Latest news with #Demong
CBC
03-03-2025
- Politics
- CBC
Veteran Calgary city councillor bowing out after 15 years in politics
Social Sharing One of the longest-serving members of Calgary city council said this is his last term, as he will not seek re-election this fall. Peter Demong has represented Ward 14 in the deep southeast corner of the city since 2010. A former small businessman, he went to city hall with a tax-fighting zeal that has moderated a bit over time as he learned more about the place. In his early years on council, Demong voted against city budgets and tax hikes. But in his later years in office, he came to support tax hikes that ran behind inflation and population growth that he saw as necessary to maintain the services Calgarians expect from the city. Demong said he'll miss working with people at city hall and ensuring the needs of his ward are looked after. On the flip side, he jokes he won't miss 14-hour days and 12-hour-long public hearings. "It's a very stressful job," he said. "I've always tried to be a councillor that doesn't bring city hall's message to Ward 14 but I've tried to bring Ward 14's message to city hall as best I can." Demong has remained popular with his constituents. When he was re-elected in 2021, he was the only council member to take more than half of the ballots cast in that election. He points to several accomplishments from his time on council as things he's not only proud of but that will stand the test of time. He helped interest the City of Calgary in solar-powered rectangular rapid flash beacons (RRFBs) at crosswalks. The units are cheaper than conventional electric powered crosswalk lights, which allowed the city to have the warning lights at more locations. There are now 230 RRFBs across the city. Demong also helped with the creation of a curbside composting program. It has been so successful with Calgarians that the program's compost facility is already being expanded. Following years of advocacy, Demong has also been in office long enough to see the arrival of extended producer responsibility. Under that program, companies that manufacture packaging materials will soon help cover the cost of collecting and recycling those materials. Currently, that falls on homeowners who pay for their curbside blue cart recycling program. As a result of the change, starting in April, Calgarians will see their monthly blue cart charge drop from more than $9 to just $2. "Fifteen years ago, if you'd told me I was going to become passionate about recycling or composting, I would have laughed in your face so hard," chuckled Demong. For now, he's not making any firm plans for what he'll do after his term on council ends in October. For anyone interested in being the next Ward 14 councillor, Demong offers this advice. "Prepare your family," he said. "If you're doing this [job] properly, it takes a lot of your time, a lot of your effort. And it doesn't end when you go home." Demong joins four other councillors who have already announced they will not run again. That list includes Ward 3's Jasmine Mian, Ward 4's Sean Chu, Ward 8's Courtney Walcott and Evan Spencer in Ward 12. Eight other council members, including Mayor Jyoti Gondek, have declared they will seek another term on council this fall. Calgarians will head to the polls Oct. 20 to elect a new city council.
Yahoo
05-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Councillors considering charging Calgarians less in monthly waste and recycling
Calgarians could see a drop in their monthly recycling fees, as Alberta looks to put the onus on companies rather than consumers. On Thursday, city council's community development committee will discuss transitioning to Alberta's new Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) program. The program, which will be fully implemented in April, is intended to shift the physical and financial responsibility of recycling products to the companies behind those products in a bid to producers to recycle more materials and create less packaging waste. In turn, the committee will discuss cutting Calgarians' monthly Blue Cart Program charge down from $9.34 this year to $2.17. The result would save each Calgarian who pays that fee more than $86 per year. Ward 14 Coun. Peter Demong has been researching and advocating for EPR for nearly eight years. In 2019, he pushed council to vote to support a province-wide study of the issue and worked with other municipalities around Alberta to bring that research to the provincial government, touting its environmental and financial benefits. Demong said that if someone told him when he was first elected to council in 2010 that he was going to be so passionate about recycling, he'd have laughed. But he said reading reports about hundreds of thousands tonnes of waste being buried moved him to act. "You know it can go to a better, higher purpose, that you can save your constituents money, that you can improve the environment and the economy at the same time," Demong said. "It just suddenly becomes a no-brainer that somebody needs to champion this and get it across the finish line." He added that city councillors are often hearing about how every user fee residents pay is too high and bringing the blue bin fee down is one way council can respond. "It's going to benefit Calgarians mostly by their pocketbook," Demong said. "Studies have [also] shown significantly higher recycling rates, higher volunteerism rates to actually do the recycling, it's better for the environment, less goes into the landfill, [and] it encourages the producers to change their product mix so that paper packaging products are more easily recyclable and more easily identifiable as recyclable." EPR hands the responsibility and cost of recycling to producers for packaging and paper products, and hazardous and special products like batteries, pesticides, and products that are flammable, corrosive or toxic. Ward 8 Coun. Courtney Walcott, the chair of the community development committee, says the motion is likely to pass. The initiative is all about ensuring the right person pays for the responsibility of recycling, he told reporters on Tuesday. "[In] most of Alberta, most of the country, the cost of doing business like this gets slowly filtered down to the taxpayer," Walcott said. "This is one of the programs that actually makes sure whoever's doing the pollution, in this case with plastic packaging and recyclable packaging, is the one who's paying for it or reducing it. Both of those are good for citizens." The EPR program will also create a consistent list of materials that can be recycled across Alberta in an attempt to make the system more straightforward. The new program also means recycling regulation and oversight will move from city council to the province. After being discussed by committee on Thursday, transitioning to EPR will go to a city council meeting later in February to prepare for the province's implementation in April.
CBC
05-02-2025
- Business
- CBC
Councillors considering charging Calgarians less in monthly waste and recycling
Social Sharing Calgarians could see a drop in their monthly recycling fees, as Alberta looks to put the onus on companies rather than consumers. On Thursday, city council's community development committee will discuss transitioning to Alberta's new Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) program. The program, which will be fully implemented in April, is intended to shift the physical and financial responsibility of recycling products to the companies behind those products in a bid to producers to recycle more materials and create less packaging waste. In turn, the committee will discuss cutting Calgarians' monthly Blue Cart Program charge down from $9.34 this year to $2.17. The result would save each Calgarian who pays that fee more than $86 per year. Ward 14 Coun. Peter Demong has been researching and advocating for EPR for nearly eight years. In 2019, he pushed council to vote to support a province-wide study of the issue and worked with other municipalities around Alberta to bring that research to the provincial government, touting its environmental and financial benefits. Demong said that if someone told him when he was first elected to council in 2010 that he was going to be so passionate about recycling, he'd have laughed. But he said reading reports about hundreds of thousands tonnes of waste being buried moved him to act. "You know it can go to a better, higher purpose, that you can save your constituents money, that you can improve the environment and the economy at the same time," Demong said. "It just suddenly becomes a no-brainer that somebody needs to champion this and get it across the finish line." He added that city councillors are often hearing about how every user fee residents pay is too high and bringing the blue bin fee down is one way council can respond. "It's going to benefit Calgarians mostly by their pocketbook," Demong said. "Studies have [also] shown significantly higher recycling rates, higher volunteerism rates to actually do the recycling, it's better for the environment, less goes into the landfill, [and] it encourages the producers to change their product mix so that paper packaging products are more easily recyclable and more easily identifiable as recyclable." EPR hands the responsibility and cost of recycling to producers for packaging and paper products, and hazardous and special products like batteries, pesticides, and products that are flammable, corrosive or toxic. Ward 8 Coun. Courtney Walcott, the chair of the community development committee, says the motion is likely to pass. The initiative is all about ensuring the right person pays for the responsibility of recycling, he told reporters on Tuesday. "[In] most of Alberta, most of the country, the cost of doing business like this gets slowly filtered down to the taxpayer," Walcott said. "This is one of the programs that actually makes sure whoever's doing the pollution, in this case with plastic packaging and recyclable packaging, is the one who's paying for it or reducing it. Both of those are good for citizens." The EPR program will also create a consistent list of materials that can be recycled across Alberta in an attempt to make the system more straightforward. The new program also means recycling regulation and oversight will move from city council to the province. After being discussed by committee on Thursday, transitioning to EPR will go to a city council meeting later in February to prepare for the province's implementation in April.
