Environment committee  You can speak in English, if you like.

Environment committee  To be really blunt, it's land use planning. It's how you decide what you're going to do. I know many cities now have their roads. It's a difficult question, but I think by working with all the bodies that are there, you can figure things out. I guess in this case it would be the

Environment committee  I'll try to answer. In terms of conservation, the green municipal funds provide funding for municipal governments to look at ways, for example, to reduce consumption of water. We do an awful lot of research and we have tools and materials that municipalities can use, but for proj

Environment committee  I think it is important that there also be research done on the impacts of climate change, which is affecting municipalities, and everybody, without our knowing what all the impacts are. There should also be research on what's happening with our urban forests and the emerald ash

Environment committee  That is not ending, though.

Environment committee  I didn't mean that one was ending, not at all, but we have been asking for another piece to it so that it keeps up with inflation.

Environment committee  We know it's permanent, and we're very appreciative of that.

Environment committee  Actually, we do some of that.

Environment committee  We have the Grand River Conservation Authority, and I'm on its source water protection committee. Brantford gets 100% of its water from the Grand River. You can imagine the kind of treatment we have to do. We also have the rural water quality program, in which the municipality

Environment committee  I think federal leadership is huge in this regard. We can't do it all alone. We all need to work together. The federal government needs to listen to the municipal government and the provincial government. All of us need to work together in those orders, because we're all in this

Environment committee  I didn't write down all the comments that you made, so you'll have to help me a little bit. I'll start with the long-term infrastructure plan. That has been the latest piece. This last week, as you indicated, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities had its board meeting here i

Environment committee  We have found that fund to be absolutely amazing. The reason I'm saying that is that every year, for the last number of years, FCM has had a sustainable communities event. It's usually in February. Last year I was a judge, and this year I was actually chair of the judges. The pro

Environment committee  It's very worthwhile, and it works very well. Municipal governments are taking a lot of leadership in putting forward projects that will handle and deal with environmental changes.

Environment committee  If I may throw one thing in, my staff has just said that the green municipal fund, to date, has saved 1.1 billion kilowatt hours for 460 communities in 900 projects. It's been a good investment.

Environment committee  Absolutely. It is also saving water and doing a whole series of things.