Municipal candidates: you answer to your residents

Well, here we go again.

In September, ThoroldToday reported that two Niagara environmental groups, 50by30 Niagara and the Biodiversity and Climate Action Collective Niagara, were sending questionnaires to municipal election candidates. The idea is to find out where candidates stand on certain issues and then decide who deserves their endorsement. Fair enough. Anyone can ask questions.

But one of the questions caught my attention. Would candidates support bringing Thorold back into the Federation of Canadian Municipalities’ Partners for Climate Protection (PCP) program?

Now, that’s interesting, because Thorold already dealt with this.

In June 2024, following considerable local pushback, public delegations and a review of the program, Thorold City Council voted 7–1 to withdraw from PCP. KICLEI Canada was involved in helping residents and councillors examine what their municipality had signed up for, what participation actually involved and whether it was something the city needed to be doing in the first place.

And wouldn’t you know it? Once people started asking questions and looking at the actual commitments, the whole thing wasn’t nearly as impressive as the marketing suggested. Council made a decision, and now, with an election approaching, here come the climate advocacy groups asking a new crop of candidates whether they’ll put Thorold right back where it was.

Apparently, taking no for an answer isn’t part of the Net Zero strategy.

This is how the pressure works

There is an enormous amount of money, institutional support and organizational infrastructure behind the push for Net Zero. We have international organizations, federal programs, municipal associations, environmental nonprofits, consultants and advocacy groups all promoting variations of the same targets, timelines and commitments. Some are publicly funded, some are supported through grants, donations and partnerships, and some are directly involved in delivering the programs they’re encouraging municipalities to adopt.

And they have become very good at marketing. Everything is packaged in language that sounds wonderful. Sustainability, resilience, climate leadership, prosperity, partnership. Who wouldn’t want those things? But what happens when somebody starts asking what they actually mean?

What is the municipality committing to? Who decided on these targets? What will they cost? How much staff time is involved? What happens when the grants run out? And why are we asking municipal governments to take responsibility for meeting national and international emissions targets in the first place?

Those are the questions we encourage people to ask at KICLEI, and they’re the questions that should be answered before anyone signs up. Not afterward, when the plans have been adopted, consultants hired, targets established and taxpayers are expected to finance whatever comes next.

Thorold did its homework. That should be celebrated.

One of the things I find particularly irritating about this situation is that Thorold’s decision was not made in a vacuum. Residents got involved, councillors listened and staff reviewed the program. They looked at whether participation was worthwhile and whether municipal resources could be better spent elsewhere. Then they voted to leave. That’s local government working as it should.

It doesn’t mean Thorold suddenly stopped caring about the environment, either. That’s another ridiculous premise we need to put to rest. A municipality can protect its drinking water, maintain its parks, preserve agricultural land, improve drainage, manage waste and invest in more efficient infrastructure without belonging to an international climate program.

In fact, I’d argue those practical responsibilities deserve far more attention than another round of emissions inventories, carbon targets and glossy Net Zero plans. You don’t need permission from ICLEI or the Federation of Canadian Municipalities to take care of your own community, and you certainly don’t need to pay consultants to tell you that maintaining infrastructure and spending taxpayers’ money responsibly are good ideas.

So now we’re testing the candidates?

On October 5, ThoroldToday published a letter from Councillor Jim Handley, explaining why he refused to participate in the environmental groups’ questionnaire. Good for him. He defended the decision to withdraw from PCP and explained the reasoning behind it.

Meanwhile, another report outlined the responses from candidates who supported rejoining the program, some with conditions attached.

This is where I think candidates across Canada need to pay attention. An endorsement from an environmental lobby group is not a certificate of good governance, and not receiving one doesn’t make you a bad candidate. Frankly, if an organization is more interested in whether you’ll support its preferred programs than whether you’ve examined their costs, obligations and benefits, I’d be asking a few questions of my own.

Here’s what I’d like every municipal candidate to understand

You don’t owe these organizations anything. You are not running for office to represent ICLEI, FCM, 50by30 Niagara or any other advocacy organization. You’re running to represent the people who live in your municipality, and before you make promises about Net Zero, climate emergencies, emissions reductions or joining another program, I would encourage you to find out exactly what you’re promising.

Here are six questions worth asking:

What specific local problem are we trying to solve?

Is this actually a municipal responsibility, or are we voluntarily taking on work that belongs to another level of government?

What will it cost in staff time, consulting fees, administration and future spending?

What commitments, targets or conditions come with participation?

Were residents properly informed and consulted before these commitments were made?

Could we achieve the same practical benefits without joining the program at all?

None of these questions is unreasonable, none makes you anti-environment, and none should be controversial. Yet somehow, we’ve reached a point where questioning climate policy can be treated as though you’re questioning whether clean air, clean water or healthy communities are worthwhile. It’s nonsense.

Protecting the environment and subscribing to a particular political or policy agenda are not the same thing.

The entire thing depends on people not asking questions

This is something I’ve come to appreciate after years of digging through municipal plans, council reports, funding agreements and all the other paperwork most people would rather avoid. So much of this agenda is built on language. A council declares a climate emergency, adopts a target, joins a partnership, approves a plan and applies for funding. Each step sounds relatively harmless on its own, but those decisions can become the justification for the next report, the next project, the next consultant and the next expenditure.

Before long, the municipality is operating within a framework that residents may never have understood or explicitly supported. And because hundreds of municipalities are following similar programs, we’re told this is simply what responsible municipalities do.

Well, Thorold demonstrated otherwise. Council can reconsider its commitments, question the benefits and decide that local priorities come first. That’s not radical. That’s democracy.

It’s precisely why KICLEI has been encouraging residents to stop arguing about climate science long enough to examine the actual municipal records. Forget the slogans for a moment. Show us the motions. Show us the agreements. Show us the funding conditions. Show us the costs. Then let the people decide whether this is what they want their municipality spending time and money on.

To the people of Thorold, and every municipality watching

I hope residents are paying attention to these questionnaires and the endorsements that follow. Not because environmental organizations shouldn’t participate in elections. Of course they can. But because the public should understand exactly what those endorsements represent.

I also hope candidates understand that they don’t need to be intimidated by the possibility of losing support from an advocacy group. If you haven’t examined a program, say so. If you need more information, ask for it. If you think your municipality has more pressing responsibilities, say that too.

You don’t have to oppose every environmental initiative, and you don’t have to agree with KICLEI on everything, either. You simply have to be willing to think independently and remember who you’re there to represent.

At KICLEI Canada, we’ve spent years trying to make this work easier for ordinary people. We’ve published research, explained municipal programs and developed practical tools residents can use to bring informed questions directly to their councils. And we’re seeing what happens when they do. Thorold is one example, and there can be many more.

We aren’t asking candidates to pledge allegiance to KICLEI. We’re asking them to do their homework. There’s a difference.