Ottawa Bylaw Goes Hollywood: QUOTABLE
“Ottawa is trying to pass a law limiting the time you can idle your car … they still don’t get it. That —- don’t work.”
Commentator Bill Maher on his show Real Time from Los Angeles
Wow. The City of Ottawa virtue signals so brightly that an American in Los Angeles knows the ridiculous car anti-idling bylaw. A star no less in tinsel-town.
Of course, the first anti-idling bylaw had all of two convictions. Not exactly Eliot Ness and the Untouchables. But you can dream. Then Ottawa City Council decided that, given the outrageous success of Idling 1, it deserved a sequel. Maybe that’s how Hollywood heard about it.
You know council is its own worst enemy. Here’s why.
It and staff and a cast of thousands absolutely cocked up light rail. Had it worked, it would have saved tonnes of greenhouse gases, not that what Ottawa does means anything in a world where coal usage is skyrocketing. So instead, you go after idling cars which doesn’t even dent the walls of the climate crisis.
And really all you actually accomplish is annoy the locals who add this to the list of politically correct things they hate. Which piled high enough produces Donald Trump.
Look city council. Stick to your knitting. Fix the potholes and get light rail working. Why? Because it will save the planet? No. The solution to the climate problem does not reside in Ottawa. Fix those things because it makes for a better city and it falls within the city’s jurisdiction.
And forget Elon Musk and X. Council has about as much chance of changing Musk as it has saving the climate.
Do what you can and leave the virtue signalling to someone else.
Ken Gray
For You:
Functional, Ethical City Government Ends: QUOTABLE
City Council, Staff Just Pathetic: BENN
Do Your Job, Councillors: PATTON
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– The Bulldog – News Feed Enter 
Bill Maher was made aware of the city’s virtue signal on idling vehicles during his recent interview with Chrystia Freeland. That federal Liberal party leadership hopefuls feel the need to get ‘endorsements’ from US talk show hosts tells you a lot about their assessment of the impact they are making using conventional Canadian content providers such as CBC, CTV and Global TV.
If the City wants to crack down on idling (a futile task) they should start with their own vehicles. On the other hand, Ottawa is lucky that Bill Maher only mentioned the anti-idling bylaw. He could probably do a whole show on the mistakes that Ottawa City Council has made. Then again, Ottawa might not look so bad against some U.S. cities. At least public dedication isn’t a big problem here, unlike San Fransisco.
Seems to me there’s a lot of idling in 110 Laurier Ave. Do councillors still go into city hall to work?
Ron:
Actually that is the quote from his show to which you refer.
cheers
kgray
Noted Ken, but Chrystia Freeland was the person who told him about it, per an article in the NatPost.
After a little research I made some discoveries and drew some conclusions. Idling vehicles produce CO2. Vehicles in motion produce CO2 as well. Vehicles traveling in congested traffic produce more CO2 than vehicles traveling at higher speeds. But faster-moving vehicles are less fuel efficient and still contribute a high rate of CO2 to the atmosphere. Many will agree that the comparison of idling and moving vehicles results in a zero-sum game. HOWEVER, automakers are now increasingly equipping their vehicles with stop-start technology, which automatically turns the engine off when the car stops moving, and then re-starts the engine when the driver takes his/her foot of the brake. I guess the world will be saved after all because we all know that new technology in vehicles never goes awry. But if it does, and traffic grinds to a halt, people going deaf from horns honking will become a bigger issue than global warming.
Not so sure you are right here John.
Ottawa has its own ecosystem and we can make a difference for citizen health by reducing GHG emissions, reducing high heat spots such as the St Laurent parking lot, and increasing Tree canopy. And individual acts make a difference as we see with the boycott of USA products (Note new Kraft advert). Also when there was a world order, Canada has to model environmental stewardship if we want to convince other countries to join international agreements on the climate crisis.
And please get off X everyone….he is a monster and even just a few million people getting off Amazon, X and Facebook sends a signal to the Besos, Muskrats. and Zuckerberg.