Toronto Environmental Alliance

Toronto 'The Green': Mid-term Environmental Report Card 2008

Executive Summary

In 2006, TEA predicted that Toronto would elect the greenest City Council since amalgamation. Council’s voting record over the last two years has proved us right. For the first time, we are awarding a majority of Councillors with “A” grades.

On the smog and climate change front, Toronto has shown significant progress in 2008 by earning a "B+" grade (up from a C+ in 2007), matching its best ever performance in 2004.

This term of Council also saw Mayor David Miller move the environmental agenda to center stage, hoping to place Toronto at the head of a global push by municipalities to take action on climate change.

Sadly, there is a fly in the ointment. Our research and tracking shows that environmental plans, programs, and policies passed by Council often falter once handed to the City’s bureaucratic arm for implementation. We fear there is a growing gap between Council’s environmental commitment and the Civil Service’s ability to get it done.

Read the Full Report Card Here

Our Environmental Report Card presents a detailed account of how Council voted over the last two years, including interim grades for each Councillor. We continue our tradition of grading the city’s actions to reduce smog and cure climate change by providing an abbreviated version of our annual Smog Report Card. This is followed by an in-depth analysis of the level of delay in the development and implementation of environmental programs. In order to gain insight into these delays and find possible solutions, we conducted interviews with key stakeholders and reviewed best practices used in other municipalities.

We also provide recommendations to improve how City Council’s environmental commitments are implemented. These recommendations are focused on three key areas: 

• Getting two key programs, Toronto’s Sustainable Energy Plan and the Green Economic Development Strategy, back on track.
• Improving coordination and engendering environmental commitment across City departments and agencies.
• Providing greater public transparency regarding when, how and to what effect environmental programs are implemented.