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CouncilWatch - City Budget Proposes to Penalize People for Helping the Environment

Posted December 13th, 2012 by Emily


December 13, 2012

City Budget Proposes to Penalize People for Helping the Environment

On November 30th, City Staff released the 2013 Operating and Capital Budgets to be voted on by City Council in mid January 2013. If adopted, the budget will penalize Torontonians for doing the right thing for the environment.

Here is how:

  • It will eliminate programs that reduce energy use and curb climate change. City staff want to eliminate a $60 million Sustainable Energy Revolving Loan Fund that has helped reduce greenhouse gas emissions and electricity use as well as created thousands of green jobs. Read more here.  
  • It will impose another transit fare increase that penalizes people for using transit and helping clean the air. Every year, City Hall contributes to paying transportation costs such as road repairs, sidewalk maintenance and operating the TTC. Unfortunately, the TTC contribution is going down, when calculated on a per ride basis. That means people who do the right thing must pay more. Toronto already has the lowest per ride transit contribution of any major North America city and it keeps going down. Read more here.

Take Action: Phone or email your City Councillor and ask them to not penalize Torontonians for helping the environment by:

  • keeping the Sustainable Energy Revolving Loan Fund
  • increasing the city contribution to the TTC to stop a fare hike
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