First- Plant Trees!

We should start making The Ottawa Greenbelt much more green by simply planting more trees inside of it. And the obvious place to start is alongside Greenbank Road. The four kilometer stretch of road through the massive cornfields is often treacherous to drive on during the winter when the wind is blowing the snow off the barren fields. This past winter they only had one length of snow fence to try to curtail this. They have had as many as seven rows put up. I pay close attention to this because my good friend Phil Beaudry died in a 22-car-pile-up on this stretch of road many years ago during white-out conditions. He was the son of the former popular CBC sportscaster Hub Beaudry.

There are stretches of Fallowfield, Woodroffe, and Merivale Roads that can be almost as dangerous and should also be the target of large scale tree planting. When they are finally lined with many trees it will be much more pleasant and tranquil to drive through them at all times of the year. They will probably never get rid of the chain linked fences along them so we should be also planting vines to cover them with more green and create a partly natural permanent snow fence.

I certainly don't want our government to hand out large multi-million dollar contracts to accomplish this tree planting. We can make the use of community groups such as the Kiwanis Club, Boy Scouts, and committed classrooms, and other various willing volunteers to plant seedlings. I will gladly do my part donating my time and money to help make this happen.This would make our community feel more connected to, and proud of, our region.

Second- Create More Small Farms For the Public

It is ludicrous that we are growing massive amounts of corn inside our city to predominantly feed cattle that are all residing out in the countryside, where farms belong. I am in favour of developing more smart small community farms however, such as the 150-acre farm that the non-profit Just Food is currently operating in the east end of the greenbelt. As long as they allow access to the general public. We should also be converting some of these large commercial farms to create more community gardens for use by the general public. This large 50,000-acre greenbelt is owned by all of us Canadians and we should be making more of it available to be able to be enjoyed by more of the general public, instead of much of it only being there to benefit a select few farmers and many hungry cattle. Therefore, I am fine with keeping the two horse farms, one huge, and one small, as well as the pick-your-own strawberry patch. These are very much user friendly. The huge horse farm in the west end could be cut down in size a bit though.

Third- Build Eco-Cities

I realize it will never be politically acceptable to build any traditional housing inside any of this protected space. But we should be making use of these vast open spaces to build very specific kinds of new communities. I am talking about creating eco-cities.

Whether you agree with climate change science or not, the world is slowly, and painfully, turning to more renewable energy sources. We are inevitably, eventually fazing out our oil industry and replacing it with clean renewable energy sources. Besides for developing more wind and solar power sources, that are improving as more money is invested in them, we should keep looking into other methods such as geo-thermal technology and nuclear fision, as well as build more modern waste-to-energy plants, starting with one for Ottawa.

Surprisingly, China is leading the way in building new eco-cities, as well as a few other forward-thinking countries. Canada should also be involved in helping to start creating our new reality. I am proposing that we use some of these large corn fields to build state-of-the-art, self-contained, high-tech communities built to the highest possible environmental standards. And to accomplish this the NCC should hold competitions open to the world, to come up with amazing cutting-edge projects that will make us the envy of the world.

Most Ottawans will remember the great excitement generated a few short years ago when the NCC held one of these types of competition to try to develop a small part of the empty Lebreton Flats. Being a sports fan, I was intrigued by the idea of having this new small community based around a new home for the Ottawa Senators. Unfortunately, the winning bid was destroyed by a battle in court between the two "winning" partners.

Thankfully the hockey arena has been approved again for the area. So far without any surrounding develpment though. Imagine the excitement that would be generated by holding one or more of these competitions to fill up some of these large areas. And that excitement will spread across our great country, and not just inside my hometown of Ottawa. Many people would be excited and anxious to spend over a million dollars to purchase a modest sized condo inside one of these new-age communities. So they can park their Tesla beside a few dozen others. And it would change the landscape of our city in a very positive and exciting way .

Or we can just keep growing food there for those hungry cows.