

All of this is true and highly documented. I am not going to insult the intelligence of those of you who choose to be informed by citing pages and pages of proof. Those who choose to be wilfully ignorant of the facts will not be swayed by any proof.

We need to act. The solutions are known. We need to phase out fossil fuels. No new projects. Governments that continue to support fossil fuels are putting private profits (and short term economic indicators) above the health of the planet and it’s human population.

We need to put a “price on carbon ” and disincentivize it’s use while providing support and incentives for the development and use of renewable energy. We also need to build a more sustainable economy that does not depend on waste and planned obsolescence. But that is a whole other book.

Failure of High Tech as Saviour

This section will be primarily informed by my own personal experience and observations (and research) over the last 60 years or so from first using punch cards to program Statistical Package for the Social Sciences on the Laurentian University mainframe, as part of my Techniques of Political Inquiry course, to my first personal computer, the Osborne 1 accessing Bulletin Board systems and freenets up to today’s Windows 11 machine accessing the Internet. For this reasons it will not include many, if any, citations and because doing so could overwhelm the user once I started. I was considering making this a separate blog post but I believe it belongs here.

There was a time when we made things in North America, even electronics and computers, and then the capitalist owners of the means of production thought it would be more profitable to make everything abroad in low wage countries with lax labour, health and environmental regulations. But don’t worry they assured us we were becoming a post industrial society with a knowledge economy and an information super highway. We would no longer work in factories with our hands but in offices with our minds. High tech was the new thing and it was going to save us all. It was great for awhile for a few who got the new high wage jobs, but many of the jobs turned out to be lower wage tech support jobs that did not replace the higher wage manufacturing jobs that were lost, and that they soon discovered could be sent overseas as well.

However it was a boost to planned obsolescence, with a twist that the electronic waste created was much more hazardous than broken down furniture and appliances in our landfills. Computers had to be replaced ever 18 months and smartphones every two years. At the beginning there probably were enough computer advances to justify that, though I got away with upgrading every three years but lately it has been more like every 7 years. However it was remarkable how capable those early PCs were. The Osborne 1 or original IBM PC, were capable of running full office software like Wordstar and Supercargo and even Dbase II. Programmers worked hard to get every bit of capability out of the software and hardware. Lately it seems the goal has been to bloat software and add unnecessary options to force users to upgrade their hardware. This is even more so in the smartphone industry where a new phone is needed so you can have rounded coiners.

At one point, because of a few successes, people were blindly investing in any company based on the web, regardless of any actual earning potential and then the “dot com bubble” burst. We are seeing the same thing with AI now, billions being thrown at to produce a massive GIGO machine that just makes stuff up, resulting in a massive waste of water and power and environmental degradation, not to mention the suicides caused by AI addiction or the AI directly telling them to kill themselves. Of course when the “AI bubble” bursts it might take the rest of the economy with it.

And high tech gave us the corporate and government surveillance state with the corporations saying they are doing it to make our lives better and the state saying they are doing it to make us safer, when in reality it is to consolidate their wealth and power.

Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, no need to detail the harm caused by them. Then we have the so-called gig industry which is just a way to avoid unions and exploit workers and the high tech billionaires exercising their political power to the point of buying the United States Presidency. More could be said but let’s leave it at that for now.

High tech saviour, my ass, just a better way to exploit workers, destroy the environment, and buy politicians,

Necessity of Government Regulations to Protect Workers Rights, Public Heath and The Environment

Deregulation is the darling of the capitalist media that argues all our economic problems would be solved if we did not have those pesky government regulations and just trusted corporations to put workers rights, public safety and the environment ahead of maximizing profits. They like to claim the market will regulate everything but the only thing the market regulates is maximum profit in the short term. It cannot even ensure a corporations’ long term growth or success. The market is very shortsighted and focused on profit only. So fuck the market.

The best proof of the need for government regulations to protect public health, the environment, and workers rights (including a minimum wage that is a living wage ), it is what happens when we deregulate.

10 Unforeseen Effects of Deregulation - UMA Technology

Disaster in the Making: he Quiet Erosion of Canada’s Regulation System

The Dangers of Deregulation – State of the Planet

The deregulation gamble: When worker safety becomes a political pawn | HR Law Canada

Trump’s crusade against health and safety regulations endangers workers, hobbles the environmental justice movement, and sets the stage for our next public health crisis | Economic Policy Institute

Public Ownership and Worker Co-operatives

The best way to counteract the power of the wealthy capitalist elites is to not give them the power that private ownership of the means of production gives them The best way to do that is to turn that ownership over to the actual workers that, to put it obviously, use the means of production to produce, whether that is things, services or information. The best way to do that is through worker co-operatives.

Worker cooperative - Wikipedia

What is a Worker Cooperative

History of Worker Cooperatives

Canadian Worker Co-op Federation

U.S. Federation of Worker Cooperatives

That being said, there are situations where centralized public control is preferable for strategic national interests, such as the creation of a nationwide electricity grid, or a nationwide electrified rail system, although I am sure there are others. There may be other sectors where a public presence, but not dominance, is desirable, including a public broadcaster, a public renewable energy agency and likely others.

Universal Basic Income

Capitalism’s secret (well maybe not so secret) weapon is maintaining a level of unemployment that forces workers to take underpaid exploitative employment. Universal Basic Income is the counterbalance to that. While Universal Basic Income does not deter people from seeking employment it empowers then to refuse to be exploited.

(Source: UBI Works - Canada's advocate for Basic Income)

Further references on Universal Basic Income:

Universalbasic income program could cut poverty up to 40%: Budget watchdog |CBC News

Universal Basic Income In Canada 2025 - Active Programs And Pilots You Should Know About

Why UBI Works: Hard Evidence of its Impact on Poverty

People kept working, became healthier while on basic income: report | CBC News

Universal basic income is having a moment. What is it?

The Final Stage: Workers Control

In the final stage of reforming capitalism we give workers the right to seize the means of production and take control of their workplaces.

Workers of the world, unite!

Housing As A Right

Should housing be a right. That is the question. But the real question is what would that mean and how do we make it more than a token right but an actual effective right.

In North America we had this mythology that everyone could own their own home. That has never been true. The closest we have come is at the peak of unionization when unions brought much of the working class into the middle class. But then the capitalist owners of the means of production moved the means of production to low wage countries and left the auto industry as the remaining remnant of what was once an industrial economy. They then transformed the service industry to a piece-work model, much of it based on “apps” that pretended low wage workers were independent contractors not entitled to the protection of employment and labour laws. This returned us to a state where the dream of home ownership was limited to the wealthy and professional classes.

However this myth led governments to create tax advantages for home ownership that distorted the housing market leading it to be dominated by much larger than necessary energy wasting homes which contributed to the creation of urban sprawl.

So how do we create housing as a right for everyone.

If housing is actually to be a right then everyone one must have access to decent and properly maintained housing at an affordable cost. The private sector will not provide this.

North America needs to take a more European approach where public sector housing is not relegated to the poorest of the poor but is available to the general population. Funding needs to be provided to eliminate public housing waiting lists and provide necessary maintenance. Co-operative housing needs to be encouraged and facilitated with government assistance. Living in publicly provided housing has to be normalized rather than stigmatized.

Fortunately the solution to the funding problem is the same as the solution to all public expenditure programs. Society has the money, it is just improperly distributed through an economic and political system that has created excessive financial inequality. The answer lies in taxing corporations and the wealthy appropriately, especially the excessive wealthy.

The private sector can still play a role as long as they realize the slumlord model is no longer an option with affordable decent publicly provided housing available to everyone. And they must accept that with housing as a right no one can be evicted without somewhere else to go.

Imagining A Post Capitalist World

This is not meant to be a comprehensive analysis but an imagining of some of the features of a post capitalist world.

OK lets get this over with first. The first thing we will notice is the numbers we use to measure the success of a capitalist economy, GDP, GNP and economic growth will look bad. That is because the goals of the new economy will not be excessive production, consumption, energy waste and unsustainable growth. The new economy will be based on people not stuff. While our so-called standard of living will decline our quality of life will increase.

Because of higher minimum wages and a Guaranteed Basic Income everyone will have at least a comfortable modest life with adequate housing and all their basic needs met because there are enough resources to provide this when there is not excessive inequality and waste by the excessively wealthy.

Excessive inequality will be eliminated because of an aggressive progressive tax system based on the principle that everyone should contribute to the society/economy based on their ability.

Everyone, not just the very wealthy, will finally benefit from the use of machines to increase productivity and most drudge work will now be done by machines. The effect will be that everyone will have reduced working hours for a shorter period of their life. Work will no longer be a necessity to survive but something people crave for the fulfillment it brings to their lives.

Because of a societal decision all work requiring intelligence or decision making will be reserved for human beings.

Elimination of the exploitative capitalist practice of producing goods in low wage countries will see the elimination of excessive wasted energy transporting goods as most food will be produced within 100 kilometres of where it is consumed and other goods within 500 kilometres.

With increased time for themselves education will be an important part of everyone’s life and as with health care, treated as a public good and paid for collectively. Arts and culture, theatre and music, will be emphasized with the emphasis on local artists and productions (rather than overpriced “superstars”) as well as outdoor recreation.

Small businesses, where the owner earns his income by working in the business, will be encouraged and supported. For large enterprises, ownership and control of the means of production (factories, computer facilities, etc) will reside with the workers producing the products or providing the services, most often through co-operatives, except for public services like education, health care and public utilities where control and ownership will reside with the people through their democratically elected governments. All workers will have an effective, not just theoretical, right to join a union and bargain collectively.

The overall philosophy of the society/economy will be "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs".

SocialCoin – The Socially Responsible Alternative to Bitcoin

 I am placing this concept in the public domain for anyone with the necessary technical skills to create the structures and necessary algorithms to implement it.

Wikipedia provides an extensive section on Bitcoin and in particular Bitcoin mining.

Essentially Bitcoin is created by an energy wasting computer process they call mining. The value (profit) is based on “proof of work” provided by the computer process and not by any product mined, as no product is produced in so-called Bitcoin mining. A computer algorithm determines the amount of value (profit) that accrues to the Bitcoin “miners:

So how does SocialCoin work. Mining SocialCoin involves utilizing energy, resources and labour to create social housing, But based on the Bitcoin model the value (profit) is not produced by the product created, so the housing created can be given freely to public or non-profit housing agencies, housing co-ops or directly to those needing housing. Like Bitcoin, the product created is irrelevant to the creation of SocialCoin. Like Bitcoin the value (profit) derived from mining SocialCoin is based on the work done and derived by a computer algorithm and accrues to the SocialCoin “miners”.

I challenge any economist to demonstrate that this concept is not as feasible as Bitcoin.

Is Charity Evil

We supposedly live in a major developed industrialized country which is one of the seven most advanced economies in the world, yet:

many people depend on charity to be fed and not starve,

many people depend on charity for a place to sleep so they do not freeze to death in winter,

many people depend on charity to have a place to stay to protect them from being killed by their domestic partners,

despite our so-called public health care system we depend on charity to fund major medical research and many of our public hospital are in permanent fund raising mode to provide the beds and equipment they need to provide that care,

even our public education system depends on charitable fund raising to provide such basic amenities as library books, as well as extra programs, leading to a class-based public education system depending on the wealth of the neighbourhoods schools are located,

and the list goes on and on.

Do we not have a social responsibility to provide these basic human rights to our citizens. Should we not be funding these basic human rights collectively through a progressive tax system.

Who really benefits from charity.

Certainly corporations use charitable donations not just for tax benefits but for brand image enhancement. The wealthy use it not just as a method of tax management but also personal promotion. But it no doubt also provides a way of easing one's guilt for one's greed.

What would it be like for society if instead of making tax deductible charitable donations corporations paid all their employees a living wage. What would it be like for society if instead of making tax deductible charitable donations the wealthy paid their fare share of taxes, including a wealth tax.

What would it be like if we did not need charity because we fully funded a complete public health care and education system from a progressive tax system where everybody paid their fair share.

What would it be like if we eliminated the need for charity by establishing a minimum wage and a guaranteed basic income that allowed everyone to have a decent standard of living.

What would it be like if we did not have charity because we didn't need charity because we recognized as a society that everyone had the right to a decent quality of life.

What is the role of government if not to ensure citizens have a decent quality of life.

Does charity enable government to shirk that responsibility.

Is charity evil.

The Truth About the Kanata Lakes Golf Course Development Proposal

Many of you probably see the opposition to replacing the Kanata Lakes golf course with housing as just a NIMBY response of a bunch of privileged entitled suburbanites living in their low density paradise. After all golf courses are not usually considered environmentally friendly and there is a real need for more housing, though whether we need more low density suburban housing is a different question.

However there is a much bigger backstory to this whole issue relating to larger issues of environmental protection and land developers' powers over communities and municipal governments.

All of Kanata Lakes (originally referred to as Marchwood-Lakeside in planning documents), including the golf course, was zoned as Environmental Protection before the developers flexed their muscle threatening to go to the Ontario Municipal Board to get them to overrule the environmental zoning unless the municipal authorities allowed them to develop the land. The result was the flawed 40% agreement applying to Kanata Lakes/South March Highlands.. This was supposedly to protect the most environmentally sensitive lands yet the municipal authorities allowed the developer to include a golf course in that 40% protected “greenspace”. Much of the rest of the 40% was lands the developer did not want to develop anyway. I suppose we should be thankful homeowners lawns were not also included in the 40%.

The fact is we only have the South March Highlands Conservation Forest because the municipality bought those lands as that was the only way to protect them as environmental zoning is almost meaningless in Ontario.

For example a portion of the South March Highlands Conservation Forest within the Trillium Woods was zoned Environmental Protection. When the municipality denied permission to develop it the developer went to the OMB and had the zoning overturned and the municipality was forced to buy the land to protect it from development.

The golf course represents a contractual agreement by the developer (passed on to it's successors) to protect 40% of the total Kanata Lakes/South March Highlands lands as “greenspace”. To allow that 40% protected “greenspace” to be reduced even further would be to admit that communities have absolutely no control over land development and that there are virtually no protections for environmentally important lands in Ontario. It would be to say to the land development industry - go ahead do whatever you want, we are not even going to try to give communities a say in local development decisions anymore.

The solution is not to just acquiesce because trading a golf course for housing might be a good idea but to use this as an opportunity to further strengthen the 40% agreement by swapping the protected golf course lands for more environmentally important lands in the South March Highlands. While most of the KNL (Urbandale/Richcraft) lands are probably too far along in the development stage to be protected there is an environmentally significant portion of lands north of the South March Highlands Conservation Forest including a significant block of land owned by Metcalfe Realty that is zoned Environmental Protection.

The 2008 Brunton report said this about these lands:

Even at 400 ha, the Conservation Forest is presently too small to fully represent South March Highlands natural features and functions. A substantial proportion of that deficiency, however, is represented in the area immediately east and north of Heron Pond. Were the contributions of that area included within those of the present Conservation Forest, total protected floristic representation would rise to 98%. Significant species representation would also increase considerably, rising to 85% of the South March Highlands total. Substantially better representation of Blanding’s Turtle breeding habitat would also be achieved. Conservation management of this adjacent landscape is clearly a desirable objective of impact mitigation for the Conservation Forest.

It is recommended that management planning consider mechanisms for incorporating and protecting the ecological contributions of adjacent lands, particularly those to the north, to minimize negative impacts of the unnatural shape of the Conservation Forest.

Natural environment assessment (existing conditions):

South March Highlands Conservation Forest, Kanata,Ottawa, Ontario, May 2008, Daniel F. Brunton, Brunton Consulting Services, Ottawa, Ontario)

My understanding is that the municipal government has been trying to purchase that land but the landowner wants to sell it as a price suitable for development lands and the municipality wants to buy it at it's value as land zoned Environmental Protection.

I would propose that the current owner of the Kanata Lakes golf course purchase that land and donate it to the city (for inclusion in the South March Highlands Conservation Forest) to replace the golf course lands within the 40% agreement and that the golf course lands then be zoned for housing.

This is not quite a win win situation as no doubt it will not satisfy most of the current neighbours of the golf course, but it will allow for new housing and protect more environmentally important lands while strengthening the spirit of the 40% agreement.

Note: the terms municipality and municipal authorities, etc. are used above because over the time period involved the municipal jurisdiction went through numerous reorganizations from City of Kanata to a regional government model to the current enlarged City of Ottawa. It should also be noted that the ownership of lands comprising Kanata Lakes have passed through several developers over the years.

Further Background Information

Kanata Lakes 40% Plan, City of Ottawa

(click/double click on image to enlarge)

South Mach Highlands Zoning Map
 

(click/double click on image to enlarge)

 Zoning Codes Used on Map
RESIDENTIAL ZONES
Residential Third Density Zone R3
Residential Fifth Density Zone R5
OPEN SPACE AND LEISURE ZONES
Parks and Open Space Zone O1
ENVIRONMENTAL ZONE
Environmental Protection Zone EP
RURAL ZONES
Agricultural Zone AG
Rural Residential RR
Rural Countryside Zone RU
OTHER ZONES
Development Reserve Zone DR


Comprehensive Map of the South March Highlands

(click/double click on image to enlarge) 

THE FIFTH COLUMN: Saving the South March Highlands: Looking to the Future

THE FIFTH COLUMN: Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About The South March Highlands

THE FIFTH COLUMN Everything I have written on The South March Highlands and The South March Highlands Management Plan

Zoning: Developers vs the Environment and the Public Interest

I was out on my bike yesterday riding along Huntmar Road and the Carp River, including land on the flood plain that the city has approved for housing development. Along parts of my route you could not even tell where the river is as everything is flooded alongside it.

As I passed the Corel Centre I recalled the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB) rezoning battle for the proposed NHL arena lands.

My wife and I were amongst the official objectors to the proposal to rezone thousands of acres of high quality farmland for commercial development, including the arena. The result was unusual in that we essentially won the battle with the well funded developers. The arena and 100 acres, was allowed to be developed but the remaining thousands of acres were protected and conditions were put on the development to protect the surrounding land from development, including limiting sewage and other services to the size necessary for the arena and requiring the developer to pay for the Highway 417 interchange because it would only be serve the arena project.

The only reason we won this unusual victory was because of timing. The battle was waged during the short period that Ontario actually had a progressive government (Bob Rae’s New Democratic Party government) that cared about protecting the environment and protecting farmland and our food supply. It was the dedicated officials from the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food (OMAF) that carried the major weight of the battle, otherwise the various public interest groups would not have been able to compete with the financial resources of the developer.

Interestingly the quality of the farmland was not an issue at the hearings, although it was an issue in the developers PR campaign. Even as the developer was presenting to the OMB it’s consultants report, that agreed that the land was high quality agricultural land, the developer was waging a public relations campaign of lies to claiming the exact opposite of what they were saying to the OMB, a quasi-judicial board. They knew better that to try to lie to the OMB but lying to the public was no problem for them.

So why was I biking through all sorts of development adjacent to the arena. It is essentially because the rules favour the developers. A victory for the developers is always permanent. A victory for the environment and the public interest is always temporary.

Once developers get land zoned for development it can virtually never be taken away no matter what environmental or public interest arguments and evidence might be presented. To do so would take away their “property rights” and that has financial implications - it would be reducing the monetary value of their land.

However land that is zoned to protect it from development for environmental and public interests reasons has no such long term protection. The developers can keep trying again and again until the defenders of the environment and public interest can no longer afford to keep fighting. It appears that the environment and the public interest has no monetary value.

One of the most troubling cases involved land adjacent to the Trillium Woods in Kanata that was designated as environmentally protected and purchased by a developer (Minto). The City was forced to purchase the lands when the OMB basically ruled that because the land was owned by a developer the developer could do whatever it wanted with it.

This is the type of irrational thinking that leads to the argument that we have to destroy the environment or the economy will collapse. The fact that there would be no economy without the environment is irrelevant because there is no monetary value placed on the environment.

If we are going to have livable communities we have to place a value on the environment that we live in. Once land is designated as protected from development those environmental rights should have the same permanent status as developers rights to destroy the environment (and farmland) have.

Blog Action Day for the Environment

Today is Blog Action Day for the Environment.

One can only wonder in amazement why there are still Global Warming doubters in light of the international scientific consensus and the recent recognition by the Nobel Committee that Global Warming is a threat to international peace and security.

The press would like to maker everyone think that there are two somewhat equal opposing scientific views here. But, just as in reality there is only one scientific position on whether the earth is flat, on whether gravity exists and whether we evolved or were created, there is really only one scientific position on the existence and the major cause of Global Warming - man.

One can only speculate as to what the doubters motives are because the ironic thing about fighting Global Warming is that, even if for some strange region the virtual consensus of the world’s climate scientists was wrong and the marginal fringe was right, fighting Global Warming would still be good for the environment and the economy.

The doubters are becoming increasingly marginalized, as groups such as the Canadian Council of Chief Executives and Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers support taking action on Global Warming.

Even capitalists are beginning to realize that without a planet there are no profits and that a waste-based economy is not sustainable in the long run.

There are profits to be made from increased development in the third world, but the planet simply cannot sustain development in the developing the world in the wasteful way it has been done in the developed world.

The developing world will have to develop differently than we have, and if we expect them to do that we have to change our habits and provide the technology to make that happen.

So what do we do to reduce the development gap in a sustainable way. The largest infrastructure factors are communications, transportation and housing.

In the communications area the developing countries are already skipping past the infrastructure heavy wired communications that we in the developed world grew up with and going straight to wireless technology (though wireless does have health concerns).

In transportation there is an opportunity for the developing world to avoid the North American reliance on the automobile by developing pedestrian and bicycle friendly cities and adopting a more European public transit focused approach to transportation.

In housing there is lots of room to make huge improvements in the quality of housing and water and sewage infrastructure without the excesses of North American society. Heating is the big energy eater in housing in the developed world. As most developing countries are in warm climates that is not a big factor. At least in the short term they may have to forgo the luxury of universal air conditioning.

As the developing world moves forward, we must also move forward. but in a different way than the past. The first thing we have to recognize that standard of living measured in the old fashioned economic way, how much we consume and waste per person, is not equivalent to quality of life. We can live much less extravagantly, particularly in terms of energy use, and increase our quality of life. Status, in terms of huge houses and automobiles that we do not need, will not buy us happiness.

North America can move towards less reliance on the automobile and more public transit, especially if we raise taxes on gasoline and put the funds into improved public transit. It has not destroyed European economies and it will not destroy North American economies.

In housing we can move from extravagance to comfort in our housing choices. The first thing we can do is remove the artificial tax incentives, such as capital gains tax exemptions on residences regardless of size or value, that encourage people to own bigger houses than they need.

As individuals we can start with our personal choices. Even simple things like changing light bulbs and buying energy efficient appliances, when done by increasingly large numbers of people can have a very significant cumulative effect. They also have an important indirect effect, because when we make these kinds of decisions we are also telling government and industry what our values and priorities are.

There are huge and sustainable profits to be made in developing sustainable products and technologies. Profits made from destroying the planet have an inevitable short future.

We are beginning to realize that we can change our way of living to a more sustainable one and increase our quality of life.

A green future is a long future.