ABSTRACT
On February 18, 2025 I made a presentation, “Cochrane’s Participation in the Partners for Climate Protection Program – Serving Local or Global Priorities?”, as a delegation to Council (from 2:25 to 13:18 minutes in the video for the meeting) requesting that a member of Council come forward with a motion to remove the town from its membership in the Partners for Climate Protection (PCP) program.
Finally, after some twists and turns as explained in previous posts, some 7 months later, the matter came before the current Town Council for a vote (see discussion between 1:35:34 and 1:53:38 minutes in the meeting video) at the Regular Council Meeting on September 8, 2025, the final such meeting before the municipal elections on October 20, 2025.
A few days before the Council meeting, a letter was sent to the Council members setting out some context for the options presented to them by the Administration and presenting the following challenge:
“Will the members of Council commit the town to address global priorities advanced by a United Nations-associated organization like ICLEI (International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives), which is headquartered in Bonn, Germany, or focus on basic local priorities by voting to cease being a member of the Partners for Climate Protection program (managed in part by ICLEI), and thereby, as well, demonstrate that they are not subservient to the will of the town Administration?”
By a vote of 5 to 2 the Council decided not to remove the Town from membership in the Partners for Climate Protection (PCP) program, thereby sending a message that the Town of Cochrane is committed to meeting the PCP’s objective of taking “action against climate change by reducing emissions” in the community in order to meet the UN/ICLEI’s objective of “an absolute net-zero emission level at the latest by 2050”.
Voting for the town to remain as a PCP member were Mayor Genung and councillors Marni Fedeyko, Susan Flowers, Tara McFadden and Morgan Nagel. Voting along with Councillor Patrick Wilson in opposition was Councillor Alex Reed.
Something to remember on municipal election day, October 20, 2025.
FULL BLOG
On February 18, 2025 I made a presentation, “Cochrane’s Participation in the Partners for Climate Protection Program – Serving Local or Global Priorities?”, as a delegation to Council (from 2:25 to 13:18 minutes in the video for the meeting) requesting that a member of Council come forward with a motion to remove the town from its membership in the Partners for Climate Protection (PCP) program.
Finally, after some twists and turns as explained in previous posts, some 7 months later, the matter came before the current Town Council for a vote (see discussion between 1:35:34 and 1:53:38 minutes in the meeting video) at the Regular Council Meeting on September 8, 2025, the final such meeting before the municipal elections on October 20, 2025.
Email Sent to Council, September 5, 2025 in Advance of Council Meeting on September 8, 2025
On the eve of Town Council’s last Regular Council meeting before the municipal election on October 20th, the following email, “Agenda Item 5h, Withdrawal from ICLEI and PCP”, was sent to the current members of Town Council:
Dear Members of Town Council,
On February 18, 2025 I made a presentation, “Cochrane’s Participation in the Partners for Climate Protection Program – Serving Local or Global Priorities?”, as a delegation to Council requesting that a member of Council come forward with a motion to remove the town from its membership in the Partners for Climate Protection (PCP) program.
After a four-month delay, on June 23, 2025, finally a councillor, Councillor Wilson, brought a ‘motion’ forward to Council related to my request.
Councillor Wilson’s ‘motion’ as per the Town of Cochrane Council Report for agenda item 6a is shown below:
That Council directs Administration to cease participation in ICLEI programs or similar externally-driven initiatives, unless explicitly mandated by our Elected Body and after full disclosure of their funding sources, objectives, and implications.
That Council directs Administration to develop and implement clear guidelines restricting participation in externally influenced initiatives, ensuring transparent reporting on all collaborations with external entities – most especially through grant funding initiatives and further that Council affirms its commitment to democratic transparency, autonomy, and prioritizing local interests over multinational corporate or external agendas;
On the mayor’s recommendation, the first motion was deferred to the town’s Natural Environment Protection (NEP) Task Force to bring a recommendation on the matter back to Council before the council votes on the matter.
Administration’s Town of Cochrane~ Environmental Task Force report prepared for the task force’s meeting on July 15, 2025 identified agenda item 4b as “Notice of Motion RES #138/06/25 ~ Withdrawal from ICLEI and PCP”. The positions offered up to the task force in the Administration’s report were:
Option 1: Recommend to Council that withdrawal from ICLEI and the PCP program is appropriate at this time.
Option 2: Recommend to Council that the Town maintain its memberships in ICLEI and the PCP program.
Option 3: Acknowledge receipt of the Notice of Motion without providing a recommendation.
For your upcoming meeting on Monday, September 8, 2025, Administration is recommending, “That Council maintain current memberships, including the Partners for Climate Protection (PCP) program, and direct Administration to prepare a draft policy establishing clear guidelines for evaluating participation in externally influenced initiatives.”
It is rather interesting how the story in the Executive Summary for the reports for the NEP Task Force meetings (“Council has received a Notice of Motion proposing that the Town of Cochrane withdraw from ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability and the Partners for Climate Protection (PCP) program.”) has changed dramatically for the Executive Summary in the report that you have received for agenda item 5h. Note, as well, how the explanation of what came forward in Councillor Wilson’s motion in the Executive Summary differs from the explanation found in the Background of Administration’s report you received for agenda item 5h.
Some things I would like you to consider with respect to the options before you with respect to agenda item 5h at the Regular Council meeting to be held this Monday.
At the July 15, 2025 NEP task force meeting it was decided “that Item 4b be tabled and brought forward to the August meeting, as not all members were present for the discussion”. While once more “not all members were present for the discussion” at the August 25th meeting, with Councillor Morgan Nagel and a public-at-large task force member being absent, nonetheless, the discussion continued. Now understandable why the presence of two public-at-large task force members missing from the July 15, 2025 meeting, Ms. Jennifer Janzen and Mr. Robin Wentze, was considered important as these two strong advocates for addressing the notion of man-made climate change, carried the day to convince the task force to vote in favour of Option 3, that is, “Recommend to Council that the Town maintain its memberships in ICLEI and the PCP program” despite this matter being “outside the Task Force’s approved Terms of Reference.
Administration’s indication that the town is currently not actively taking any action related to the PCP Program “at this time” is seemingly presented as an argument for the town to remain as a member of the PCP program. However, don’t forget according to the PCP secretariat that the town has reached milestone 3 – Developing a Plan – of the 5-step Milestone Framework and substantial costs will arise as one moves on to milestone 4 – Implementing the Plan. The program is currently only paused at milestone 3. The Administration should stop playing games. If it is genuinely not interested in the program, then a motion by Council to remove the town from the program makes sense and is not an argument to remain in the program. As far as, “Any future projects requiring funding would need to be approved through the Council budget process’, I don’t recall the purchase of the four EV charging stations across from the Station coming back for Council approval. Likewise for the costs incurred for the study to electrify the COLT buses.
So far nearly all of the current Council members except one have indicated that they will be running again in the upcoming municipal election in October. How you vote on this matter will be important for electors to know. My presentation to Council on February 18, 2025 was entitled “Cochrane’s Participation in the Partners for Climate Protection Program – Serving Local or Global Priorities?”. ICLEI’s Climate Neutrality Framework, “defined as the targeted reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and GHG avoidance in own operations and across the community in all sectors to an absolute net-zero emission level at the latest by 2050”, not mentioned in the Background section of Administration’s report, provides another indication of what ICLEI strives to achieve.
Will the members of Council commit the town to address global priorities advanced by a United Nations-associated organization like ICLEI (International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives), which is headquartered in Bonn, Germany, or focus on basic local priorities by voting to cease being a member of the Partners for Climate Protection program (managed in part by ICLEI), and thereby, as well, demonstrate that they are not subservient to the will of the town Administration?
Decision by Council
By a vote of 5 to 2 the Council decided to support Administration’s motion not to remove the Town from membership in the Partners for Climate Protection (PCP) program, thereby sending a message that the Town of Cochrane is committed to meeting the PCP’s objective of taking “action against climate change by reducing emissions” in the community in order to meet the UN/ICLEI’s objective of “an absolute net-zero emission level at the latest by 2050”.
Voting for the town to remain as a PCP member were Mayor Genung and councillors Marni Fedeyko, Susan Flowers, Tara McFadden and Morgan Nagel. Voting along with Councillor Patrick Wilson in opposition was Councillor Alex Reed.
Cochrane Town Council puts Cochrane on the PCP Map
One of the arguments that came up to support remaining in the program was “potential future funding opportunities” (Michelle Ambrose, Director, Parks & Active Living), “would hate to see us miss out on some grant funding that’s available” (Councillor Flowers), and “avenues for grant funding” (Mayor Genung). Imagine that, saying that belonging to the PCP program is “a big nothing burger” (Mayor Genung), while happily looking forward to grant funding from an external source in order to advance the agenda of that external body.
Several members of Council expressed puzzlement as to what membership in the PCP program means or downplayed the impact of such membership. For example, Councillor Nagel described it as “an old dusty relic that has existed since 2004″, and Mayor Genung described the program as a “big nothing burger”, but, nonetheless, emphatically argued for the town to remain a member of the program, and Councillor Nagel agreed with keeping that supposed “old relic” in place.
What it means is that this town is sending a message that it aligns itself with the PCP’s expressed objective of its program, namely, to “take action against climate change by reducing emissions in your municipality”, and going along with the objective of the sponsoring organization, International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI), to achieve climate neutrality defined as “the targeted reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions…across the community in all sectors to an absolute net-zero emission level at the latest by 2050.” By choosing to remain, you are declaring that activities of this town are being guided and influenced by the goals of that program.
Having the town join the PCP program is hardly the same, as Councillor McFadden suggested, for individual staff members belonging to professional organization such as an engineering body.
While the Administration has declared that “Cochrane joined the PCP program in 2004 through a council resolution”, can they confirm that through producing a copy of the resolution that supposedly was passed in 2004?
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Update (Sept. 17, 2025): Received confirmation from the Administration that Cochrane had indeed joined the PCP program through a Council resolution:
The resolution to get involved with this program was from over 21 years ago in March 2004. Noteworthy, how long the globalist influence has been embedded in our town.
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Ms. Michelle Ambrose (Director, Parks & Active Living) in introducing the agenda item declared that “Currently, there are existing practices in place that provide council with oversight on initiatives of this nature. When potential grant applications, funding agreements, or multi-year commitments arise, they are brought to council for consideration before decisions are made.” That was reinforced by the CAO, Mike Derricott, declaring that by developing a “policy establishing clear and transparent guidelines for evaluating participation in external initiatives”, he thought that “what we would be doing is just reinforcing what is good normal common practice which is on a project basis or on a budgetary basis administration comes forward to council and recommends action or non-action on those items.”
However, “good normal practice” was not the case for the four EV charging stations located across from the Station. Through a Freedom of Information (FOI) request, I found out that the decision to purchase and install the chargers at municipal expense was solely made by Mayor Genung and the CAO at the time, Dave Devana. Note that a driver for that decision was “to reduce greenhouse gases”, an example of adherence to the philosophy as espoused by the Partners for Climate program.
As well, the study to look into electrifying Cochrane’s transit fleet was initiated by the Administration without any oversight or approval by Council. The study was spearheaded by Devin LaFleche, the town’s Sustainability and Transit Coordinator, whose mandate included a responsibility to “implement greenhouse gas emission-reducing projects”. Again, what he did aligned with the objective of the PCP program.
While Ms. Ambrose indicated that the cost of this study was borne by a grant, the $103,800 study, was, in fact, jointly funded by the Town of Cochrane, carrying $20,760 of the cost and the Government of Canada carrying the remainder of the cost through its Zero Emission Transit Fund.
Councillor Nagel’s recollection of what came out that study report, which made him think positively about the PCP program, needs a little work. According to Councillor Nagel, “I remember that study said that the electric buses were a terrible idea. They were more expensive and the emissions were higher than the gas buses. That’s what they said.” Except that is not what was said. I would suggest that Councillor Nagel go back and review the Committee of the Whole Report for that study and the presentation by the consultant (within 2:02:30 to 2:58:55 minutes of the video for the Council meeting). It is fanciful to think that a study financed by Trudeau’s Zero Emission Transit Fund would conclude that “electric buses were a terrible idea”.
The Committee of the Whole Report prepared by the Administration, concluded that “due to potential changes in COLT service models and the lack of necessary infrastructure, the implementation of electrification is deemed infeasible at present (emphasis added)”, as if this impractical technology was feasible at any time. Despite the consultant’s claim, as per a press release, that “decarbonizing public transit isn’t just a choice, it’s a necessity”, she began by advising that their preliminary simulations revealed, disappointingly, that “you really just don’t have a clear winner in Cochrane”. The consultant, not surprisingly being a strong believer in Trudeau’s decarbonization program and financially benefiting from it, declared that “one way to decarbonize is the primary way to get people out of cars.” Again, Councillor’s recollection of what came out of that study needs some work.
Councillor Nagel expressed that he wasn’t “feeling super informed about this whole discussion”. Puzzling how Councillor Nagel, who is well-versed in the political realm, is so ill-informed. Has he never heard of the notion man-made climate change and the activity in some quarters to address such by reducing man-made carbon dioxide emissions? I gave a presentation to Council in February about this, and prior to the vote on Sept. 8th, as explained above, I sent an email to Council explaining what was at stake.
While Councillor Fedeyko initially said she would support a motion by Councillor Wilson to remove the town from the PCP program, she subsequently changed her mind perhaps influenced by seeing the position taken by Councillor Nagel, who she has endorsed for mayor.
How they voted was quire consistent with what happened at Council’s March 10, 2025 meeting with respect to the final approval of the town’s new Municipal Development Plan (MDP), also known as Envision Cochrane 2050. While Councillor Wilson tried to bring about a motion to remove the reference to “climate change” in the MDP, the mayor and four other councillors present, Morgan Nagel, Susan Flowers, Tara McFadden, and Alex Reed, did not support him bringing such a motion forward. However, on this occasion on September 8, 2025 Councillor Reed went along with Councillor Wilson.
Remember how they voted on municipal election day, October 20, 2025.