Search this site

Dec 1, 2022 We already had a smattering of snow in November and more is on the way, so I'm giving you the lowdown on the changes to our winter services that came into effect this season. I've also thrown in a few ways to make the most of winter in our city. I thought it would be fun to include the extended winter forecast from the good old Farmer's Almanac that my grandparents used to consult. The Almanac's map for winter '23 is titled "Shake, Shiver, and Shovel!" Here's the extended winter forecast from the Farmer's Almanac for winter 2023. You'll be happy to know that the way you connect with the City about snow isn't changing. At any time of day, you can consult the City's handy PlowTO map and see where plows are in your neighbourhood in real time. If you have any issues with snow services in your neighbourhood, 311 is available 24/7 via phone, email, and you can even submit complaints online. If you're having a recurring issue on your street and it hasn't been resolved after going to 311, please reach out to my office. My team is here to escalate serious issues, and hearing from the community helps me know what I should be conveying to senior staff and Council to continuously improve our winter services. New & Improved Winter Service Contracts What I really want to do today is take a look under the hood and explain how our snow delivery service is changing to better serve you and your neighbours. Last season, Transportation Services wrapped up the final year of a seven-year winter services contract with the private sector. We learned a lot over the past seven years, especially from the extreme storm that we survived last January. Consequently, Transportation Services has tendered out the next set of contracts under a new model, and I think this is going to lead to much better service across the city. This was the view out my front door after our major storm last January. Under the last contract, 47 different contractors carried out our winter maintenance services. These contractors executed different services—some did snow clearing, some did salting, some only did sidewalks—and it was quite a feat to coordinate them, especially during a severe storm. Under the new contract, 11 contractors are carrying out winter maintenance services. Importantly, each contractor has been awarded a specific geographic area where they will provide all of the winter services—snow clearing, removal, and salting on roads and sidewalks, and more. They divvied up these geographic areas based on ward boundaries, ensuring that each ward has one sole contractor providing winter services. This change will make it much easier for the City to monitor each contractor's performance and follow up if there are consistent shortfalls. Monitoring the performance of our new contractors is where you come in. We always expect a few bumps in the road when a new contractor takes over a neighbourhood as they get to know their new turf. You are the eyes on the street who can alert us to these issues so that we can resolve them as quickly as possible. When Roads are Salted & Plowed This handy chart shows the levels of service for salting and plowing on our city streets. If these service levels aren't being met, your first stop is to reach out to 311. If you need the issue escalated, reach out to my office. Sidewalk Clearing Sidewalks are a slightly different matter. Many people don't realize that pedestrians are counting on not just the City, but also residents and businesses to help them get around safely in the winter. If there is less than 2 cm of snow, it is up to residents and businesses to clear their sidewalks of snow and ice within 12 hours of the end of a snowfall. Property owners are also responsible for clearing ice and snow from private property like driveways, parking spaces, steps, and landings to provide safe access for people and vehicles. If you're able, please be a good neighbour and help out seniors or people with disabilities who may need assistance clearing their sidewalks. If you’re a senior that needs assistance with snow clearing, you can reach out to Better Living Health and Community Services' Four Seasons Connection Program, which provides fee-based snow shovelling services to seniors, at 416-447-5074 or fourseasons@betterlivinghealth.org. City crews start clearing public sidewalks when there is more than 2 cm of snow accumulation and the snow has stopped falling, or when conditions dictate. Crews start with the busiest streets like arterial roads, as well as high-priority locations like school zones, transit areas, and accessibility locations. Sidewalk clearing after a snowfall takes about 13 hours to complete, and can continue up to 72 hours after the snow has stopped falling if multiple rounds are needed. This is another area where you can report any concerns straight to 311, or reach out to my office. Monitoring Cut-Throughs Here is a cut-through path from Trailside Drive to Lescon Public School. It didn't get properly cleared last January until my team escalated the request. Lastly, where I really need your help is to keep an eye on the "cut-throughs" around the neighbourhood. These are the hundreds of pathways that cut between houses from one street to another or from a street to a school yard. Last year, I made a point of letting City staff know that our past contractors have consistently failed to clear these paths, cutting students and parents off from their usual route to school. Please let me know if you don't see an improvement on these cut-through paths this season. Enjoying Winter in Don Valley North While I know most of us don't love the shovelling and cold that come around this time of year, there are so many great activities to enjoy here in our neighbourhood and across the city during winter. The City just opened up our outdoor skating rinks, and we have two great ones to check out here in DVN at Ethennonnhawahstihnen’ Park and Van Horne Park. We also have indoor rinks at Cummer Park, Oriole, and Pleasant View Community Centres. The hill at Linus Park is the perfect place for a winter toboggan after a big snow. Some other great activities to try out include tobogganing, snowshoeing or cross-country skiing, and enjoying the winter trails and amenities in many of our parks, including firepits, winter tennis courts, and more! You can learn more about the great winter activities our city has to offer at Toronto.ca/WelcomeTOWinter. No matter how you like to enjoy the season, I hope you and your family stay safe and take some time to get outdoors this winter. As always, if you need assistance with anything above, do not hesitate to reach out to my office at councillor_carroll@toronto.ca or 416-338-2650.

Can we talk about virtual life? I don’t know about you, but I’m over it. So over it! We are very lucky if we don’t have to put ourselves in danger doing essential work in-person, yet virtual work has its own special kind of crazy-making. Few of us in 2017 had even heard of videoconferencing. Then the first work-from-home virtual disaster happened, thanks to a hapless BBC financial reporter and his adorable family. Now of course with the pandemic, many of us spend all day in virtual life. Working, socializing, schooling, worshipping, yoga takes place virtually at home. Those first few online meetings when Council came back to a full schedule were brutal. It took me about three months to figure out getting a decent light and a tripod is not for vanity. It’s just far easier for your fellow meeting participants to pay attention when you don’t have a blinding glare across your forehead. At first, none of us had realized the need to be extra-prepared when you no longer have the luxury of moving about council chambers networking and building consensus. Months later, we successfully debated the entire budget at Council by calling one another and texting back and forth as surprise motions kept pouring in. It's always been my practice to fully read the agenda items of importance, but these days you need to mark it up with a highlighter and draft any questions you want to ask and prepare amendments you want to move in advance. If our Centre-Table clerks sound exasperated at Council or Committee meetings, it's because we politicians submit a lot of very roughly drafted motions. They will ordinarily look over our motions and run over to our desk if they have questions. Now these miracle workers have to call the rest of us at home mid-meeting to correct and wordsmith our rough work. When you hear us shouting thanks to them at the end of a meeting, it’s heartfelt. Just a word on mishaps. This virtual world is not ideal and we are all just trying to keep the world revolving. I move from virtual meeting to virtual staff check- in to virtual constituency meeting all day long, occasionally turning off the camera to hit the washroom or make another coffee. Hopefully, I remember to mute my microphone during all of those personal moments. We are all human. I’ve seen a spouse saunter into the background of an online meeting in skimpy pyjamas to rummage through the laundry basket. I’ve heard a toddler go completely berserk in the next room. It’s all part of our less than ideal situation. Last week was a perfect example of the challenge of virtual life when my colleague Councillor Paula Fletcher voted on the City’s budget while driving. To get to her studio space - set up for streaming a development meeting with her residents - Paula knew she had to arrive earlier than usual. Virtual meetings always start on time - or residents disconnect. Paula also knew residents expect her to vote on the annual budget. This is the kind of scrambling we have to do as virtual councillors. But we don’t complain because it doesn’t hold a candle to the risks frontline workers face when they go to work in person. Paula is my dear friend and colleague of many years. She has loyal staff happy to hold her phone to vote and get her safely to where she needs to be for her residents. I laughed and made a quip or two as Paula drove along last Thursday. It was such a capper to a full year of virtual madness. If you don’t laugh about it once in a while, you will most certainly cry. Early in the pandemic, my team and I had regular virtual town halls about the COVID-19 response. Nowadays, it seems like one development consultation after another brings us together virtually. Between you and me, I think the development sector is thoroughly enjoying this period of time when they don’t have to hold community consultations in packed school gyms. You may have noticed that there are suddenly a lot of applications for development coming at us in Don Valley North. If you have attended one of these online consultations, you will probably agree this is where the virtual universe lets us down most. I find myself at virtual meetings constantly reminding folks the questions they're asking of developers will receive a much different answer if posed to the city planner who's also on the call. It is darn hard for community listeners to keep track of who is answering and what it means to your future in your own neighbourhood. In those meetings, we are all just tiny faces in virtual tiles. That is why my team and I always offer to meet virtually with smaller, more manageable groups after big virtual consultations. We have a hunch you have 10 more questions after the virtual host says good night. Consequently, I am meeting with as many groups for follow-up as possible. We have organized virtual meet-ups with condo residents at Singer Court about the very large building application right beside them at 1181 Sheppard Ave. E. More consults are scheduled for neighbourhoods surrounding the development proposal at 630 Finch Ave. E. That needn’t be the end of it, either. All of this virtual strategizing can continue in person when the weather gets warm. As soon as spring has sprung our cabana tent, coloured Line 4 pink, will pop up in parks again. In summer 2020 when virus transmission was down, we set the tent up one weeknight and one weekend afternoon for every single week. It was getting quite popular by the time the days started getting shorter. We hope by spring the COVID-19 infection numbers are significantly reduced, as vaccinations ramp up, so you will feel comfortable visiting us in person at your local park. We’ve even had a request to pop up on the private grounds of a condo development. Not a problem for my great team. Have masks and gloves (and hand sanitizer), will travel! February 25, 2021

You know what they say: “April showers bring May flowers.” If that’s the case, we had better be in for a pretty spectacular May. Even with the gloomy weather we’ve been having this week, this time of year always puts me in a hopeful mood. With warmer and sunnier days right around the corner, I wanted to share a few spring reminders to help us all get ready for the season. Clearing Catch Basins With the amount of rain we’ve gotten so far this spring, I wanted to start by reminding folks about the importance of clearing catch basins. Catch basins are also known as sewer grates—the metal grates with slats that drain water off the road and into our sewer system. These play an extremely important role in draining city streets and keeping our roads safe. A picture of a catch basin Occasionally, these catch basins become blocked with debris like leaves, twigs, and even snow/ice. This can lead to water pooling around the catch basin, or even partial flooding of a street during heavy rainfall. There are over 120,000 catch basins across the city, so you can be a big help to your neighbourhood by clearing debris from the catch basin near your property if you notice it’s blocked. If there’s a catch basin that is damaged or blocked in a way you can’t clear, you can submit a request to 311 to have it fixed: Property Standards Spring is also the time of year when folks may start to notice some property standards issues in their neighbourhood. The top complaint my office hears about every spring is overgrown grass. If you have “turfgrass” on your lawn (the typical grass that is on most North American lawns), you must keep it shorter than 20 cm. You also have to keep your property free of “prohibited plants”. These include plants like ragweed, poison ivy, garlic mustard, giant hogweed, and other plants that pose a threat to human health and/or our natural environment. The reason there is a very specific list of prohibited plants is because the City wants to make sure that people are permitted to grow pollinator-friendly gardens, which include plants like goldenrod that some folks might think of as weeds. If you’re looking for ways to support pollinators and your local ecosystem, considering replacing some of your turfgrass with pollinator plants. The Toronto Master Gardeners have a great set of resources online if you’re interested in creating a pollinator garden on your lawn: Beyond lawncare, there are a number of other property standards bylaws that apply to your property. This includes setting out your waste properly and keeping your property free of litter, debris and clutter. If you notice property standards issues in your neighbourhood, you can report these to 311 using their handy online report tool or by calling 3-1-1. You may also notice that a portion of your property was damaged by a snow plow over the winter. If this is the case, you guessed it, submit a report with 311. Once you make a complaint, your address will be added to the queue to be repaired. Compost Days, Environment Days & Community Clean-Ups April is also Earth month, which means there are hundreds of events being hosted across Toronto to help us help the planet. My office is hosting four Compost Days this month so that folks can get their gardens going! All Compost Days start at 11 AM. Historically, the compost goes pretty quickly, so get there as soon as you can. Below are the dates and locations of our Compost Days: Saturday, April 20: Cliffwood Park Sunday, April 21: Hobart Park Saturday, April 27: Dallington Park Sunday, April 28: Bestview Park Like I said above, compost is first come, first served while supplies last. You also have to bring your own container to put the compost in. Fun fact: the majority of the compost we hand out at these events comes from our yard waste program, while about 5-10% comes from the Green Bin program. We’re also hosting our first Community Environment Day of the year on Saturday, May 25 at Old Cummer GO Station. Environment Days are a one-stop shop for you to dispose of your electronic waste, household hazardous waste, and to donate items like clothing, books, electronics, and more for reuse. We’ll also be accepting non-perishable food for donation. There will also be free bagged compost available (limit of two bags per household, while supplies last) at Environment Day. You can learn more about Environment Days and find a list of all the other events taking place across the city at the link below: Finally, Toronto’s annual spring cleanup, Clean Toronto Together, is happening from April 19 to 22. Over the course of four days, family, friends and neighbours will come together and help clean up litter from our parks, ravines, and other public spaces. There will be hundreds of clean-ups happening across the City. Here in Don Valley North, I know the Bayview Village Association is hosting a Community Clean Up on Saturday, April 20 (more details here). If you want to register a group to start a clean up in your neighbourhood, you can do so through the City’s website: If you register a community clean up, I would also love to know about it so that we can give you a shoutout and promote it in this E-Blast. Feel free to send me an email and we can put together a list of the clean-up events happening across Don Valley North to share with the community. It’s always great to see our community come together to help keep Don Valley North beautiful. We’re lucky to have an incredible network of ravines and parks, and it’s important we keep those spaces litter-free both for our own enjoyment and to protect local wildlife and their habitats. A photo from a Don Valley North community clean-up last year. We’re supposed to be in for some sunshine this weekend, so I hope you get a chance to get out and enjoy all our little neck of the woods has to offer. Happy spring! IMPORTANT: Info on Vacant Home Tax Notices My office has received a number of calls and emails from residents who have received a Vacant Home Tax bill this week. Right out the gate, I want to make it clear: if your home has been occupied for more than six months this year, you do not owe the Vacant Home Tax. These notices went out to residents who did not file the Vacant Home Tax declaration by the deadline. It has also come to my attention that many residents have received a Vacant Home Tax bill despite having filed the declaration on time. It seems this happened to people who filed the declaration on time but after property tax bills had been issued. If you have received a Vacant Home Tax bill in error, you will not be required to pay the $21.24 late penalty. If you have received a Vacant Home Tax bill and your home is not vacant, you need to submit a Notice of Complaint to the City. You can do so online at the link below: If you are not able to complete the Notice of Complaint online, you can go to any Civic Centre or City Hall and submit the Notice of Appeal in person at an Inquiry & Payment Counter. Much like 311 over the past few days, there will likely be higher than average wait times for in-person services. The counters are open Monday to Friday from 8:30 AM - 4 PM. You can find more information below: I understand that this has been incredibly frustrating for thousands of residents here in Don Valley North and across Toronto. I continue to be in conversation with the Director of Revenue Services, our Chief Financial Officer, and the Director of the City's Communications division to ensure that this is a much-improved process next year. If you are experiencing issues filing your Notice of Complaint, you are welcome to contact my office for assistance. I do want to note that my office is also experiencing higher than usual call and email volumes due to this issue, and my team is working as fast as possible to respond to all inquiries. We thank you for your patience.

Towards the end of Summer 2020, I asked our Deputy City Manager of Community and Social Services if she could have all of her divisions report on the current state of their services to the committee where I am a member. The Economic and Community Development Committee is chaired by Councillor Michael Thompson, and he agreed wholeheartedly that after months of responding to the pandemic, we should know if these departments were going to be able to cope. No one expected the City's state of emergency to go on for so long. And let me be clear: I want Mayor Tory to keep following the daily advice from our Medical Officer of Health, as he has done faithfully since the beginning of the year. However, at this point, all of Council needs to deeply understand the City's current state of operations. Councillors and their teams field daily questions about services like child care, long-term care, seniors services, recreation, social services and employment supports from residents trying to cope. As the second wave of the virus intensifies, we need a clear picture of what's needed to keep these services going for the next few months. The report The report I requested has arrived in the form of a slide deck. You can scroll through it here — I think it's worth your time. There is a heck of a lot going on to support Torontonians through the pandemic. The only two divisions that weren't included in this presentation are Economic Development and Shelter Supports. That's because they have been reporting in detail on their work to support small businesses and the homelessness crisis, respectively. I hope folks will pay special attention to these three slides that summarize how the City's social services have responded to the pandemic from March to November. These illustrate why it has, at times, been a challenge to keep all other services and 311 responses ticking along as normal. Where we're at now So this brings us to where we are now: deep in a second wave of this pandemic. We've all heard of pandemic fatigue. We ignore the daily reports and get on with our lives, and pretty soon fatigue turns into downright complacency. Look at it this way: we've now had two weeks in a row where Ontario saw more than 7000 cases in seven days. Toronto alone has had more than 2200 of those. Hospital ICU spaces are at capacity again and PPE are being rationed. A few months ago we mourned each long-term care outbreak and organized support rallies. Last week, it was reported that 29 residents of Kennedy Lodge had died in a span of two weeks — and the news was buried in a daily update article rather being a headline. I sincerely hope the only reason Premier Ford is hesitating to introduce the most stringent measures is because he is making arrangements for the economic supports that will be necessary. Let his disregard of advice from the joint medical officers of health — where he announced dangerously lax guidelines — be a one-time lapse. We all have to knuckle down and do what the doctors say right now before it's too late. What you can do Make plans now for an altered holiday season. School boards may soon announce an early winter break. Sit down and talk about how that will work in your family so you're prepared if we hear such an announcement. If you have holiday shopping, do it safely and do it now if you can afford to. If you know someone older who is not tech-savvy, maybe your gift to them could help them with that. I’ll bet that small gesture will mean everything. Religious services will be limited, and I know it's hard not being able to visit your places of worship with your friends and family. Instead, try calling your loved ones and asking them to watch the service online with you at the same time. It's a great way to feel that sense of community while still being safe in your own separate homes. Every year I have the Don Valley North team over to my house for Secret Santa. But, like I said, it’s an altered holiday season. We’ve already drawn the names and we've promised to mail gifts to each other by December 7th. On December 17th, we’ll have a Zoom Christmas party and unwrap gifts online. I hope you will be just as cautious. We're doing everything we can to keep everyone safe and healthy.

This week's column is a double feature. I saved one item from last week's Council Highlights because it's a bit complex: the transition of Toronto's blue bin recycling program to extended producer responsibility. After I give the rundown on the forthcoming changes to our recycling program, I'll talk about recent items from the Economic & Community Development Committee that outline the City's plan for shelters and getting folks out of the cold this winter. Let's dive in. TRANSITIONING OUR BLUE BIN PROGRAM TO 100% PRODUCER PAYS Recycling in Ontario began over 40 years ago in Kitchener. The various cities that made up Metropolitan Toronto followed suit about a decade after that. As soon as cities began developing blue bin programs, the Province began setting provincial waste diversion goals and looking for cooperative ways to make sure the collected recyclables could fetch top dollar in the plastics market. A photo of Toronto's original blue bins from 1998. By the new millennium, it was clear that recycling alone wasn't going to solve our environmental problems. The market for selling recyclables is very volatile, and the price fetched doesn’t always cover the cost of collection. Moreover, having consumers sort materials at the end of their use wasn't doing anything to change the behaviours of the packaging producers. Governments started talking about legislation that would make producers pay for the cost of waste diversion. The Province has always been involved in municipal waste collection, and for very good reason. They are one of the lawmakers charged with environmental regulation, and garbage is one of the biggest threats to the environment. Whether we send our garbage to landfill or incinerate it, we damage the planet in some way. Reduce, reuse, and recycle helps the Province as it reduces the need for landfill and other types of garbage disposal. The Province has achieved as much as they can by focusing on municipalities, so they've set their sights on the producers of waste. For quite a while now in Ontario, producers have been required to pay half the cost of municipal recycling programs. It doesn't solve everything, but it helps. Now, the Province is implementing regulations that will require producers of packaging to pay 100% of the cost of collecting recyclables. On paper, that sounds great. If producers of goods and packaging have to carry the cost of their disposal, perhaps the real reducing will happen upstream in the way they design their products. As always, the devil is in the details. For the next couple of years, you won't notice any changes. This is because when the implementation of Producer Pay recycling begins, producers will simply pay for the service the City is delivering now. As of January 1, 2026, however, producers will pay for a contractor to collect recyclables in each municipality according to a Provincially-designed set of instructions. I can't predict how that's going to impact the service you receive. I've written before about the costs of private waste collection and have always been a strong supporter of our in-house program. There was an option for municipalities to bid on the contract for their own recycling collection, but City staff recommended against it. The Province has set very strict rules for collection, particularly around contamination. The City currently allows up to 30% contamination, and our staff have always maintained that this is part of why we have such a high rate of diversion from landfill—52%, in fact. Going forward, contamination can't exceed 4%, and higher levels may result in penalties. This, combined with serious labour concerns and privacy concerns about the required use of Artificial Intelligence and video surveillance to track and charge for household contamination in recycling pickups, raised enough alarm bells for Council to not pursue this route for now. You may think that the silver lining here would be the end of the City paying the cost of running the recycling program. For the time being, any savings will go to service improvements in garbage and organics collection, and to the reserve. The solid waste reserve will be tremendously important for two reasons. For one, we may need to adapt to the new recycling system at our own cost to make sure you're receiving the consistent level of service you expect. More importantly, the solid waste reserve is key to our future as we keep inching closer to the time when Toronto's main landfill, Green Lane, is filled to capacity. That is expected to happen by 2030, and a city-wide discussion on next steps will be coming soon. I hope the transition to the new blue bin system is seamless. Rest assured that Council will be keeping a close eye on the implementation and adapting where needed. SHELTER SYSTEM AND WINTER WARMING UPDATE Toronto continues to grapple with our growing homelessness crisis. The number of local residents falling into homelessness and the number of newcomers seeking asylum in our shelter system both keep rising. The General Manager of the City's Shelter, Support, and Housing Administration presented an update to the Economic & Community Development Committee on this front earlier this week. Rather than retell these reports, I'm going to provide links to the presentations he gave on these matters: The most important thing to note is that the 2024 Shelter Infrastructure Plan looks to reduce the strain on our system by developing new shelters, either by renovating existing acquisitions or through new modular construction. The reality is we need more shelter beds. Far too many of our shelter clients are still in temporary spaces like hotels. Currently, only 41% of the 10,700 people being sheltered every night are in purpose-built, permanent shelters that offer the supports they need to get into stable housing. Over the next few years, staff are seeking the funding necessary to ensure 60% of shelter users are in permanent shelter beds, with surge capacity for the others who need to use the system on an occasional basis. Let's not forget: the only permanent, long-term solution to our homelessness crisis is building more affordable housing. Modular Housing is one impactful tool to rapidly create more affordable housing for those experiencing homelessness. In terms of special measures for this winter, there will be four 24/7 warming centres open across the city starting in November, as promised last year. Council changed the guidelines for cold weather response last winter and asked that staff be prepared to operate four 24/7 centres in time for this winter, and staff delivered. We hope these centres will help ensure that no one is left out in the cold this season. Finally, we continue to call on both the Provincial and Federal governments to help us serve refugees and asylum seekers in our shelter system. In my mind, they should be helping us with all aspects of the homelessness crisis, and we have called on the Province in particular to provide more funding and support to our shelter system on an ongoing basis. Not only are those other orders of government best equipped to fund these programs, as they have access to things like income and sales tax, we are talking about a basic human right. All governments need to work together to make sure everyone has access to safe shelter.

We're in the midst of our last Council session of the year. Rest assured I'll be providing a full rundown in this column next week once we've concluded all our business. In the meantime, I want to take a look back at 2023. I can say with certainty that this was one of the more interesting years of my career as a City Councillor. If you had told me last January that I would once again be Budget Chief by August, I would've laughed. None of us could have predicted the many twists and turns that came to City Hall this year. Through all the craziness, I was always guided by you, the wonderful residents of Don Valley North. You've trusted me to keep working hard to build a city that we can be proud to call home, and one that our kids and grandkids can still call home in years to come. Let's take a look back at everything that happened in 2023 and think about what we want to see in 2024. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. When 2023 began, I was serving as the Chair of Economic & Community Development Committee (ECDC) under Mayor Tory. I joined him and Councillor Pasternak to announce one of the first major decisions of 2023: Investing in community safety and emergency response times by budgeting to hire 200 firefighters, 200 police officers, and 250 paramedics this year. As Chair of ECDC, I also had many opportunities to connect with the businesses, entrepreneurs, artists, and agencies that are the very backbone of our city. Of course, Mayor Tory resigned in February. That marked the start of some very uncertain months here at City Hall. My focus, and the focus of Deputy Mayor Jennifer McKelvie and the rest of my Council colleagues, was to make sure there was no interruption to the services you rely on every day. That was our guiding principle in the months leading up to the June mayoral by-election. I continued to serve as Chair of ECDC until August of this year, when our new Mayor Olivia Chow appointed me Budget Chief. In addition to my role as Budget Chief, Mayor Chow made me her Economic Development & Culture Champion. Through this role, I've been able to continue much of the essential work I started as Chair of ECDC, including co-chairing the Action Plan for Toronto's Economy and the Action Plan for Toronto's Culture Sector. Both of these plans will be presented to Council in fall of next year, and will guide the City as we work to uplift our economy by supporting our entrepreneurs and artists, businesses and cultural organizations, both large and small. As Budget Chief, the first thing I tackled was our new Long-Term Financial Plan. This document plainly spelled out our structural financial deficit and outlined a number of routes we can take to set our city on a path to long-term financial sustainability. While there are steps our city can take to improve our fiscal position, the Long-Term Financial Plan made it clear that our city also needs greater support from other levels of government or the tools and powers to raise funds that grow with the economy. As I shared in this E-Blast last week, the New Deal secured by the Mayor is a major milestone for the city, but it doesn't solve all of our financial woes. In the short-term, we need to see the Federal government step up and pay their fair share. There are a number of funding promises from the Province that are tied to matching contributions from the Feds, and it would be an absolute shame to never see those dollars materialize because of Federal inaction. Of course, the work to make Toronto truly financially independent and sustainable will be ongoing over my tenure as Budget Chief. I'll touch more on some of my more recent work as Budget Chief at the end of this column, but there were a number of other notable decisions made at Council this year that are worth shouting out: We approved the Expanding Housing Options in Neighbourhoods initiative to allow the construction of low-rise, multi-family housing in neighbourhoods across the city. This will help increase housing choice and make our neighbourhoods more accessible for newcomers, young families, seniors aging in place, and more. The Toronto Community Crisis Service, which was piloting in four areas of Toronto, will be offered city-wide next July. I'm very excited and proud to see this non-police response to mental health crises become accessible to every Torontonian next year. We also expanded the Multi-Disciplinary Outreach Team (M-DOT) program, which connects those sheltering on transit with a wide variety of health social supports, including shelter and housing, mental health services, and much more. I spoke on the importance of Expanding Housing Options in Neighbourhoods when Council considered the initiative in May. I always say, I don't want to drive three hours to visit my grandkids. I want them to be able to build a life here in Toronto. I also moved a number of motions at Council aimed at tackling prominent issues here in Don Valley North and across the City: City Council finally voted to move forward with a ban on leaf blowers and other two-stroke lawn equipment. Dedicated E-blast readers will know that this has been a long time coming, and I look forward to the bylaw being implemented next year. We also saw The Peanut added to the Neighbourhood Streets Plan program. This means that City staff will work with the community to create a comprehensive traffic safety plan in the area next year. I moved a motion to include small businesses located in strip malls in our Small Business Property Tax Subclass. These mom-and-pop shops are vital to our neighbourhoods in the inner suburbs, and should have access to the same city supports as the small businesses on our main streets. I also worked with local tenants to put forward a motion to create an adequate temperature bylaw that protects tenants during our hottest months. Staff will be bringing back a report on this in the first half of 2024, and I'll keep working hard until we have this vital health and safety measure in place. Many of these motions came about because residents like you reached out to my office and advocated for the changes you wanted to see, whether they be in your home, your neighbourhood, or the whole city.  I want to thank each and every one of you who has taken the time to share your most pressing needs with me and raised your voice to help make these changes come about. There were also a number of exciting changes in our local neighbourhoods here in Don Valley North this year. Our brand-new Ethennonnhawahstihnen' Community Recreation Centre & Library opened in July, and I can't wait for the official grand opening in March of next year. We also saw new playground equipment added to Bellbury Park, Clydesdale Park, Elkhorn Park, and Leslie Park, and renovations begin at both Fairview Library and Pleasantview Library. We completed a very successful Participatory Budgeting process in Bayview Village that will see exciting new amenities come to the neighbourhood in the years ahead. There are also a number of changes coming to Sheppard Avenue East. City Planning staff continue to work on the Sheppard Secondary Plan that will guide growth along the corridor, and North York General announced their plan for a new, state-of-the-art Long-Term Care and Seniors Health Facility at the intersection of Sheppard and Leslie. City Council also approved the Sheppard Reconstruction, which will help us update the road to meet the needs of our community now and decades into the future. We also saw the Province announce their plans for the Sheppard Extension. I'm disappointed that Metrolinx is not committing to making this extension a subway. Since Premier Ford took office, I've been very vocal that we need a subway along Sheppard to accommodate the pace of intensification and population growth in the corridor. I've heard the same from many residents and I hope you'll all join me in calling on the Provincial government to commit to this critical subway infrastructure. Photos from some of my favourite community events this year. We also had some great events in the ward this year: a Community Safety Town Hall, Community Environment and Clean-Up Days, Park Pop-Ups, and the return of Summer Celebration. It was great to get back to these in-person events and celebrations after the challenges of the past few years. I also recently wrapped up a city-wide tour for our Pre-Budget Consultations. When I agreed to be Budget Chief, it was because I knew that Mayor Chow and I shared an understanding of just how important it is to engage openly and frequently on our budget process. Most importantly, we have to start the conversation before the Budget is set. It was such a pleasure to travel across the city and hear your vision for our city. I very much look forward to continuing these conversations when the Budget launches in the New Year. It has been one jammed-packed year at the Hall. To end with a fun stat, this is our 48th E-Blast of the year, and next week's will be the 49th. Thanks to each and every one of you who takes the time to read my column every week. It's a pleasure and a privilege to keep you up-to-date on what's happening in our neighbourhoods and our city, and one I look forward to continuing in 2024.

A couple weeks ago, I was at a community event where I fielded a number of questions about a recent opinion piece that ran in the Globe and Mail. A Canadian think tank called Cardus, best known for championing the concept of Christian independent schools, submitted a piece arguing that the City of Toronto could save millions by moving to a practice called open tendering for all of its capital work. I'd like to unpack this claim a little, because I firmly believe that any modest savings that could be found through open tendering aren't worth the larger costs of the practice. In Toronto, we use our own in-house workers for most of our day-to-day operations. When it comes to larger capital projects, which is the major repair, renewal, or creation of infrastructure and buildings, we use a closed tendering process to send the work to outside contractors. Whereas open tendering allows any qualified contractor to bid on construction projects, closed tendering only allows contractors whose workers are part of specific collective bargaining agreements or who abide by our Fair Wage Policy to bid. Let's dive into this a bit more. The City of Toronto is part of a number of Province-wide collective bargaining agreements for specific skilled trades. Where the work being tendered is not covered by one of these Province-wide agreements, Toronto uses a Fair Wage Policy to ensure fair and market-competitive wages for skilled work. This policy has been in place in Toronto for more than 100 years. While open tendering may seem like a pathway to savings, and has been the subject of debate in Toronto's construction industry for some time, there are compelling reasons why it's not the wisest choice for Toronto. For a city like Toronto, the consequences of this procurement method could put some of the largest capital projects in the country at risk. Reduced Quality, Unpredictable Costs, and Delays One of the main concerns with open tendering is the impact it can have on the quality and execution of construction projects. When any contractor can bid on a project, it often becomes a race to the bottom. The fastest route to the bottom is undercutting the going rate for labour. Contractors can employ subpar workmanship and use low-quality materials in an attempt to keep their costs down. In a city like Toronto, known for our ambitious projects, sacrificing quality leads to a lot of resident complaints, demands for do-overs, and higher maintenance costs down the road. Open tendering can also compromise safety on the job site. Safety is paramount in the construction industry, and much of the training that organized or apprenticed workers receive is safety training. Contractors who prioritize cost-cutting and don’t invest in safety measures compound this risk when they hire workers with inadequate safety training. This can potentially lead to an increase in workplace accidents, putting both workers and the public at risk, not to mention putting the City at risk of litigation. Open tendering can also lead to unpredictable costs and projects delays. Contractors are fighting to submit the lowest bid, so they may underestimate the true costs of a project to win the contract. As a result, unexpected expenses can arise during construction, causing delays and budget overruns. I know what you're probably thinking: many large, high-profile projects in Toronto often go over schedule and over budget under our closed tendering model. While this is true, hundreds more small and medium sized state-of-good-repair projects get completed each year on time and under budget, and we can rely on the quality of work. The actual execution of construction projects isn't the only concern. Let’s take a look at the broader economic impacts of open tendering. Economic Impacts: Loss of Local Economic Benefits & the High Cost of Poverty The true cost of open tendering comes from its broader economic impacts, both on individual workers and their families, and our city as a whole. When open contractors are chosen solely based on the lowest bid, they cut labour costs by hiring less experienced workers or subcontractors with even worse quality control. This negatively impacts the livelihoods of skilled laborers in Toronto. It leaves them with little choice but to relocate to other communities or countries where their skills are properly compensated. Toronto and our skilled trade organizations spend a lot of time and money on skilled workforce development because these jobs are always in demand. When we don’t provide fair wages for quality work, those workers leave and that workforce investment is wasted. At the end of the day, the construction industry relies on a skilled workforce, and open tendering can disrupt the stability of the labour market. Open tendering can also result in a loss of local economic benefits. Contractors from outside the city may win contracts with lower bids, but they do so by bringing in their own workforce, materials, and equipment, reducing the economic benefits that could have gone to local businesses and workers. This deprives Toronto of the healthy consumer economy that comes from a properly compensated local workforce. In my view, however, the most compelling argument against open contracting is the high social cost of poverty, which increases when folks aren't properly compensated for their work. There is plenty of research to back this up. In a recent peer-reviewed study, researchers found that when the state-wide participation in labour unions goes down, poverty rises. The reason this matters in the municipal government context is that the fastest-growing cost in many cities is the cost of addressing poverty. Here in Toronto, we find ourselves struggling to address affordable housing shortages and food insecurity for full-time working families. These challenges are growing just as fast as the rapidly rising need for shelter to address homelessness. At a time when poverty is on the rise, we cannot be reducing people's ability to earn a living wage. Our closed tendering process and our Fair Wage Policy ensure that Toronto's skilled workers are properly compensated so that they can support themselves and their families. In Conclusion While open tendering may appear to promote competition in the construction industry, it comes with significant drawbacks. Back in 2019, the Province recommended that cities re-examine their tendering process based on a research paper from, you guessed it, Cardus. Our City Manager did a deep dive on comparative research and found that the potential savings were much lower than Cardus estimated. While Cardus claimed that the savings from open tendering range from 8 – 40%, studies from Europe where the change had actually taken place saw most savings range from 2 – 8%. As we discussed above, the broader economic and social costs can quickly outstrip those savings. Toronto's construction industry needs to use procurement methods that prioritize the quality, expertise, and well-being of the local community to ensure our city's continued growth and success. Of course, there are ways to save money in contracted work. The City does have a lowest bidder policy, but with the caveat of following our Fair Wage Policy and honouring our participation in province-wide construction agreements. I'll leave you with the stated objectives of the aptly-named Fair Wage Policy, which has been in force in Toronto since 1893: Produce stable labour relations with minimal disruption Compromise between wage differentials of organized and unorganized labour Create a level playing field in competition for City work Set standards in the workplace that contractors must meet Protect the public and guard workers from exploitation Enhance the reputation of the City for fair and ethical business dealing

Today is my eldest grandson's birthday. He was born in the middle of my 2006 re-election campaign. That summer is so clear in my mind, even after 17 years. A photo of me, my grandkids, and my daughter Martha with my dad. My grandson Tristan is standing next to me on the right. The 2006 election was the first with extended terms of office. Councillors and new candidates alike were excited at the prospect of having a longer, four-year term to make an impact. Adding to the excitement, the Provincial government had announced a year earlier that the next term of office would include a new piece of legislation called the City of Toronto Act. "The City of Toronto grew up a long time ago. It's time for the law to catch up," said Premier Dalton McGuinty when he announced the legislation’s creation way back in 2005. "Together with our new investments in things like public transit, health care and education, this Act would provide Toronto with the tools it needs to be as optimistic about its future, as it is rightfully proud of its past." As it turns out, the City of Toronto Act may not have all of the tools a big city needs to succeed. That lands us here, with our updated Long-Term Financial Plan. The plan, which outlines our city's financial challenges and various paths forward, was released earlier this month and discussed at Executive Committee last week. I've taken a lot of time to pore over the reports and hear feedback from our community. The reality is, we need a whole new financial framework to support the level of services our city offers without overly relying on your property taxes. Let's take a look at how we got here and what options are available for us to build a city that delivers for Torontonians. THE CITY OF TORONTO ACT That City of Toronto Act (CoTA) arrived in the nick of time. The "Mitigation Fund" that had been given to newly-amalgamated Toronto was gone. Now, the effects of the Provincial download of social housing and transit system operating costs were really coming home to roost. The CoTA was meant to give us the powers and revenue tools that would allow us to mature our municipal finances to match other large cities. We were grateful at the time, but the CoTA stopped just short of providing the revenue tools and powers that exist to make big cities financially sustainable all over the world. We would still have no tax based purely on income and a resident's ability to pay. It left Toronto municipal leaders and staff feeling not so much grown-up, as the Premier said, but more like an irritable teenager. Like my 17 year old grandson, we're ready to take on the world but we can't get the keys to the car without a whole lot of begging. MOVING BEYOND PROPERTY TAX In 2007, the CoTA gave City Hall the power to implement the first Municipal Land Transfer Tax (MLTT) in Canada. Even though this tax is quite common stateside, it was controversial here. The media was full of doomsday scenarios about a Toronto real estate crash that never arrived. Once fully implemented, the MLTT allowed us to stabilize the rate of property tax such that subsequent mayors were able to promise very modest increases for several years. Today, we have one of the lowest mill rates in the province. A map comparing property tax rates across southern Ontario. Click to view a larger version. You may wish to debate whether or not our property taxes are low. If you feel that Toronto's property taxes are too high, then I'd submit that you're arguing in favour of the Long-Term Financial Plan (LTFP). The LTFP outlines in detail the financial difficulty the City of Toronto is facing after years of auditing, hunting for efficiencies, making cuts, and delaying important state-of-good repair work. More importantly, this plan provides us with a menu of solutions so that Toronto can finally be, as Premier McGuinty said so hopefully 17 years ago, "as optimistic about its future as it is rightfully proud of its past.” The goal of this plan is to avoid Toronto falling any further into disrepair and failing to deliver the quality of life that all Torontonians deserve. To do so, the plan proposes that we should consider all of the leftover unimplemented revenue tools from the CoTA that we have the right to use now. However, those tools alone aren't enough. The LTFP further recommends that we petition the Province for the right to collect the kind of mature forms of taxation that all cities our size and larger have access to, namely a municipal sales tax or some form of true income tax. A NEW FISCAL FRAMEWORK You may recall that last summer, Mayor Tory was already mentioning the need for a Municipal Sales Tax in his campaign speeches. That was because he had already had staff show him how deep our fiscal woes have become and how little progress he could make balancing our books with only the tools left in the CoTA toolkit. Let's take a quick look at those tools and why we need bolder action. A favourite option within our CoTA toolkit amongst residents and environmentalists is a parking levy. We have the right to charge a levy on all non-residential parking spots with a slight amendment to the CoTA. We heard many deputations in favour of this at Executive Committee last week. It feels like a tax that only big business will pay, and our consultant estimates a high amount of initial revenue—around $490 million annually. However, there are a number of challenges to implementing this measure that we can see playing out in other cities, and it isn't enough to solve our fiscal woes. Moreover, a parking levy is truly an environmental policy lever—by increasing the cost of parking you reduce the use of cars. If successful, the revenue potential from this levy decreases over time. The CoTA also allows us to reintroduce a municipal vehicle registration tax. Council implemented this for two years over a decade ago and it netted the City $75 million annually. We used that revenue to extend Simcoe Street down to Lakeshore Boulevard and to create grade separations on Morningside Drive and another on Sheppard Road to solve traffic bottlenecks. Despite this progress, the vehicle tax became a political issue in the very next election and every mayoral candidate promised to scrap it. Today, it would be much more expensive to collect because the Province got rid of their own vehicle registration tax. Unlike last time, when we piggybacked on the Province's collection software, we would now have to create our own software and a team of staff to run it. Other tools mentioned in the CoTA include taxes on alcohol, cigarettes, entertainment and amusement, and road pricing charges (otherwise known as congestion charges). These all have varying implementation challenges. Even if we were to introduce all of the above here in Toronto, in the best case scenario we would only fill about 30% of the City's chronic funding gap that has grown to $1 billion annually. To solve the problem in one fair tax, we end up back at the same place: Municipal Sales Tax. A 1% MUNICIPAL SALES TAX A 1% Municipal Sales Tax has been discussed on and off for almost 30 years, when the Provincial government first began to radically alter the relationship between our two levels of government. At that time, the Province downloaded essential services like social housing and transit to cities without giving us the revenue tools or funding to properly operate them. People who live in Baltimore, Chicago, New York City, Seattle, Washington DC, Los Angeles, Austin, Houston, Miami, Milwaukee and hundreds of other towns and cities pay a Municipal Sales Tax. More often than not, the rate is about one cent on the dollar. In many of these American cities, the state is already levying a state sales tax and the two rates are collected together, not unlike our HST. These US cities use this revenue to fund the kinds of big social services like transit and housing that Toronto is struggling to maintain. So why is this conversation coming up again now, when times are hard? Toronto needs a big financial lift, and property tax is the least fair way to get that lift. Think about the street where you live. You all have to pay roughly the same property tax even though your lives and incomes may be vastly different. Some homeowners on your street may have paid off their mortgage a while back, while others are first-time buyers on a tight budget. Property tax is not based on your income or ability to spend, and we need to be leaning on those who can afford to invest more into our city, not families and seniors who are struggling with the rising cost of living. Property tax also isn’t enough to fill our budget hole. Raising our property tax rate by 1% raises only $39 million, and our city needs about $1 billion per year to fill the hole left by COVID-19 and to repair so much of what is ailing our city. We need to implement a fair, long-term, predictable and affordable solution. Any Provincial or Federal leader should want to help us do just that. With a sales tax, each of you will invest differently in the city depending on how much you are able to spend. It will also let us capture revenue from people who come to Toronto, whether that be for work or play. This measure actually has the potential to generate the billion dollars we need to properly fund all of our city services, from fixing our local roads and improving your neighbourhood park to running our transit system, building affordable housing, and fighting climate change. COUNCIL'S RESPONSIBILITY Last but certainly not least, in exchange for a massive change to our financial framework permitted by you, the community, and by other orders of government, City Council must make a commitment to long-term responsibility. Every year, we use our budget process to look for efficiencies. We must redouble our efforts with exhaustive annual program reviews to make sure we can hold up a demonstrable public good for every dollar we spend. As Budget Chief, I will commit to leading the charge to wrap strict and sound spending policies around any new source of revenue coming in to the City's coffers. We can't ask anyone to invest more into our city unless we are prepared to be both disciplined and transparent about where that investment goes in good times and bad. The Long-Term Financial Plan is the beginning of a city-wide conversation our Mayor and City Council wants to have with you—our residents. The City is stepping up and putting everything on the table. We're exploring every option available to us to deliver the services and quality of life you expect and deserve. I look forward to continuing this conversation with all of you in the months ahead.

Last week, I interrupted a brief summer vacation with my grandkids to come in to City Hall for a short Council meeting. Our new mayor, Olivia Chow, brought forward her official appointments to leadership roles and made a few changes to committee memberships. I'm excited to share my new roles and responsibilities with you and let you know which other Councillors landed in a few key positions. I want to commend Mayor Chow for taking a very inclusive approach to her appointments. In her opening remarks, she reminded us all of the way politics used to be: when Toronto mayors gave leadership opportunities across the political spectrum. Post-amalgamation, Mayor Mel Lastman, a known conservative, carved out a role for then-Councillor Olivia Chow as Chair of the Children and Youth Advisory Committee, despite their political differences. Councillor Olivia Chow went on to have a significant impact on stabilizing children's services such as child care centres, nutrition programs, and health initiatives. The next mayor after Mel Lastman, David Miller, continued the tradition of granting leadership opportunities across the political spectrum. That's how I found myself, a brand-new Councillor, chairing the Public Works Committee and helping negotiate our way out of dumping garbage across the border in Michigan. Subsequent Mayors, however, began the practice of consolidating leadership positions around their own personal politics. Mayor Chow brings us back to the good old days with appointments and committee memberships given to Council members of various political stripes. Let's dive into it. I am very pleased to take on the role of Chair of the Budget Committee. While this is a return to a role I have held before, there's a twist: I will also remain at Economic & Community Development Committee as Vice Chair. In that role, I will be the Mayor's Economic Development and Culture Champion, keeping my appointments on the boards of Toronto Global and Destination Toronto. I will also continue to support the Economic Advisory Panel and Culture Advisory Panel, both of which I'm co-chairing with community leaders. Over the next year, the Mayor's office will work with my office and the City Clerk's office to develop a new standing committee that combines Budget with economic interests like business, tourism, and investment in arts and culture. I spoke to reporters about my new position just before our Special Council Meeting last week. New Councillor Alejandra Bravo will chair the Economic & Community Development Committee, focusing on the community and social development files. She's taking on some of the most difficult files in my former committee. Rest assured, she's up for the task. The pandemic's deepest impacts are still being felt in our shelters, long-term care homes, child care centres, and throughout the non-profit sector. This is where Councillor Bravo focused her work outside of City Hall for decades. We'll work together with the other committee members to continue the urgent recovery work underway in all of these areas. If you had asked me how similar Scarborough Councillor Jennifer McKelvie's politics were to Olivia Chow's when Councillor McKelvie first arrived on Council in 2018, I would have laughed and said "Not at all!", but dedicated politicians have a way of coming together when the needs of our city are so clear. Mayor Chow has acknowledged what an amazing job Councillor McKelvie did as Deputy Mayor many times and knows what valuable insight and leadership she brings to Council. Going forward, Jennifer McKelvie will continue as Chair of the Infrastructure & Environment Committee and hold a role as an honorary Deputy Mayor for Scarborough. In other key positions, Mayor Chow has appointed Councillor Ausma Malik as Deputy Mayor, Councillor Gord Perks as Chair of Planning & Housing, and Councillor Jamaal Meyers as Chair of the TTC Board. Showing her willingness to work together across political lines, Mayor Chow granted significant positions to former campaign opponents Brad Bradford and Josh Matlow. Councillor Bradford is staying on as Vice Chair of Planning & Housing and will take the lead advocating on Toronto's Music Industry Strategy, while Councillor Matlow was appointed as a TTC Commissioner and given an at-large spot on Mayor Chow's Executive Committee. The full slate of appointments has been well covered in the media, and I'll share a favourite article of mine here: What is most important to remember in all the fanfare about leadership roles is the unwavering importance of all 25 members of City Council. Each Toronto councillor represents more people than most Ontario mayors, and each one plays a key role in building consensus around what best serves our city. All of City Council knows that our city is facing significant challenges. Despite our differences, we are all united in trying to make life better for Torontonians. I look forward to working together with Mayor Chow and my Council colleagues in the months and years ahead to deliver just that.

It's been a good couple of weeks since the Ontario Auditor General released the findings of her investigation into the Provincial government's move to release certain properties from the Greenbelt. This issue is still popping up in the news, and rightly so. While our Premier insists that this move was needed to fight our housing crisis, opening lands in the Greenbelt is not the solution we need. Let's dive into why this issue just won't go away and why we have a Greenbelt in the first place. Ontario's Greenbelt was designated in 2004 after years of activism. It is the largest in the world, protecting two million acres of farmland, forests, wetlands, rivers, and lakes. This land provides us with fresh air, clean water, fantastic local food and drink, and world-class outdoor recreation and tourism experiences. The health of the Greenbelt affects the quality of drinking water for more than seven million Canadians. The permanent protection of this land is essential not only for our local environment today, but also to support our local economies and fight climate change in the long term. When you visit a farm in the Greenbelt to go berry picking or hay riding, you're acknowledging the importance of having food production near our densely populated cities. When you walk the dog or ride your bike past a creek in the Greenbelt, it's easy to forget that the creek you see and aquifers beneath your feet are working hard to make life liveable for 8 million people in the Greater Golden Horseshoe. These natural features will be all the more needed in the years ahead, as the population for the region is set to increase to 11.5 million by 2031. You can learn more about the benefits of the Greenbelt here: There is also an important planning principle that adds to all of these innate environmental benefits: endlessly sprawling out from the core of a city is unsustainable. A city cannot guarantee endless stretches of road and transportation modes. There is a massive environmental cost to sprawl, both in its increased energy footprint and by encouraging longer personal vehicle commutes. There is also a serious financial burden to allowing endless low-density sprawl that can't be met by any order of government. A map of the Greenbelt. That is why the Province's own planning policy has been geared towards intensification within cities for as long as there has been a Greenbelt. In addition, the Auditor General herself demonstrates in her report that we can still build the 1.5 million homes that Ontario needs without using any Greenbelt lands. Just months before opening up Greenbelt land and providing windfall profits to developers, the Province had assigned housing targets to all Golden Horseshoe municipalities to meet the need for 1.5 million homes. Not a single municipality objected to these targets. Each of us simply asked for the ability to collect adequate development charges so that we can upgrade the infrastructure needed to serve the new housing. If Premier Ford is focused on the housing crisis, he is focused on the right issue. However, he is not focused on the right solutions. Opening up the Greenbelt not only threatens our natural environment and local economies, it doesn't built the type of housing we need. Across the Golden Horseshoe, including right here in Don Valley North, there are thousands of development applications approved, representing hundreds of thousands of units ready to be built within existing cities. However, shovels aren't hitting the ground. Developers aren't proceeding because inflation and the ever-changing cost of borrowing is making them hesitate. Our Provincial and Federal governments can't guarantee the price of steel and other building materials, but they do have the policy power to make things more predictable and palatable as we tackle the housing crisis. For instance, they can guarantee the cost of borrowing in exchange for rapid building starts and the completion of housing units. In particular, we need to see the other orders of government provide low-cost, long-term, fixed-rate financing for the construction of purpose-built rentals. Our Provincial and Federal partners could also look into creating a Code of Conduct for builders that streamlines the approvals process and helps fast-track housing. With these measures in place, housing could continue to wrap around Lake Ontario and the Greenbelt could continue to support Ontarian's quality of life by providing access to greenspace, local food, and fresh, clean water sources. It is just not good enough to say that the Provincial government is adopting 14 of the Auditor General's 15 recommendations when they are ignoring the most urgent one. The Auditor General has called for a halt to releasing these lands from the Greenbelt, and the Province is refusing to budge. If you want the Greenbelt protected for your children and grandchildren, you need to reach out to your local MPP and our Premier right now. We need housing built, but it needs to be the right type of housing for our communities, now and into the future. We don’t need massive homes built in the middle of nowhere, especially when they threaten the lands that are the lifeblood of our Province. The Province needs to acknowledge the importance of our Greenbelt lands, put them back under protection, and get to work on the policy changes that will actually deal with the housing crisis at hand.

We've had a few calls come in about the arm's length Provincial body known as the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation (MPAC), especially as there's been some coverage of MPAC on the news lately. MPAC does an assessment on your property every four years that sets the tax rate for our city. Pressure is mounting on Premier Ford to proceed with a fresh property assessment across all Ontario municipalities, as the reassessment that was due in 2020 was delayed due to the pandemic. MPAC has a handy video on how the current value assessment system works: Let's review the key parts of the current value assessment outlined in MPAC's video and unpack them a little. It's true that when the Province-wide assessment updates are done, recent nearby sales are the most important factor in determining your home's value. Additionally, MPAC tries to carefully group similar property types in each neighbourhood to determine values. That means that while the sale of a fully renovated monster home might have some impact on the entire street, properties that are smaller "originals" should be adjusted closer to their true value. There is also a process to file an appeal if you feel that your property has been improperly assessed. If the next assessment assigns a value to your two-bedroom bungalow that seems like it would better fit the mansion next door, you will want to file an appeal. Recent media reports have highlighted under-assessed luxury homes and some over-assessed smaller homes across Toronto, so I checked in with Casey Brendon, the Director of City of Toronto Revenue Services, to get some insights. For as long as either of us could remember, MPAC has slightly low-balled your assessment amounts. Proportionately, MPAC assessment values are often $200,000 to $400,000 lower than what your house might sell for in a bidding war. I've heard questions and complaints about MPAC low-balling because people think it will affect the resale value of their homes or their ability to borrow. The fact is, your MPAC assessment only affects one thing: your property tax bill. The real estate market itself determines what your home will sell for. The most important thing I'd like you to take away from the video explainer above is the amount MPAC calls "the cost of running the city you live in." This is all-important as it truly limits the amount of taxes any municipality can fairly collect. This is the amount we divide the number of homes in the city by to arrive at a tax rate. Because we're dividing the cost of running the city across the value of all the homes in Toronto, just because your property assessment goes up by 20% does not mean the amount of tax you pay goes up 20%. As shown in the video, if every home in the city increases in value by 20%, the overall tax rate lowers and you actually end up paying the same amount of property tax. I know some folks get worried that a reassessment will drastically up their taxes, but that is not the case. It just makes sure everyone is paying their fair share of that cost to run our city. The issue with the cost of running the city number is that it was set provincially over 20 years ago when MPAC was created. Since then, the cost of running Toronto has changed by far more than just inflation. Our city has grown and added a significant amount of both infrastructure and services, such as libraries, community centres, and massive increases in transit infrastructure, including the Sheppard subway, the York University subway extension, new streetcar maintenance facilities, bus garages, and soon, of course, the operation of the Eglinton Crosstown, to name a few. It's no wonder that we've had to exercise our only option to add a property tax increase on top of your assessed rate when year after year, the Province hasn't updated the original calculation of how much it costs to run our city. Here is the problem with the math exactly as MPAC described is in their explainer video: Each time there is a new assessment, we take the "cost of running the city" number and divide it by the total value of homes in the city. That means that added homes just help to stabilize your property taxes, and the only windfall we derive from new homes is when they pay the property tax increases that our City budget is permitted to apply. It's good to discuss all of these assessment details in advance of an update. The Province has been waiting for the pandemic impacts to pass, so a Province-wide reassessment is imminent. It's good for you to know some of the basics of the system but, fundamentally, we need the math updated to create fairness. Most of all, we need to tackle the fact that your property tax bill is ill-equipped to sustain a city like ours, full stop. Let's have the most fair and updated property tax calculation, by all means. Once that's taken care of, we need permission and access to an added source of revenue that actually captures wealth and redistributes it. Property tax is not the right tax to run our growing transit system or support refugee claimants who arrive in our city. Instead, we need a measure like a Municipal Sales Tax that taxes based on ability to spend and captures tax from visitors and non-residents who use our city infrastructure without contributing to it. Toronto is staring down a significant budget hole. While it's due time for an MPAC update, we also need to look at the bigger picture and chart a course to make Toronto financially sustainable for generations to come. I'll be sharing plenty more on this topic in the months ahead, so stay tuned. We'll be taking a short break from the E-Blast next week, but rest assured we'll be back on August 17 with more important updates for our community. My office’s phone line and email will continue to be answered over the next two weeks, so please don’t hesitate to reach out about any issues that may arise.

Next week, our City of Toronto Auditor General is going to do something she’s never done before: present her findings on the internal workings of the Toronto Police Service to City Councillors. Toronto was the first municipality to install an independent Auditor General, but the Toronto Police Service was always a no-go zone. All of that changed in the summer of 2020 when Toronto and cities across the globe reckoned with much-needed changes to policing. The Auditor General’s first deep dive into police operations is an examination of 911 dispatch. In my view, this is one area that provides a great opportunity to look at alternative models that can deliver greater service in a more cost-effective way. Transferring the management of 911 dispatch away from the police and into the City, as is done in many other jurisdictions, will help us keep costs down and improve emergency response times by ensuring the service is fully-staffed. It also aligns with Council’s commitment to look for opportunities to de-task the police, bring down their significant budget, and improve police culture. I look forward to the City’s Manager’s report on 911 dispatch that is coming forward soon. Back to the City’s independent Auditor General: How is it that she is only now reporting on the internal workings of the Toronto Police Service? Previously, the Auditor General had to stay out of the police service in deference to the Ontario Police Services Act. However, there are plenty of administrative areas of policing where the Police Act does not constrain management choices. In response to calls for changes to policing in summer 2020, Councillor Thompson, Mayor Tory, and I introduced large-scale changes to the way policing and community safety is tackled in Toronto. We all felt that if the Police Board invited the Auditor General to investigate certain matters within the force, the resulting changes would be thoughtful and therefore effective. A photo from the press conference where Mayor Tory, Councillor Thompson and I announced our motion for police reform in June 2020. Over the last two years, City staff and the police have worked together with community advocates and organizations to make several fundamental changes to how we keep communities safe. This includes: The creation of a non-police community safety response for people in crisis, currently piloting in four police divisions Increased investments in the Poverty Reduction Strategy and Confronting Anti-Black Racism Strategy Increased transparency on the Toronto Police budget The expansion of the Mobile Crisis Intervention Team program A robust consultation process to select the next Chief of Police The adoption of body-worn cameras for enhanced accountability In addition to these measures, we created a new accountability table to oversee all of this work and gave the Auditor General the ability to come in and dig into the administration of police services. The full list of action items and their progress is being reported publicly by both the City and the Police Service: All of this work has required consistent collaboration. For that, I would like to thank Denise Campbell, the Executive Director of the City’s Social Development division; Acting Police Chief James Ramer; Ryan Teschner, Executive Director of the Toronto Police Services Board; Jon Reid, President of the Toronto Police Association; and, most importantly, Mayor Tory for his role on both the Police Board and Council, where he has worked to move these initiatives forward with buy-in from all stakeholders. Having served on the Police Board alongside the Mayor last term, I know how challenging these reform efforts can be. The Mayor’s leadership has been significant. All of these pieces are part of an ongoing process to continuously improve policing and community safety on a city-wide basis. They’ve also had some immediate impacts closer to home. One change I want to highlight, and one that has been called for by racialized Torontonians for some time, is the expansion of the Neighbourhood Officer program. Here in Don Valley North, we had seen this important police role reduced. Our long-time Neighbourhood Officer, Dale Swift, was spread very thin. He has now trained up three new officers for our community and has transitioned to a new role supporting the program on a larger scale. I want to thank Officer Swift and our residents here in Don Valley North who have helped expand this important program. Me and my team at a community safety audit with community members and our local neighbourhood officers this past fall. All of this positive change has given me and my team greater capacity to work in partnership with the community and local police to find locally-led solutions to community safety concerns. We’ve helped facilitate community safety audits, neighbourhood safety walks, enhanced youth programming and community supports, and local initiatives like the Sparroways Wellness Committee, which was formed in response to local gun violence in the summer of 2018. These partnerships help us focus on common sense solutions that are low in cost but high in impact—things like improved lighting, maintenance, and best practices for keeping people and property safe. Going forward, it’s going to be important to stay vigilant and make sure we maintain and expand our investment in alternative models of community safety. Early interventions are always the most effective tools to keep our community safe, and often they do not require the involvement of police. Programs like the City’s FOCUS Tables have been putting social service organizations in the driver’s seat when it comes to supporting those most at risk. My goal is to continue to work with you to find local solutions to keep our neighbourhoods safe. I had the great opportunity to meet with the Black Community Consultative Committee of Toronto Police Services last weekend. Finally, I would be remiss to not talk about the major story about the police from last month: The collection of race-based data has proven what Black and racialized communities have been saying for decades—that they are at a disproportionate risk for police violence across all types of encounters. As someone who sat on the Police Board when we developed the policy for collecting this data, I’m glad that it is proving the necessity of the reform work we have ahead. The next step before is accountability and action. There will always be a Toronto Police Service on duty to serve and protect you, but with a difference. It’s not enough that Chief Ramer has apologized to our BIPOC residents. We need to transform our police force to rebuild trust in police for all Torontonians. I will leave you with this fantastic clip from Dr. Notisha Massaqoui, the expert who led the development of the Race-Based Data Collection Strategy at Toronto Police Services, on what we need to do next: {embed twt vid here} Planning & Development Updates Prepared by Tom Gleason, Chief of Staff Upcoming Community Meeting 1800 Sheppard Avenue East – Fairview Mall: Monday, July 11 @ 6:30 PM City Planning staff will be hosting a virtual community meeting to hear from residents about this development application. The application is proposing a Masterplan Concept consisting of four phases of redevelopment around the existing CF Fairview Mall. The proposal would create approximately 4,700 new residential units, up to 40,000 sqm of additional non-residential uses, and three new public parks. The Phase 1 Proposal would replace the existing expansive surface parking lots, driveways, and a portion of a five-storey parking structure with three high-rise buildings of 58, 48, and 38 storeys. You can join the meeting online via WebEx or call in by phone. Please register here and you will receive further instructions by email. Garden Suites Now Permitted in Toronto The City of Toronto Garden Suites Bylaw is in full force after the Ontario Land Tribunal (OLT) dismissed an appeal earlier this week. The Garden Suites Bylaw and Official Plan Amendment were adopted by Toronto City Council on February 2, but were appealed shortly after. On June 2, the OLT heard a motion from the City to dismiss the appeal. Permits for the construction of garden suites can now be issued, provided the application complies with the Bylaw requirements and all other applicable law. Any garden suite proposal that does not meet the Zoning Bylaw requirements can seek a minor variance application at the Committee of Adjustment. Through that process, City Planning staff review the application to determine if the proposed variances are appropriate and meet the intent of the Official Plan policies and the Zoning Bylaw. For more information on Garden Suites, visit the link below: Upcoming Vaccine Clinics in Don Valley North Oriole Community Centre (2975 Don Mills Rd. W.) North York General Hospital & Flemingdon Health Centre are continuing to operate the walk-in vaccine clinic at Oriole Community Centre every Thursday in July from 5:00 - 8:30 PM. First, second, third, and fourth doses are available for those eligible. For more information, visit the link below: Meet Julie Boarder and Derek Allen, our Don Valley Northerners of the week! Julie and Derek were nominated by a neighbour who is so appreciative of all the community events and initiatives they lead. Julie and Derek host great events all year round, from their hugely popular movie night in the park each summer, free pumpkin giveaway and colouring contest at Halloween, and clothing drive for those in need each winter, to name a few. Thank you, Julie and Derek, for all the ways you give back to your community here in Don Valley North! Nominate a Neighbour! Do you know someone in your neighbourhood who makes a difference? Nominate them for Don Valley Northerner of the Week! To submit a nomination, please send a short blurb (~100 words) about the person you are nominating to councillor_carroll@toronto.ca. My team will contact you if we select your nominee as Don Valley Northerner of the Week!