Toronto Environmental Alliance

May 27, 2012
Christopher Hume
Toronto Star

"Toronto, which until recently had pretentions to being one of the
greenest cities in North America, has quietly abandoned its quest and,
in the words of the Toronto Environmental Alliance, is 'going in
circles.'"

Toronto has never been hotter. Temperatures are higher than ever. The trees are weeks ahead of schedule — and so are the smog advisories. Spring has replaced winter, and summer spring.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative government has happily sacrificed the environment on the altar of the oil industry. But don’t worry; the PM has reassured us over and over that’s a small price to pay to be an energy superpower, which is what Canada, or at least Alberta, wants more than anything.

For some Canadians, the country’s new priorities will take some getting used to. This is country defined by its landscape, if not its geography. To set about its destruction leaves many feeling unnerved, regardless of the enormous profits to be had.

But in a nation where there’s no such thing as a bad job, who are we to complain? Indeed, we should thank our lucky stars we have resources to burn, or rather, to sell.

For environmentalists, including foreign-funded subversives, there’s not much to celebrate. The provincial government’s heart may be in the right place, but it has been scared off by grass-roots hysteria. The most appalling example, the backlash against wind turbines, has turned ordinary Ontarians into self-destructive monsters of irrationality.

Toronto, which until recently had pretentions to being one of the greenest cities in North America, has quietly abandoned its quest and, in the words of the Toronto Environmental Alliance, is “going in circles.”

A report of the same name released last week by TEA offers a disturbing and disappointing analysis of Toronto’s record in the Rob Ford era. No one would be surprised to discover our mayor has not the least interest — not a speck, an iota, a scintilla — in the environment. On this issue, as with so many others, he has been overruled by council.

“The good news,” says TEA, “is that we’re still pointed in the right direction to build a greener city. The bad news is that we’ve mostly been travelling in circles, and we’ve done very little to solve the important environmental problems facing Toronto.”

But as the document also points out, given the current situation at City Hall, things could be a whole lot worse.

“Travelling in circles,” the report admits, “is not always bad – especially when we could have been moving backwards. Some on Council made it their priority to cut city programs and services, including important environmental ones. Transit City was declared dead, and through the Core Service Review and budget process, waste diversion services, bike lanes, pollution regulations, the entire Toronto Environment Office, and the Sustainable Energy Strategy were up for cuts. Not surprisingly, City Councillors talked a lot about whether or not to support this new direction.”

The problems are well known. TEA points out, for instance, that, “Toronto’s waste diversion rate is stuck at 50 percent, falling short of our 70 percent target. This is in part because most high rise buildings in Toronto still don’t have Green Bin service.”

In Tower City, that’s a bad sign.

Read between the lines of the report, however, and it’s clear council’s battle to keep the city from moving backward spinning has been against the mayor and his allies.

TEA uses the example of Executive Committee, which “spent two meetings considering selling ten percent of Toronto Hydro, instead of considering how Toronto Hydro can help its customers save on their electricity bills through energy conservation.”

Even if the report is right that we’re still headed in “the right direction,” it’s uncertain we’ll ever get where we’re going.

Christopher Hume can be reached at chume 'at' thestar.ca

As originally published here: http://www.thestar.com/news/article/1201408--hume-environmental-movement-stalling-in-the-political-fog