A collection of research summaries

By Chloé Reiser
In Montreal, territorial inequalities are a central issue in planning policies, with a view to a fairer socio-ecological transition. Although the City of Montreal recognizes the existence of such inequalities within its territory, much remains to be done to guarantee equitable access to urban resources for all citizens. As part of the renewal of the city’s Urban Planning and Mobility Plan, the Conseil interculturel de Montréal (CIM) is looking at the experiences of immigrant and racialized people in terms of territorial inequalities. Drawing on an in-depth review of grey and academic literature, as well as an online survey and mapping-discussion workshops conducted in three disadvantaged city neighborhoods – Saint-Léonard, Saint-Laurent and Montréal-Nord – immigrant and racialized people not only identify obstacles to accessing urban resources, notably public transport, affordable housing and green spaces, but also put forward solutions to address these persistent issues.

By Carolyne Grimard, Sonia Blank, Sarahlou Wagner Lapierre, Elizabeth Prince et Véronic Lapalme
The COVID-19 pandemic, combined with the housing, migration and climate crises, has increased inequalities and exacerbated homelessness in urban areas. How can we engage architecture to transform our cities in solidarity with people experiencing or at risk of homelessness? Research carried out by the team of Architecture Sans Frontières Québec (ASFQ) and the Université de Montréal has identified planning gestures aimed at reversing the dynamics of exclusion, reconsidering perceptions of home and adapting design to the realities of life in public space.

By Mylène Riva

By Mylène Riva

By Emeralde O’Donnell and Andréanne Doyon
Scholars have raised concerns about vague uses of equity and justice terms negatively impacting equity and justice work in planning. We explored the link between equity and justice framings and outcomes in four of Vancouver’s environmental plans. With the inequitable impacts of climate change and a history of planning worsening inequities, we must consider how approaches to equity and justice are impacting planning work in our cities.

By Étienne Tardif-Paradis
In recent years, the Montreal metropolis has stepped up the implementation of greening projects in line with an ideal of sustainable urban development and environmental justice. The Saint-Henri district is an emblematic case in point, with its high density of green spaces. However, the proliferation of public interventions to green urban spaces is taking place in a living environment characterized by specific socio-economic realities and needs, and marked by a process of gentrification. Here, the authorities’ desire to respond to certain socio-environmental inequalities by improving access to green spaces is having paradoxical consequences.

By Jennifer Dobai and Manuel Riemer
Increasingly, municipalities are taking actions to address global climate change at a local level. Yet, some of these actions generate unintended consequences for marginalized communities, resulting in an equity-deficit. In this summary, the authors first review a study that explored the perspectives of key municipal sustainability actors on this equity-deficit in municipal climate action. While there was a general awareness of this issue, the participants highlighted several key structural barriers in addressing it. Building on this finding, the authors then review a second connected study from the same municipal area that investigated how a needed transformation may be initiated by shifting mental models of municipal leaders.

By Stephen Williams and Andréanne Doyon
As the climate crisis grows, energy systems are transitioning to renewable and sustainable alternatives. However, these transitions often lead to injustice and inequities. Transitions research must better consider justice in its analysis. Drawing from environmental and energy justice literature, we consider justice for people, communities, and the non-living in transitions research through the development of an analytical framework. The framework provides reflective practice to support distributive, procedural, and recognition justice.

By Moe Nadeau
Planners play a key role in shaping society, but have historically oppressed Indigenous communities. Adopting Ethical Space-based planning can balance power dynamics between Indigenous and non-Indigenous governments, fostering collaboration and ethical decision-making for land. Indigenous voices are the key to climate action, as their deep connection and commitment to act in relationship with the land supports long-term sustainability. This research offers recommendations to advance Ethical Space in planning initiatives. Through Ethical Space, planners can create more just and resilient futures.

By Geneviève Vachon, Florence Gagnon, Élisa Gouin and Samuel Boudreault
Indigenous communities are struggling with climate change that threatens their relationship to the territory that is the basis of their identity. Four concepts linked to indigenous realities – traditional knowledge, agency, temporality, and relationality – provide keys to understanding this threat. A research-creation project with an Anishinaabe community illustrates possibilities for adaptation as concrete levers for discussion and action.

By Tira Okamoto and Andréanne Doyon
Coastal cities around the world are facing intersecting problems of adapting to sea level rise while addressing social equity. Vancouver, British Columbia – located on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations – is no exception. The City of Vancouver recently completed the Sea2City Design Challenge (Sea2City), inspiring collaborative design concepts for False Creek, a narrow inlet near downtown Vancouver. Using Sea2City as a case study, this research applies the JustAdapt evaluative framework to evaluate equity and justice in coastal adaptation planning in Vancouver.

By Hélène Madénian, Sophie L. Van Neste, Andréanne Doyon and Ashley Armitage
This research focuses on the equity and justice approaches of the City of Vancouver and the City of Montreal in their climate plans, i.e. the definitions of equity and the concrete measures considered by the two cities. Identified as climate leaders, Vancouver and Montreal have targets in line with the Paris Agreement and are committed to becoming carbon neutral by 2050, and each published a new climate plan in 2020.

By Hélène Madénian, Sophie L. Van Neste, Zaïnab El Guerrab and René Audet
This synthesis presents a history of the struggles that have helped redefine the environmental movement in Quebec over the past fifteen years. First, the struggles against hydrocarbons, then three subsequent moments in the movement: roadmaps and local experiments for transition, conversations to bring « the margins » back to the heart of the climate movement, and contestations from an urban wasteland in Montreal.

By Nancy Lai-Chu Chan
Based on a thesis completed for the SFU Masters of Urban Studies Program, this research summary focuses on the investigation of barriers to implementing policies and programs to improve air quality and reduce environmental inequity related to traffic-related air pollution exposure along the Clark-Knight corridor, home to a six-lane arterial road and one of the busiest, most polluted truck routes in the Metro Vancouver region.

By Janna Wale
Over the past several years, there has been an increasing recognition of the importance of including Indigenous knowledge in both responding and adapting to climate change. Canada’s first National Adaptation Strategy (NAS) and associated Action Plan (NAP), released in draft in 2022, presented a landmark opportunity for Indigenous people to both meaningfully contribute and lead climate action and adaptation. However, many aspects of Indigenous inclusion and representation in the development of the NAS and NAP fell short. This research considers the involvement (or lack thereof) of Indigenous peoples in adaptation planning and decision-making in Canada.

By Fabienne Rioux-Gobeil
In response to the climate crisis, renewable energy projects are being developed around the world and mostly, on Indigenous traditional territories. In countries such as Canada and Australia, the questions of Indigenous national sovereignties are still unclear and unresolved which causes complex issues of unequal power relations. About energy security, resurgence and self-determination, the energy transition could be the promise of great opportunities for Indigenous peoples. However, to benefit from renewable energy projects, they have to be in a position to fairly defend their interests.

By Sébastien Jodoin and Naomi Gupta
While existing literature already addresses the consequences of urban climate action for racial and socio-economic inequalities, its intersections with inclusion and equality for people with disabilities have received little attention from researchers. This lack of knowledge is problematic in light of emerging evidence that climate mitigation and adaptation efforts have the potential to dismantle and reinforce the social, economic and physical barriers faced by people with disabilities.

By Laurence Brière, Guillaume Moreau, Maude Prud’homme, Isabel Orellana, Marie-Ève Marleau, Martine Chatelain and Marie-Pier Lafrance
The eco-citizen movement for an energy transition is working to transform the dominant economic-energy system with a view to social justice and respect for the environment. By collaborating with stakeholders in this mobilization as part of an action-research project, we raised the epistemic justice issues inherent in this political project, and attempted to create spaces for reciprocal training, highlighting the diversity of types of knowledge. An innovative conceptual framework for energy justice was proposed, taking into account the very concrete realities of eco-citizen struggles and initiatives.

By Ariane Hamel and Nathalie St-Amour
The community of Pointe-Gatineau was hit by a series of historic floods in 2017, 2019 and 2023. Since then, many homes have been destroyed and a large number of residents have left the area, leading to insecurity among those who remained. This synthesis presents the preliminary results of a study looking at the recovery process of people affected by the 2017 and 2019 floods, and in particular at the role played by their attachment to their community in this process.

By Laurie Gagnon-Bouchard
Based on a master’s thesis, this synthesis examines the integration of the concept of vulnerability into Quebec’s climate change policy guidelines for 2013-2020. The analysis results indicate that using the language of vulnerability can emphasize the vulnerability of the economic sectors in the Northern Plan. This approach allows for a risk management strategy that does not compromise economic growth or increase associated risks.

By Franck Scherrer and Jeanne Paré
For three years, the Chemins de transition initiative brought together the academic community and the driving forces of Quebec society in a forward-looking, participatory process to map out a trajectory towards more sober and resilient ways of living in the territory by 2042. This text summarizes the process, focusing on the role of social justice in the mobilization of knowledge about the future.

By Anne-Marie D’Amours, Étienne Poulin and Sophie L. Van Neste
Heat waves are a growing threat to cities, but one that weighs much more heavily on certain vulnerable segments of the population. And yet, some of the less traditional players in the field of adaptation are contributing, directly or indirectly, to reducing such social vulnerabilities and mitigating certain socio-environmental inequalities through care and social support practices. Although Montreal is distinguished by its dynamic community and associative milieu, the potential contribution of this sector to heat wave adaptation remains poorly understood.