At the November 27th City Council Meeting, Council will consider whether to proceed with these cuts. Please call your Councillor today and tell them you do not support cuts to important environmental services.

We worked hard to stop cuts to important environmental services that were proposed through the city service review. Thankfully, with the help of TEA supporters almost all these proposed cuts were stopped.

In early October 2012, another round of cuts to key environmental programs were proposed:

• a dramatic reduction in funds for maintaining Toronto’s tree canopy and a delay in meeting important tree canopy goals;
• the elimination of successful energy retrofit revolving loan fund that has helped reduce greenhouse gas emissions, electricity use and create over 7,000 person years of green jobs;
• eliminating key positions that help the city meet its environmental goals

As well, a newly published Service Efficiency Review is now setting the stage for a major re-organization of how the city delivers environmental services.

While TEA supports a service review to get the most environmental good for every public dollar spent, that does not appear to be the goal of this most recent cost-cutting exercise. Rather, it appears these proposed cuts are being driven by a city directive to “provide the maximum service efficiency savings in the shortest period of time” (see page 4 here).

In other words, environmental programs are being cut for short-term savings.

As we stated last year, cuts to environmental programs will cost Torontonians money as environmental problems get worse and harm our health, economy and city infrastructure.