From guns to subways, here’s what you might have missed at Toronto city hall

Thestar.com
August 21, 2019
Jennifer Pagliaro and David Rider

Mayor John Tory is back on the job following surgery and there is lots to keep him busy. Gunfire continues to be a tragic sound of Toronto’s summer. Transit plans, which seem to come and go like the seasons, are once again under review. A more welcome change seems to be in store for municipal blue-box programs. But provincial funding cuts that promise to make 2020 a very tough year are back on the table.

‘Boots-on-the-ground’ approach to solving gun violence won’t solve gun violence

After police unveiled their plan to use $4.5 million that governments are offering to tackle gun violence, advocates and academics told the Star that stepped-up enforcement will never be a long-term solution to the problem.

• Following Mayor John Tory’s announcement that $4.5 million was suddenly available, Jennifer sorted out that only the federal government’s share is new, committed funding. The province had already promised $25 million for guns and gangs initiatives, from which they were rededicated their one-third share. And Tory committed the city to its share without even getting council approval.
• On Wednesday, police Chief Mark Saunders said the funds will be used for an 11-week initiative of intelligence-led policing in problem areas. There were few other specifics.
• Jennifer called several researchers and advocates to talk about the police plan. There was a common theme during those calls: Both consultant Fiona Scott and sociologist Akwasi Owusu-Bempah struggled to find words, saying politicians often react to shootings, funneling money to policing efforts that are more politically “appetizing” than the types of social infrastructure the research says could help curb gun violence in the long-term and which would make communities safer after the extra officers disappear.
• On Thursday, Louis March, founder of Toronto’s Zero Gun Violence Movement, told Jennifer after attending a community meeting in Lawrence Heights -- where many recent shootings have occurred -- that while it was necessary for residents to vent their concerns, it was nothing officials hadn’t heard before.
• “Maybe someday they will not only listen, but also do something to address the concerns,” March said in an email. “The meetings will continue to make it look like the people in power care and want to make changes -- unfortunately -- their actions speak louder than their words.”

An above-ground Scarborough subway?

Our colleague Ben Spurr had a scoop last week that raised some eyebrows about how the province is now having an expert panel review two subway lines for possible modifications, including changing the route and possible elevation of the controversial Scarborough subway.

• What’s interesting about the issue of Scarborough is that when you look at the landscape between the existing Kennedy station on Line 2 and the Scarborough Town Centre, it is full up with single family homes on cul-de-sacs.
• So, where does that leave officials? Assuming they’re unlikely to want to bulldoze those homes, there is space to run a new line in the SRT’s existing corridor, next to GO Rail. But the SRT would have to be decommissioned first, meaning buses would have to be used for years as a stopgap. That undermines one of the strongest arguments pro-subway advocates have had over those who have been pushing to build an approved and paid-for LRT cancelled at the insistence of the Fords in 2013.
• Even if Premier Doug Ford’s government wanted to run a subway in the SRT corridor, city officials have already concluded it would involve a wide-turning loop out of Kennedy station, which likely means expropriating nearby apartment buildings (politically unpopular and unlikely), or reconstructing Kennedy station (costly and also unlikely).
• Metrolinx CEO Phil Verster insists the project will still be a subway and extension of Line 2. So, what it is the panel can reasonably recommend is unclear.

Blue box blues leading to (maybe) a big change in recycling

Last April, David revealed that Toronto’s blue bin system was breaking down. With China closing its markets to all but the purest recyclables, Toronto and other cities were getting less revenue, meaning higher costs for curbside pickup. Retailers keep introducing new packaging, leaving municipalities struggling to keep up. Change, however, is coming.

• Ontario Environment Minister Jeff Yurek announced a timetable for a previously promised (by his government, and others prior) shift of responsibility for blue-box programs to producers of waste, and away from municipalities.
• His plan has producers taking over Ontario’s 240 curbside blue-box programs in a three-year transition starting in 2023. The producers will standardize what can go in the box, and other collection details, across Ontario.
• The plan, developed with input from a special provincial adviser who tried to find common ground between companies that use packaging, municipalities, and recycling firms, appears similar to the system that is successful in British Columbia.
• The switch could save municipalities big money. Toronto’s net annual expense for running its blue-box program is about $20 million.
• Toronto Environmental Alliance welcomes making producers responsible for recycling, but worries loopholes will let them continue making nonrecyclable packaging. Councillor Gord Perks, a former Greenpeace campaigner, says this switch has been promised before but “it never comes to anything.”

Chief resilience officer swept away with climate funding

Two years ago, with some fanfare, Toronto announced its first-ever “chief resilience officer” tasked with helping protect the city from the worst ravages of climate change. Now he’s gone. Here’s what we know:

• Elliott Cappell’s position was funded with grants from the New York-based Rockefeller Foundation as part of a plan to boost climate resiliency in 100 global cities.
• Although his position was initially funded for two years, and lasted that long, Cappell wrote a post saying he was shocked when the foundation decided to change course and wind down the 100-city strategy. He had some thoughts on why it failed to fly.
• Cappell did get a resilience strategy for Toronto written and published. City staff say Cappell’s work, getting it implemented across different city departments, will be continued by a city official reporting, starting next year, to a deputy city manager.
• Councillor Mike Layton, an environmentalist, said he had hoped for more from the now-defunct resiliency position. Toronto isn’t moving fast enough, he said, to prepare for potentially disruptive effects like the flooding of the Toronto islands.

Can Doug Ford substantially reduce provincial funding to municipalities?

Yes.

Municipalities have little recourse, other than political pressure, to stop cuts in funding that flows from Queen’s Park. Since Ontario’s villages, towns and cities exist by virtue of provincial legislation, the rules under which they operate -- including how much of their residents’ income taxes they receive via the province -- are controlled by Queen’s Park. So when Premier Doug Ford told local politicians Monday they will see cuts in 2020, the only ammunition they have is public opinion; It worked when Ford said the cuts would apply this year. One Ontario Liberal leadership candidate is proposing a change that would allow the creation of charter cities, shifting some powers to municipalities.