Enviro report card grades council on its commitment to the environment
June 27, 2014
City Centre Mirror
By David Nickle
Mayor Rob Ford and many of those who’d been loyal to him on council over the last term got failing grades for their protection of the environment from the Toronto Environmental Alliance.
The environmental activist group released its Enviro Report Card for council’s 2010-2014 term on June 26. The report card graded based on how councillors voted on 31 issues, ranging from water efficiency and downspout disconnects to the 2011 decision to remove the Jarvis Street bike lanes, to Mayor Ford’s motion in January of 2014 to cut $7 million from the city’s tree planting budget.
On that scale, Mayor Ford did worse than anybody, scoring 13 per cent — or an ‘F’, along with 16 other councillors. Seventeen councillors, meanwhile, scored ‘A+’.
Franz Hartmann, the executive director of TEA, admitted the result skewed far from a bell curve.
“If you think of this council as the class of 2014, it could best be described as a battle between those who want to protect existing environmental programs and those who want to dismantle them,” he said.
“Thankfully the slackers, led by the mayor, lost. So we’re no worse off now than we were in 2010, but Torontonians should be profoundly disappointed with how their mayor did.”
Hartmann insisted the report card was not deliberately skewed against Mayor Ford.
“It so happens that when we ran those numbers the mayor almost always voted against the environment and many of the people who supported him joined him,” he said. “There are exceptions — people who voted with the mayor on some issues but not on others.”
SIDEBAR
Here’s how Toronto Councillors fared in the Toronto Environmental Alliance’s Enviro Report Card.
Paul Ainslie: F, Maria Augimeri: A+,
Ana Balao: A, Michelle Berardinetti: C+,
Shelley Carroll: A+, Raymond Cho: A+,
Josh Colle: B+,
Gary Crawford: D,
Vincent Crisanti: F, Janet Davis: A+,
Glenn De Baeremaeker: A+, Mike Del Grande: F, Frank Di Giorgio: F,
Sara Doucette: A+, John Filion: A+, Paula Flecher: A+,
Doug Ford: F,
Rob Ford: F,
Mary Fragedakis: A+, Mark Grimes: F,
Norm Kelly: F, Mike Layton: A+,
Chin Lee: C-, Gloria Lindsay Luby: C-, Giorgio Mammoliti: F,
Josh Matlow: A, Pam McConnell: A+,
Mary-Margaret McMahon: A+,
Joe Mihevc: A+, Denzil Minnan-Wong: F,
Ron Moeser: F,
Frances Nunziata: F
, Cesar Palacio: F,
John Parker: F
, James Pasternak: D+
, Gord Perks: A+,
Anthony Perruzza: A+,
Jaye Robinson: B, David Shiner: F, Karen Stintz: F