Quality of Environment
Residents of the City of Ottawa are fortunate to be living in the nation's capital, a proud civic presence in a great country. Canada has many beautiful cities, but none more architecturally and environmentally pleasant and endowed with culture and artistic endeavours than this one. We have two rivers running alongside this city, and ample green through the presence of many parks, not the least of which runs alongside the Rideau Canal which provides boating experiences in the summer, ice-skating in the winter.
We've the nation's Experimental Farm situated unusually in the centre of this city, with access to an agricultural, farming experience for young families, in conjunction with agricultural sciences benefiting the country as a whole. Therein too lie an arborist's dream of trees both native and non-native somehow all happily living their lives in the soil of this Canadian city, thanks to the botanists whose concern brought them here and sustained their establishment.
Small green parks replete with play equipment for children discharge their duty quietly in every neighbourhood in the city. Our proximity to the beauty of the National Capital Commission-managed Gatineau Park just over the provincial border in Quebec offers residents in the national capital region hiking, canoeing, biking, swimming, skiing and snowshoeing opportunities to meet our seasons.
Yet, unbelievably, unlike more responsive and responsible municipalities all over this country, this city has never enacted environmental-protective legislation that would disallow the use of cosmetic pesticides on private properties. While the Canadian Medical Association and the Canadian Cancer Society, among other groups, lobby heavily for legislation forbidding the use of lawn chemicals because of their inimical health fall-out, the municipality sits on the issue.
Which hasn't stopped the city's new mayor, Larry O'Brien, from indulging in some entrepreneurial bumph, challenging other Canadian municipalities to match this city's tree-planing programme. The city has embarked on a new programme to plant 100,000 trees and that's quite wonderful. On the other hand, it is complicit in the harmful practise of using deadly chemicals which endanger the health of its residents, not to mention that of vulnerable area wildlife.
Plant trees in parks and along streets by all means; give away seedlings for planting on private property - all very environment-conscious and laudable. But for the sake of the residents of the city, their children, their pets, the wildlife that abounds here, take responsible steps to make the use of cosmetic pesticides unlawful. People will realize that they can attain those nice green lawns without the crutch of chemicals.
The use of these chemicals is a distinctly anti-social act of selfish and ignorant property owners. Time we all grew up a little. We need to value human relations and human needs, not property values seen as being enhanced by a pristine green lawn.
We've the nation's Experimental Farm situated unusually in the centre of this city, with access to an agricultural, farming experience for young families, in conjunction with agricultural sciences benefiting the country as a whole. Therein too lie an arborist's dream of trees both native and non-native somehow all happily living their lives in the soil of this Canadian city, thanks to the botanists whose concern brought them here and sustained their establishment.
Small green parks replete with play equipment for children discharge their duty quietly in every neighbourhood in the city. Our proximity to the beauty of the National Capital Commission-managed Gatineau Park just over the provincial border in Quebec offers residents in the national capital region hiking, canoeing, biking, swimming, skiing and snowshoeing opportunities to meet our seasons.
Yet, unbelievably, unlike more responsive and responsible municipalities all over this country, this city has never enacted environmental-protective legislation that would disallow the use of cosmetic pesticides on private properties. While the Canadian Medical Association and the Canadian Cancer Society, among other groups, lobby heavily for legislation forbidding the use of lawn chemicals because of their inimical health fall-out, the municipality sits on the issue.
Which hasn't stopped the city's new mayor, Larry O'Brien, from indulging in some entrepreneurial bumph, challenging other Canadian municipalities to match this city's tree-planing programme. The city has embarked on a new programme to plant 100,000 trees and that's quite wonderful. On the other hand, it is complicit in the harmful practise of using deadly chemicals which endanger the health of its residents, not to mention that of vulnerable area wildlife.
Plant trees in parks and along streets by all means; give away seedlings for planting on private property - all very environment-conscious and laudable. But for the sake of the residents of the city, their children, their pets, the wildlife that abounds here, take responsible steps to make the use of cosmetic pesticides unlawful. People will realize that they can attain those nice green lawns without the crutch of chemicals.
The use of these chemicals is a distinctly anti-social act of selfish and ignorant property owners. Time we all grew up a little. We need to value human relations and human needs, not property values seen as being enhanced by a pristine green lawn.
posted by Pieface @ 5:46 PM
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