The Mayor for Ritchot admits he's green when it comes to being green. But Chris Ewen says it would make a lot of sense for the municipality, including himself to leave less of a carbon footprint.

Ewen made that comment during council's discussion about a proposal from Eco-West Canada. Eco-West has partnered with YHC Environment to implement the SAUVER concept in Manitoba. They have created a concept to assist municipalities in working towards the electrification of transportation in Canada. Their plan is to implement the integration of electric vehicles in municipalities and communities, implement a car sharing system and develop electric service stations.

(Ritchot Mayor Chris Ewen)The Rural Municipality of Ritchot was invited to take part in a feasibility study, which is the mandatory initial phase of project SAUVER. At a cost of $7,500, Ritchot needed to confirm its participation by December 31st. Council voted against taking part in this study.

Though council voted it down, Ewen says he still believes there is an opportunity for the municipality to save a lot of money and energy by purchasing an electric vehicle. For example, he says in November alone, he put on about 1600 kilometres for municipal business.

"I'm trying to cut down that mileage because I hate the fact that we're using so much gas," he says.

Ewen notes not only would it make sense for councillors to do more carpooling, but he would also like to see councillors hold meetings via Skype in order to be more energy efficient.

He thinks the deal with Eco-West is not completely dead.

"I do believe it's a great opportunity, I just need to make sure that we can get the right feasibility study done with the RM of Ritchot," he says. "We have such a small vehicle load, where there's only really two trucks in the RM of Ritchot, so maybe we can do an in-house feasibility study first before we branch out to that Eco-West program."

Ewen says, unfortunately, an electric car wouldn't make a lot of sense for their Public Works staff who need trucks for hauling. But for other staff and council members, he thinks there is an opportunity there.