At the request of the Hamilton chapter of the Council of Canadians, city council is calling on the provincial and federal governments to impose a moratorium on hydraulic fracking – the unconventional method of extracting oil and gas that uses high pressure mixtures of chemicals, sand and large volumes of water to blast apart underground rock formations. 

Council’s decision to continue an expensive lawsuit against the Canadian government is partly based on the belief that Red Hill Parkway costs were greatly increased because of the delay from federal environmental assessment. 

Enbridge’s plan to replace part of a Hamilton pipeline is facing strong opposition from First Nations as well as unspecified “concerns” from the city.

Provincial rules mean at least a quarter of growth costs are paid by existing taxpayers, says the city, so reforms to development charges (DC) legislation under consideration could help reduce Hamilton’s $2 billion shortfall in infrastructure maintenance. 

This is a regular CATCH summary of votes at committee and council meetings. This report covers the month of December 2013.

The origins of Hamilton’s lawsuit against the federal government reveal a council driven by anger that extended to also spending nearly a quarter million dollars suing several youthful opponents of the Red Hill expressway. 

Taxpayers have already forked out well over $5 million in legal costs in the city’s lawsuit against the federal government over an alleged conspiracy to delay construction of the Red Hill Parkway more than a decade ago.

City staff proposals for a smaller aerotropolis include an option that would urbanize 30 hectares more than the OMB-approved amount. 

In the middle of a very public battle over Line 9, Enbridge quietly won approval to expand flows in a parallel pipeline that is more than half a century old.

Shortly after US Steel announced the permanent end of steelmaking at Hilton Works, city manager Chris Murray provided councillors with an update on the city’s strategic plan. 

The city’s legal department is promising to reveal how much has been spent in the nine-year lawsuit against over 40 federal civil servants and cabinet ministers.

It may be next spring before council decides whether to establish a lobbyist registry despite a 2007 endorsement in principle. 

Attracting new industries is a central focus of Hamilton’s economic growth strategy, but the amounts of vacant and underutilized older industrial land available for this purpose are wildly divergent depending on who does the calculation, even within the city bureaucracy. 

This is a regular CATCH summary of votes at committee and council meetings. This report covers the month of January 2013. 

Years of city council’s focus on economic development appear to be bearing little fruit. 

Opponents of the shipment of tar sands through Hamilton are taking their campaign back to a likely unsympathetic audience in Westover on Monday night as new information surfaces of Canadian government lobbying in Maine for the export diluted bitumen (dilbit) to foreign markets. 

HSR ridership went down last year, as Hamilton continued to buck a strong national trend of increased use of transit. 

There are strong hints from HSR staff that a bus fare hike is under consideration after a two-year freeze. 

After paying out over $5 million in grants last year for installation of backwater valves in private homes, the city is tightening up its subsidy program to curb reported abuse by contractors. 

This is a regular CATCH summary of votes at committee and council meetings. This report covers the month of December 2012.