How has John Tory taken action on his promises for the environment?
While running for Mayor of Toronto, John Tory made 11 promises to taken action on the environment as outlined in our Green Action Agenda. The Green Action Agenda raises five crucial concerns that Council will have to deal with in this current term: preparing for severe weather and climate change, improving air quality, improving the TTC, reducing waste and detoxing Toronto.
As the environmental watchdog at City Hall, we’ll continue to monitor progress on the promises the Mayor and City Councillors made when answering our Green Action Agenda survey.
These are the 11 environmental actions John Tory committed to as Mayor of Toronto:
Severe Weather and Climate Change
- Expand our tree canopy by investing to double tree planting and maintenance by 2018
- Provide the authority and funds for effective tree bylaw enforcement
- A comprehensive study of the estimated costs of climate to Toronto residents, businesses and City Hall.
- A comprehensive, costed plan by April 2016 for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and getting city infrastructure ready for climate change
Air Quality
- City staff to develop a neighbourhood-based air quality monitoring system with online reporting by 2016
Improve Public Transit
- Improve transit service annually, beyond just keeping up with increased ridership
Reduce Waste
- Oppose any option that combusts waste
- A city-wide policy that insures all Toronto residents and businesses have access to all waste diversion services
- A major evaluation of the green bin and recycling programs for multi-residential buildings to review the effectiveness of the roll-out and to plan improvements
Detox Toronto
- Add new toxic chemicals to the Sewers By-law, in order to monitor and control water pollution in Lake Ontario
- Phase out at least two cancer-causing substances, identified as a priority by Toronto Public Health
