A national member-led organization committed to strengthening Canadian communities by creating better economic opportunities and enhancing environmental and social conditions is hoping Winnipeg might one day become a transition town.

From June 17-18, the Canadian Community Economic Development Network offered Winnipeg’s first workshop on how to launch a transition town.
Originating in the U.K., the transition town movement is a grassroots response to the challenges of peak oil, climate change and economic inequity and instability.

Global oil production is expected to peak soon because most of the oil that was easiest to get at has been used up, and what’s left will be more and more difficult and expensive to extract. As the oil supply starts to fluctuate, people can expect price spikes to become more frequent - not just for oil and gas, but for consumer goods and food.

Michael Dudley, a research associate for the University of Winnipeg Institute of Urban Studies Research, describes the potential effect on our oil-dependent agriculture as “truly frightening.”

The transition movement aims to cultivate community self-reliance by “re-localizing” everything including food and energy production, the economy, arts, and social and spiritual support.

A related goal is “re-skilling” residents in how to produce, maintain and repair things for themselves.

Michelle Colussi, one of the workshop’s facilitators, believes the approach is distinctive because you need to involve everyone. She added that building whole-community responses on all levels is important.

A transition town starts by exploring ways to grow more connections among existing organizations and initiatives, with the eventual goal of collaborating on a comprehensive 15- to 20-year “Energy Descent Action Plan.”

“(It’s) a practical way to get people on the ground ready for trouble that’s coming” and to build a more resourceful city, said Rod Kueneman, a University of Manitoba sociology professor who participated in the workshop.

“We have lots of people in this community who are already in trouble, and as oil gets more and more expensive, and as the climate becomes more unstable, they’re going to need some place to turn,” he said.

“ We have lots of people in this community who are already in trouble, and as oil gets more and more expensive, and as the climate becomes more unstable, they’re going to need some place to turn.

Rod Kueneman, sociology professor, University of Manitoba

Evan Bowness of the South Osborne Urban Community Co-op has helped establish local community gardening projects. He finds they are very well received. The people in the communities he has worked in are “very ready for this,” he said.

In some ways, Winnipeg is well positioned to adapt to a lower-carbon world, according to Kueneman.

“(We have) a long tradition and a large network of small, neighborhood kinds of initiatives, some ... faith-based and some ... labour-based,” he said.
Winnipeg also has hydroelectricity, and enough land in and around the city where more food could be grown.

In developing a more cycling- and pedestrian-friendly city, it helps that Winnipeg has no freeways, Dudley said. He added that because 13 municipalities merged to form the city, Winnipeg still has commercial centres throughout.

But, he said, “It’s really unfortunate we don’t have the rapid-transit infrastructure that was talked about 30 years ago.”

In August, transition town members from Ontario will give a presentation to the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, hoping to get their official endorsement. There are currently 17 transition towns in Canada, 65 in the U.S. and about 300 worldwide.

Published in Volume 64, Number 27 of The Uniter (June 30, 2010)