The top environmental stories for Toronto in 2015

Theweathernetwork.com
Jan. 8, 2015
By Renee Tratch

For Tim Gray, Executive Director of Environmental Defense, Canada’s not-for-profit environmental action organization, urban sprawl tops the list of issues that will have a major environmental impact on the GTA this year.

For starters, the Government of Ontario’s Greenbelt and Places to Grow Plans, legislation that outlines the 1.8 million acre of permanently-protected green space, farmland, forests, wetlands, rivers, and vibrant communities in the Greater Golden Horseshoe, will be under review.

“What you’ll see is real concerted effort by the developers who have made a fortune building sprawling subdivisions far from the city and at the end of very long commutes advocating for the dismantlement of those plans,” Gray explains.

He also notes other major plans that affect the Greenbelt, such as the 2013 federal government announcement that it would go ahead with the Pickering Airport, a huge infrastructure development next to the Rouge Park.

To the west, he points to the proposed GTA West, a mega-highway that would go from Milton and swing up around the north side of Brampton. “It crosses 100 waterways and would destroy the best remaining forests in the Municipality Vaughan,” says Gray.

Environmental Defense and the Ontario Greenbelt Alliance put together this study outlining these and other threats.

Gray also adds climate change and pipelines to the line-up of issues to watch.

Top of mind is Energy East Pipeline, a 4,600-km pipeline that, if approved, will transport 1.1 million barrels of heavy crude and diluted bitumen a day from the oil sands of Alberta eastward through the provinces en route to New Brunswick.

“It’s increasingly running into steep opposition from the public,” he says, similar to projects like the Keystone XL, Northern Gateway and Kinder Morgan in the US.

Aside from the direct risk of the pipeline exploding and contaminating water or poisoning food supply, Gray believes that people are engaged because they understand these pipelines allow for the expansion of the tar sands. “The tar sands are the reason that Canada is not able to do anything reasonable about climate change responsibility.”

Photographer Robert van Waarden puts a human face on the proposed pipeline through an online exhibition Along the Pipeline. He has been revealing some of these portraits via Twitter.

This year Environmental Defense also expects to see movement on listing toxic chemicals on labels found on consumer goods. While Environment Canada has declared some chemicals as toxins, such as triclosan, many of these ingredients still remain in products such as face creams and hand soaps.

Gray points out that the Government of Ontario has decided to act on its own where the mandate letter to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change includes “working with business, industry and partner ministers to provide Ontarians with better information about chemicals linked with cancer.”

Interested in more green issues to follow in 2015? We’ll be covering more here. In the meantime, check out Environmental Defense’s top 10 environmental issues.