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The Economic and Community Development Committee (ECDC), which I chair, will meet next Tuesday and we're in for some lively debate. We have a number of meaty items on the agenda, which I want to break down for you today. Let's take a look. HOLD THE CHICKENS If you've been watching the news, you may have heard something about backyard chickens here in Toronto. Since 2018, the City has been running the UrbanHensTO Pilot Program, which has allowed residents in select city wards to keep hens. Having backyard hens is work. It takes real commitment and maintenance. For that reason, allowing them in Toronto went quite smoothly. Only about 100 households participated in the pilot. Due to the level of care involved, homeowners often sign up for one spring/summer season but don't return to the program the following year. The pilot has been quite successful, but City Staff do not recommend extending the program city-wide at this time. Given the current risk of Avian Flu, we are winding down the program. Current participants will be allowed to keep their hens until the end of the animals' lives. When the risk of flu has passed, a city-wide permission would be manageable and it might be a discussion to revisit. ENHANCING OUR WARMING CENTRE MODEL This year, there was a big focus on our warming centres and what our city can do to offer more safe, indoor spaces to those experiencing homelessness in our harshest season. ECDC asked Shelter, Support & Housing Administration (SSHA) staff to prepare a full report on how we can improve this model, and how we might be able to run our warming centres 24/7. We know that we can and should do more with our winter strategy, and this report outlines just how to do that. This week, I announced the proposed changes to our warming centre model. The report coming to Committee next week includes lessons learned from the 24/7 pilot and shows us what would be required to provide more access this coming winter. With just $5 million from our partner orders of government, we could operate two warming centres 24/7 and run additional temporary services for much of the winter. The report also recommends raising the temperature at which we open the temporary sites. If we adopt these recommendations, warming centres will open when temperatures reach -5°C, up from -15°C, and whenever Environment Canada issues an extreme weather warning. However, we cannot fully implement this plan alone. Serving the homeless is wealth redistribution in its purest form, and property taxes are not structured to do that. Property taxes are not collected based on your wealth—income taxes are. That is why this report calls on the Federal and Provincial governments to help fund our expanded winter strategy. I trust that our partners at both levels of government see the urgency of this work and will provide the support necessary for our city to achieve these goals. CHANGES TO THE EMPLOYMENT OFFICE Getting the unemployed and under-employed through the right doors and into sustainable employment is absolutely key to our city's health. Toronto Employment and Social Services (TESS) has, since amalgamation, been connecting people with employers and employee training. TESS includes several social services under one banner because it helps connect those to the wide range of supports they need to find successful work. For those that need them, TESS provides pre-employment capacity-building programs. Rather than send clients to job interviews endlessly with no success, TESS refers clients to partner agencies and programs that get people ready to be successful at finding and keeping a job. One of our TESS centres. All of that is about to change. Premier Ford is uploading the management social and employment services to the Provincial government. Under this new model, employment services will look quite different. The Province will contract a provider of these services in each municipality and set strict criteria around how the program should be run. For clients in Toronto, this will feel like a deep cut. The Provincial model does not include the pre-employment services we've been delivering for decades. The item coming to ECDC on this will be quite an eye-opener for Council members. City staff first informed Council about these changes when they were announced by the Province in 2021, and we were comforted by the news that Toronto would be near the end of the list. This gave staff lots of time to make their case to the Province for continuing our long-successful approach to getting challenging clients employed. Since 2021, staff have been following the changes in other municipalities. They've noticed that the Province is being very prescriptive—some might even say rigid—in their approach. They leave no grey area for additional service, even if it might lead to successful employment for another Torontonian. City staff explored presenting a bid to become the contractor that delivers employment services in Toronto, but found that we would not be funded to deliver the kind of service we have in past. Instead, City staff recommend letting the Province choose a contractor, who we will work with to build additional programs that lead to true workforce development. THE HONOUR IS ALL MINE Last but not least, I want to highlight that while ECDC deals with some very serious and very human issues, we sometimes get rewarded with very special moments. One such moment is coming on Tuesday, when we welcome Lillian Allen to be named our latest Toronto Poet Laureate. Lillian Allen, our next Poet Laureate. I can honestly say that Lillian was instrumental in forming some of my politics and my feminism. In my twenties, my husband and I were all about enjoying the city before settling down and having a family. We spent many nights at the Bamboo Club and other venues in and around Queen Street, where Lillian would show up and riff her unique brand of Dub Poetry with the musicians on stage. She spoke about what it could mean to be a woman in this city if you weren't born with privilege—what it would feel like to be a powerless social worker or the even more powerless client before them. She spoke of the pain of childbirth, and then that the pushing continues as a mother has to give birth to the life that baby will lead. Toronto's next Poet Laureate, Lillian Allen, fills up everyone who listens to her. My thanks to the panel who have brought her forward to inhabit this role.

Toronto's housing crisis has been approaching for years. We've watched our population rise faster than the supply of new homes, rental and ownership alike. The housing gap continues to widen every year, and we have reached a point where we must call it what it is: a crisis. The shortage of housing at almost every point along the housing spectrum has pushed many out of any home at all. This is not only a crisis of housing, it is also a crisis of homelessness. The graph above shows the total number of new units constructed vs our city's population growth each year. As you can see, the gap is significant. This morning at Planning and Housing Committee, two items show us both the challenges that stand in the way of alleviating the crisis and some possible solutions: The Housing Now Initiative: 2023 Progress Update and the Expanding Housing Options in Neighbourhoods: Multiplex Study – Final Report. If you are reading this while comfortable in your own housing circumstances, you still need to care about the outcomes of these reports. They impact the ability of our own kids, grandkids, friends, and neighbours to keep living in the city they call home. Housing Now First up, there is a detailed progress report on Housing Now. This initiative was introduced right after Mayor Tory was first elected in 2018. Housing Now seeks to utilize surplus city lands to develop mixed-income, mixed-use, and transit-oriented communities. By leveraging public land in partnership with private-sector developers, this initiative is expected to deliver over 12,000 homes, over 4,500 of which would be affordable rental. This initiative really seeks to fill the "missing middle" of our housing spectrum, as middle-income earners in our city have been faced with fewer and fewer housing options, particularly in the rental market. The Housing Spectrum, which shows the range of housing types any city needs to support its population. Housing Now targets the "missing middle" of the housing spectrum, which includes affordable rental housing. The challenge with this initiative has been that many of the sites have proven to be complex places to plan and build. This makes sense, as most of the prime real estate in our city has already been parcelled out. As an example, we have a Housing Now site here in Don Valley North: 251 Esther Shiner Boulevard, just east of Ikea. This is currently a City Works Yard, and the plan for this site is to create a mixture of market housing, affordable rental, and long-term care beds. We've run into a number of obstacles at this location, including relocating the Works Yard and figuring out the funding model to support long-term care, affordable housing, and market housing all on the same site. While City staff were working through these early-identified challenges at Esther Shiner, the Province threw us another set of curve balls with Bills 109 and 23. I've written about these Bills in detail in past E-Blasts, as both have drastically changed our planning landscape. While both of these Provincial bills have sped up the planning process, they have also radically reduced the amount of money our city can collect to pay for the necessary infrastructure upgrades around new developments. This can make entire deals go south for government partners trying to build affordable housing. We must demand that any and all infrastructure issues at a site will be completely committed to by all partners or we are being irresponsible to our city. At the same time, our private sector partners are facing their own challenges. We are in a new economic era where interest rates can change quickly and the cost of construction can skyrocket well beyond what was budgeted for at the beginning of the planning process. Even if we smooth over every obstacle on our end, the private developer can unable to start construction due to these rising costs.The report presented at Committee today paints a pretty grim picture on our progress on Housing Now projects overall. Like 251 Esther Shiner, over 75% of the Housing Now sites identified in Phase 1 are still marked "Construction Start To Be Determined". The potential to house people is there, but we need our Premier to recognize that our goal is to build complete neighbourhoods with adequate physical and community infrastructure, not just buildings. Expanding Housing Options in Neighbourhoods (EHON) Another item at Planning and Housing looks dull, but it’s a game-changer. I've written about it multiple times [1, 2] since the concept was first introduced. It is called EHON: Expanding Housing Options in Neighbourhoods. It's also been referred to as the Multiplex Study. This initiative opens up options to create more gentle density in our single-family neighbourhoods across the city. It permits up to three or four units of housing to be built on a neighbourhood-zoned single lot (things like duplexes, triplexes, and low-rise apartments). This is not entirely new to the city—it is currently permitted in certain areas—but it is new for us north of the 401. Today, Planning and Housing Committee brought forward the enabling bylaws to make this a reality. Multiplexes are already common in certain parts of the city. These "fourplexes" are common in the Beaches. I know many folks in our neighbourhoods are concerned about these changes. I can best explain the benefit of this initiative by sharing the story of one of my own friends who created a multi-unit home over the course of her life here in Toronto. A long-time friend of mine passed away last year, and we celebrated her life in the beautiful, sprawling house she enjoyed in the Glen Manor enclave of the Beaches for over fifty years. She and her husband bought the large fixer-upper upon the birth of their fifth child, and they did indeed fix 'er up. Over time, things change. My friend became a divorced single mom with five teenagers, and she built a basement apartment to help make ends meet. A carpenter friend made sure the appropriate firewalls and doors passed inspection and legitimized the suite. As the kids grew up and moved out, child support payments dwindled and my friend was not well-pensioned. She created two more suites on the second floor of her house, and my friend Sheila gained enough income to stay on the main floor of the home she loved. The four-unit house provided two high-end Beaches apartments upstairs, an affordable apartment in the basement, and a home for my friend until she passed on, well into her 80s. These units allowed Sheila to continue to entertain in her lovely living and dining rooms and keep the same neighbours she knew would always have her back. Gentle density allowed her to truly age in place. All the while, it created additional units that allowed other folks to call her beautiful neighbourhood home when they wouldn't have been able to otherwise. As we introduce multiplexes across Toronto, remember that every applicant will still need to present plans to the city to make any substantial changes to the dwelling. Codes must be respected and inspections will be made. These changes will also be much less drastic than you might be imagining. For example, this semi on Lynch Road right here in Don Valley North houses three homes without any changes to the footprint of the building. 31 Lynch Road. The right side of the semi is one unit, while the left side of the semi contains two units. These forms of gentle-density housing can blend right into our neighbourhoods, all the while creating a wider range of housing options for young people, newcomers, families, and seniors who want to call Toronto home. It's a step we need to take to tackle our housing crisis and make Toronto liveable for generations to come. Economic & Community Development Updates The April meeting of the Economic & Community Development Committee took place this past Tuesday, April 25. I was honoured to welcome Lillian Allen as Toronto’s newest Poet Laureate. Lillian's work has inspired me for decades, and I know that her empowering poetry and activism will continue to spark dialogue across the city.

May 11, 2023 As I write this E-Blast, we are nearing the end of the second day of this month’s City Council meeting. Our agenda started with 183 items of business: everything from development applications to budget adjustments on big infrastructure projects like basement flooding mitigation to sidewalk installations. At the start of every meeting, the Mayor (or in our current case, Deputy Mayor Jennifer McKelvie) is able to designate up to two Key Matters. This month, it was about climate action and multiplexes. TRANSFORMTO NET ZERO CLIMATE ACTION STRATEGY On climate action, Council adopted two major reports: the 2022 Annual Report of the TransformTO Net Zero Climate Action Strategy and the Carbon Accountability Report. TransformTO is the City’s Net Zero strategy that was adopted in 2021 and sets us on the path to reduce greenhouse gas emissions with some of the most ambitious targets in North America: community-wide net zero emissions by 2040, with a 65% reduction even sooner at 2030. This report is a key part of holding ourselves accountable for our own commitments in this area. So often, we adopt strategies that are well-consulted, well-produced, and even win awards but sit on the shelf. I’m proud to say that’s not the case here: we have a strategy, annual action plans, and a metrics dashboard that comes back to us regularl. This year, we celebrate that 100 per cent of the short-term actions in our plan to reach our targets were met. Other key achievements in 2022 include: Version 4 of the Toronto Green Standard (TGS) came into effect, raising the bar once again for high-performance, high-quality, low-emissions new buildings in Toronto. The TGS continues to raise the bar for all new builds and is expected to save more than one megatonne of GHG emissions by 2050. More good news if you own or are thinking about an electric car. More than 100 electric vehicle (EV) charging stations were installed in Green P lots. By the end of 2024, more than 650 charging ports will be installed both on-street and in Green P parking lots. An EV Charging Plan is also in development to grow and support the transition to electric vehicles. The City’s goal is to have 30 per cent of registered vehicles in Toronto fully electric by 2030. A Wastewater Energy Program was introduced, facilitating one of the largest and first-of-its-kind sewer heat-recovery projects in the world to expand renewable energy supply for buildings. Work is also underway to expand the Deep Lake Water Cooling system that Enwave Toronto is famous for. A Climate Advisory Group comprising 26 members of the public with diverse backgrounds and lived experience was established to help guide implementation of the TransformTO Strategy with an equity lens. Community-wide GHG emissions in Toronto have been reduced by 43 per cent against 1990 levels. Significant community-wide action is needed to reach future targets, including a 65 per cent reduction by 2030 and net zero by 2040. To reach the City’s 2030 target, emissions must be cut in half in the next seven years. MULTIPLEXES The Expanding Housing Options in Neighbourhoods (EHON) initiative looks at a range of low-density housing types like garden suites, duplexes, triplexes and low rise apartments that will help create a more diverse range of options in neighbourhoods. The goal of the bylaw, which was approved at City Council yesterday, is to bring more housing opportunities for Torontonians, who would otherwise be priced out of the housing market. Prior to its inclusion in this week's agenda, the City held multiple virtual consultations dating back to 2019, and I have also written extensively about these changes in several E-Blasts over the last year: March 16, 2023: What's happening with the Housing Action Plan December 15, 2022: The Mayor's Housing Action Plan June 23, 2022: Making Housing Solutions Work for our community This is a three unit detached home in central Etobicoke of a similar scale and depth to its neighbours. It is on a wide lot that can accommodate parking alongside soft landscaping and a mature tree. I know that for some this is a daunting change. But here is some comfort: any homeowners who choose to expand their home into a multiplex will still have to ensure that their homes are in harmony with the rest of the neighbourhood. Each application will be measured against the City's bylaws, building codes, landscaping requirements, storm water infrastructure guidelines among many other criteria prior to the City considering their application. It is a comprehensive process that does have to account for congruity with the existing neighbourhood. As the housing crisis rages on, the City is looking at gentler ways to enhance density and over time, will prove to be a better alternative to larger density buildings. Here is my speech from Council on the issue:

Spring has sprung! Here in Don Valley North, that means many of us are out and about enjoying our beautiful neighbourhoods, parks, and ravines. It also means we're noticing some of the local issues that are hidden in winter. Around this time of year, my office gets an uptick in calls about a number of problems as folks begin exploring their neighbourhoods again. Today, I'm going to run through some of the most common issues we encounter this time of year, share some helpful reminders, and talk about the process to get these problems solved. Plow Damage to Boulevards and Lawns This is by far the number one issue my team has been hearing about for the past month. As I shared in an E-Blast earlier this year, we had a rocky start to our new winter services contract. Unfortunately, by some combination of equipment and operation, snow and sidewalk plows have done a real number on our boulevards and lawns. This tends to be the case in the first year or two of a new contract as the operators get used to our neighbourhoods, but this year was particularly rough. An example of a city boulevard that was dug up by a sidewalk plow. Thank you to the residents who diligently reported this to my office. My team reported it to staff to ensure the location will be repaired. If part of your lawn or boulevard was dug up by a plow, or you notice plow damage in your neighbourhood, report it to 311. You can report by phoning 3-1-1 or completing a quick online form at the link below: Once you report, our Transportation Services department will add your address to the queue to be repaired. Their goal is to complete repairs by early summer, but this timeline can be pushed depending on the availability of sod and the number of locations they need to address. Given how extensive the plow damage has been this year, I anticipate that restoration will take a little longer than usual. I also want to reassure you that the City does not foot the bill for these damages. The City coordinates the repairs, but the winter maintenance contractors are fully responsible for the cost of all sod damages they cause. I have also submitted an item to the Infrastructure & Environment Committee requesting a comprehensive review of our new winter maintenance contractors given the wide variety of issues we've experienced this year, including sod damage. I'll be sure to keep our community updated on the outcome of this review. Property standards This is also the time of year when homeowners need to give their properties a little extra TLC. The number one property standards issue my office usually hears about in the warmer months is overgrown grass and weeds. As a reminder, property owners are responsible for cutting the grass and controlling the noxious weeds on their property, including the boulevard in front of and beside your home. Landlords are also responsible for this on their properties, unless they make an arrangement with their tenants. An example of overgrown grass and weeds on a city boulevard. The City recently updated its grass and weeds bylaw to better allow for pollinator-friendly gardens and other alternatives to traditional lawns. Under the new bylaw, you must keep turfgrass (traditional grass) shorter than 20 cm tall, keep your property free of prohibited plants (like poison ivy, ragweed, and other toxic and invasive plants), and ensure that your lawn/garden doesn't obstruct sidewalks/roadways or obstruct traffic sightlines. You can learn more at the link below: Beyond lawn care, homeowners also have to keep their properties tidy and free of litter, debris, and clutter. If you notice any property standards issues in your neighbourhood, these can also be reported to 311. Proper Waste Set-Out As we get through our spring cleaning, inside our homes and out, we need to make sure we're setting out our waste properly. You can find all the information you need about proper set-out for bins, yard waste and oversized items; how to sort your garbage, recycling and organics; when to set out your waste; and more on the City's website below: If your waste collection is missed, you need to report it to 311 after 5 PM on the day of your collection and before 5 PM on the next day (within 24 hours). If you're experiencing repeat issues with waste collection, reach out to my office and we'll help get it sorted out for you. This photo shows an overflowing blue bin. If your bins are frequently overstuffed, it may be time to switch to a larger size. My office is also hosting a Community Environment Day this coming Tuesday, May 16. This is a chance for you to drop off electronic and household hazardous waste, pick up free compost for your garden, and donate gently used items like clothing, books, small household items, and more. I hope to see you there! Parking Reminders To close off, I also want to share a few reminders about parking. This is an issue in our neighbourhoods year-round, but I think some of these problems can be sorted with a few gentle reminders. There are two broad types of parking concerns: on-street and off-street. On-street parking concerns include things like: Parking beyond a timed limit (Most of our streets in Don Valley North are subject to an unsigned three-hour parking maximum) Parking facing the wrong direction Parking in front of a driveway, fire hydrant, bus stop, or stop sign And more On-street parking complaints are handled by Toronto Police parking enforcement officers. You can report parking issues to Toronto Police online, or by calling their non-emergency number at 416-808-2222. When a car is illegally parked off road, it leaves police jurisdiction and becomes a bylaw issue. Parking on your lawn is a pretty clear property standards infraction, but some people may not know that parking on the paved portion of your boulevard is a bylaw infraction as well. An example of illegal boulevard parking. If you notice cars parked improperly on a neighbour’s property, once again, this gets reported to 311. Often, removing these cars takes a couple of months, as the bylaw department has to provide a written warning and wait a certain amount of time before serving legal action. You’re welcome to get in touch with my office if it relates to a chronic issue so that we can stick with the case until we get a result. I know that many of you are out and about in the warm weather noticing things for me. Thanks for being my eyes on the street. You're always welcome to get in touch with my office about any issues you notice in the neighbourhood. My team is more than happy to point you in the right direction and follow up with City staff on your behalf when needed. I hope this information and these reminders help all of us look after our wonderful neighbourhoods here in Don Valley North in the months ahead.

As per usual, I sent out my E-Blast last Thursday and shared updates on two of the biggest items we had discussed on at Council so far. However, two more important items were determined on Friday, the last day of our monthly Council session. Those two items were alcohol consumption in parks and changes to our city's employment services. DRINKING IN PARKS I want to start by talking about alcohol in parks. You may have been aware of this item coming to Council and might already have an opinion on it. This is a controversial issue that Council has been grappling with for the past three years, and I believe it's time we take action and move towards making a decision on this topic. Over the past year, staff have undertaken significant research and conducted polling throughout the city to help me and my Council colleagues understand where community members stand on drinking in parks. As you can imagine, there was a wide range of opinions on the issue: some want it legalized and managed, some want it but only under certain conditions or in certain parks, some said they already drink in parks and nothing needs to change, and others said they never want to see it. Knowing that this would be coming back to the Economic & Community Development Committee, which I chair, I've done some research of my own as well. Before I introduced a motion asking staff to explore options for a pilot program, I looked to Calgary and Vancouver for examples as they had recently permitted alcohol consumption in public parks. Both used a pilot approach to start, and then used what they learned from those pilots to set the rules. Calgary piloted a model where residents can only consume alcohol in picnic table areas and must sign out a permit to do so, which will continue this summer. A sign on a picnic table in a Calgary public park. It shows that alcohol consumption is only permitted from 11 AM to 9 PM, and that groups can only stay for up to two hours. Vancouver is permitting alcohol consumption in parks city-wide this year, and their pilot helped them arrive at allowing it only from 11:00 AM to 9:00 PM. They've also posted rules to protect areas that are for children, sports, and other specific park uses: For most parks included in the program, drinking will be allowed throughout the park, except in areas like: - Playgrounds - Wading pools and splash parks - Sports fields and courts - Community centres - Ecologically sensitive natural areas - Parking lots - Off-leash dog areas Maps of where alcohol can be consumed will be posted on our website and on signage installed at each location. My own in-laws tell me that the Vancouver system is working quite well. The rules make sense to people and the established culture of the parks they regularly use has not changed. I also looked at cities outside of Canada where drinking in parks has been allowed for some time. London was my favourite example. They have a very English mix of prim and permissive in their rules: alcohol may be consumed in all parks at all times, but city police and community constables may confiscate alcohol and eject citizens from any park when they encounter "anti-social behaviours resulting from the consumption of alcohol." As you might expect from a city that is over 1000 years old, London has figured out how to get straight to the point. Of course, there is no one-size fits all approach to drinking in parks. That's why I believe it's important to run a pilot. By testing out a model for allowing drinking in parks, we can figured out what works here in Toronto and what doesn't. Ultimately, the pilot model acknowledges that people are drinking in parks, and there is a desire to be able to do so responsibly and safely, but that not every park might be suitable to allow drinking. By conducting a pilot in select parks across the city, we can figure out if there is a balance that works here in Toronto. Kitsilano Community Centre Park in Vancouver, which has always looked like this in the summer and still does. The motion that passed at Council last week directs Parks staff to meet with each Councillor and discuss guidelines for a pilot program. This will give Councillors a chance to discuss conditions they would like to see included and decide which park in their ward they would like to include in the pilot, which would run from August 5th to October 9th of this year if approved. Based on these discussions, staff will bring a report to Council and our new Mayor in July, and Council will decide once and for all if we wish to proceed. This gives us a lot of time to think about how we want to move forward right here in Don Valley North. I would love to hear more from all of you to help me choose which of our parks to include in the pilot. So much of our green space here in DVN is ravine lands, and these are not suitable locations. If you were going to have a birthday picnic in July and wanted to celebrate with a glass of champagne, where would you want to do that? How do you feel about limiting the hours when drinking would be permitted and limiting the areas in the park as other cities have done? Take some time to think about this, reach out if you have family in other cities where drinking in parks is allowed to gather a few different perspectives, and let me know what you're thinking. By working together with you, I am confident we can select a park that is suitable for this pilot program and will help us determine whether or not Toronto should move forward with this policy in years to come. CHANGES TO EMPLOYMENT SERVICES Another impactful item we discussed at Council last week was the provincially-driven transformation of employment services here in Toronto. Since amalgamation saw a number of services downloaded to municipalities, employment services have been delivered by Toronto Employment and Social Services (TESS). These services are funded by the Province but delivered by City staff, in partnership with neighbourhood agencies. Back in the 90s, it was determined that municipalities would be better at delivering these services as we are more deeply engaged in the local economy and better connected to employers. In 2021, the Ontario government changed its mind about that. Premier Ford announced that employment offices would be managed by the Province and delivered by private contracted operators. Municipalities do have a chance to submit a bid, but the Province has also significantly pared down the services these offices will provide even if municipalities continue to carry them out. This spells trouble for every municipality across the province, and especially for Toronto. One of our Toronto employment centres. Workers tend to gravitate to cities with the most economic opportunity, and Toronto is one of those cities. However, not everyone who comes to Toronto is employment-ready. TESS has been invaluable in supporting those further from being ready to secure a job, and has an excellent track record in getting many of its clients employed through a range of supportive programs. This essential work, which greatly supports our local economies and communities, is being threatened by the Province's changes. For the past year, TESS staff have been trying to make the Province understand that we would love to submit a bid to deliver employment services, but we need assurance that we will be able to enrich the baseline services with programs for those further from the labour market. Last Friday, Council voted to have staff try making one last case with unanimous Council support. Those who are the hardest to employ need TESS's programming and it must be properly funded. If the Ford government's answer is no, I will be writing about the impacts on our community in future E-Blasts.

Tomorrow marks one month until the June 26 Mayoral Election Day. You have until 4:30 PM tomorrow, May 26, to check that your information is accurate on the voters' list the easy way, online. After tomorrow, if you are not on the voters' list you will have to line up at the ballot box with your two pieces of ID and ask to be added manually. My hope is that on June 26, there actually is a lineup to vote at every single polling station. Choosing a brand new mayor is a very important decision and voter turnout is crucial. I know the fact that we find ourselves here, less than a year since the general municipal election, is disheartening. Don't let it dampen your spirit for our city. Today, I want to talk about what's at stake in this election so that we can keep some key issues in mind as we look at the candidates over the next four weeks. I'm not going to talk about any candidates by name here. That would not be appropriate on this page. Instead, let's discuss the challenges Don Valley North faces in the coming years and what a good mayor might bring to the table. As the month progresses with televised debates and campaign ads coming at us every time we turn on the radio or log into Facebook, now is a good time to ask ourselves what we are looking for in a mayor. So far, I've noticed that all of the candidates are choosing a campaign style that is very similar to former Mayor Tory's announcement-based style of leadership. Every morning seems to begin with a slew of frontrunners assembling the media to announce some platform promise. All of these announcements are reminiscent of Mayor Tory's Monday morning announcements. While these flashy pressers serve a purpose, I would love it if members of the media sat each frontrunner down and interviewed them. It would help give us insight into their personalities and generate some real enthusiasm to get us to the voting booth. Leadership personality matters. How will the new mayor collaborate with Council members on the challenges they face locally? How will they collaborate with and lead the public service? Even if the new mayor chooses not to use the most controversial of Doug Ford's recently-bestowed "strong mayor" powers, the ability to pass a law with only one third of Council's support, they'll still have the rest of the powers, including the ability to appoint senior city officials. I'm looking for a candidate that will always listen to local issues and use that power to help councillors solve those issues whether they are downtown or suburban. The new mayor's personal inclination should be to consult with others before unilaterally directing city staff. Now, let's dive into the issues. Every candidate is talking housing, housing, housing. They will all promise some aggressive solutions to the current crisis and a magic number of homes to be built, but are they prepared to deal with the complexities of making those numbers a reality? We need a Mayor that will diplomatically but very firmly demand that the Province reinstate the regulations that demand adequate levels of infrastructure for new neighbourhoods. At the far end of the housing spectrum, those experiencing homelessness need a mayor with a strong sense of social justice and compassion. As our city and our own neighbourhoods grow, we need a mayor who is thoughtful about all forms of mobility and strong enough to keep our city moving. Our new mayor will need the courage to listen to the experts, speak truth to all communities, and take whatever action is necessary to address Toronto's transportation and transit situation. Too often, we have had leaders say whatever voters want to hear in order to win the top spot, resulting in cancelled plans, tampered-with plans, or just no plan at all. Finally, I want to touch on what I believe is the biggest issue of all: money. Our new mayor needs to be up-to-date on our current financial situation and understand that Toronto is at a tipping point. I've heard candidates reveal a bit about their property tax approach, but we are now well beyond solving our financial woes with property tax promises. Here in Don Valley North, we have many people who cannot afford a financial approach that relies on a series of property tax hikes. I'm not just talking about seniors on fixed incomes, either. Many first-time condo buyers and renters would be devastated by sharp property tax increases over multiple years. This form of taxation simply does not capture wealth the way that consumer or income-based taxes do. The time is right to open up a real talk between leaders at all levels of government. All three are struggling to pay the costs of the pandemic, but only one has absolutely no access to wealth or the new dollars that come from recovery and growth. If the Federal and Provincial governments aren't going to provide us with the economic assistance we need to properly run the nation's core city, then they must give us access to the kinds of revenue tools that allow us to help ourselves. Dedicated E-Blast readers will know that I'm talking, of course, about access to a sales tax or an income tax—tools that are easy to implement, as they piggyback onto forms of tax collection that are already in place. That makes them cheaper and quicker to implement. These are tools that every other city in the world of our size utilizes in one way or another. We need a mayor who will fight for a sustainable financial model for our city, and be willing to spend the political capital to get it. Getting us on a better financial footing won't happen overnight. It will require a mayor with an understanding of economics that no other government leader can credibly challenge, the courage to chart a new financial course for the good of all Canadian cities, and a real gift for communication to help councillors and their constituents understand why this change is needed now.

Last weekend, Toronto played host to the Annual General Meeting of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM). It is a hugely important organization, even though many of you may not have heard of it. FCM has achieved some historic victories for cities across the nation at AGMs over the years. Its membership of 2100 municipalities represents 92% of the population of Canada. When this organization speaks, federal political parties listen. Party leaders tend to build platforms around official FCM requests and when they do, every city wins. A photo of the first day of this year's FCM Annual General Meeting. This was my first visit to FCM since 2017. I was amazed to find that Toronto is more aligned than ever with smaller communities across the country. My favourite moments at FCM gatherings are when we band together with councillors from small and medium cities to figure out what we have in common and what we should collectively ask for to make our cities the best they can be. Last weekend, every time I stopped to catch up with an old FCM friend, the conversation quickly turned to: housing, homelessness, and mental health. This is evidence that we are not alone in our struggles and that there is no shame in asking for national and provincial action on these core issues. I was also happy to participate in a large discussion on securing new revenue tools for Canadian cities. It wasn't even me who put that topic on the agenda, if you can believe it. Last week, I again wrote about the need for new revenue tools here in Toronto. This discussion at FCM shows that this issue has reached the national scale. There was a consensus amongst FCM members that we cannot solely turn to your property tax bill to dig our way out of our post-pandemic economic challenges. If cities across Canada continue to come together on this issue, it will help us secure the tools we need to give our cities secure financial futures. Another feature of every FCM AGM is study tours. The host city loads councillors onto buses and takes them to see inspiring local projects. Toronto is so vast, and there are so many projects on the go, that I decided to catch myself up on my own hometown by taking a tour of our Waterfront Revitalization projects. As part of our tour, we climbed an observation tower at the foot of Cherry Street to view the entirety of the massive Don River redirection. I can't wait until you are all able to go down there on a weekend and enjoy the parklands that are being constructed around the Mouth of the Don. Our view of the mouth of the Don River during our FCM tour. Great work is being done to turn this into a vibrant public park. It would be easy to overlook a conference like FCM. In a city like Toronto that plays hosts to major international conferences, the FCM crowd of around 5000 attendees seems modest. But knowing that history of this organization, I will always track its progress online and attend when I can. Historically, Toronto has had a strong involvement in FCM. If I go all the way back to 2001, the last time a Toronto politician was elected president of FCM, we started something that serves us all to this day. That president was Jack Layton, who had been a Chair of the Toronto Atmospheric Fund. He convinced his FCM colleagues that they should replicate our modest local endowment fund that invested in projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but on a national scale. This was the start of the Green Municipal Fund (GMF). Today, the GMF has grown to an endowment of $1.6 billion. Municipalities across the country are able to use this fund to reduce emissions and fight climate change. In 2006, Toronto Mayor David Miller worked with the FCM Big City Mayors' Caucus, the Rural Forum, and Infrastructure Minister John Godfrey to get Canadian cities a share of the Federal Gas Tax. Once this was achieved, the entire FCM membership embarked on a national campaign to make that share permanent. Even though federal leadership changed a year later, the new government honoured FCM's request and did indeed make the share permanent. In Toronto, those dollars go straight towards operating our transit system every year. This is exactly where the value of FCM lies. These examples show us that we don't always get what we want by shouting that Toronto is the largest and therefore most unique city in the country. Some of the most lasting benefits we have negotiated for our city came from working together with cities of all sizes across the nation and discovering that we have a great many challenges in common. As we look for new and impactful ways to tackle our biggest issues—climate change, housing and homelessness, mental health, financial woes, and more—we should remember that we are stronger when we work together.

We're in the middle of another busy Council session. I'm saving my monthly Council Highlights for next week so I can report on the full agenda once everything has gone through Council. Today, I want to pull back the curtain and look at the immense amount of work that goes into items before they make it to the Council floor. In my role as Chair of Economic & Community Development, I'm getting to take part in and witness firsthand the months of work, fact finding, and consulting that leads up to the staff reports we debate each month. In particular, I want to focus on two important plans that the City is working to update: the Economic Development Plan and the Culture Plan. These are both ambitious, guiding documents that aim to spur economic growth and bolster our culture sector, both of which have immeasurable impacts on the health of our city as a whole. These plans put the City in the driver's seat as we push forward to create a city that is liveable, prosperous, and vibrant, now and into the future. Let's start with the Economic Development Plan. Even if the pandemic had not arrived, this plan would have needed a significant update. Our last Economic Development Plan was adopted in 2013. Back then, I asked for an iPhone 6 for Christmas because it would take better selfies. A lot has changed, particularly in the world of work. Before setting out to tackle the larger Economic Development Plan, City staff assembled an Economic Recovery Advisory Panel consisting of a range of downtown employers to talk about recovery from the pandemic. It quickly became clear to senior staff that there was much more to address than the immediate challenge of return-to-work policies. We needed a new 10-year plan to attract and retain business. The sudden volume of career changes that followed the pandemic emphasized our need to examine what kind of workers we need and how we will secure them. Staff set to work at the beginning of the year to convene a new roundtable. It included members from the Recovery Panel and brought in new stakeholders to broaden the advice we might receive. I co-chair those discussions with Zabeen Hirji, a citizen member of the table who specializes in future of work. Each time we meet, staff present another element of the challenge in creating a long-term plan to grow Toronto's economy. We get to hear from businesses, organizations, and other stakeholders on how we can achieve things like attracting new investments, showcasing our city's local talent, creating hyper-local economic opportunities in neighbourhoods, and much more. It's an honour to watch this work unfold. By the time the General Manager of Economic Development, Patrick Tobin, presents the framework for a new Economic Development Plan to Council and our new Mayor, it will already have a solid base of expert opinion and detailed research for staff to build upon. At that point, there will be more outreach to the community and you will have a chance to have your say. In the meantime, the whole team in the Economic Development office and the folks at Toronto Global, the City's business attraction corporation, continue to attract new businesses and talent to Toronto to generate a healthy local economy. One of our gorgeous theatres here in Toronto. At the very same time, staff have also started working to update our 10-Year Culture Plan. Our last plan in this area came out in 2011—Rob Ford had just been elected mayor, I had just gotten a new iPhone 4, and all my husband could talk about was the new baseball movie, Moneyball. Yes, it's high time we gave this plan an update as well. Culture is an area that might feel a bit more nebulous than economic development, but it is just as essential to the health of our city—both its social and cultural fabric and its economic opportunity. Think about what makes you want to travel to international cities. It isn't the business being conducted every day. It's the live shows, art galleries, cultural districts, and general buzz the city has day and night. Our culture sector is both a major economic player through things like our TV and film industry, and also in helping Toronto attract both tourism and investment from major companies around the world. With the Culture Plan, staff are again seeking the opinion of big players in the sector. Practically every discipline within the arts is represented in our Advisory Panel, as well as key umbrella organizations like the Toronto Arts Council, which oversees grants distribution to various artists and arts organizations. The plan is also receiving robust research support from the University of Toronto's School of Cities. I co-chaired the first meeting of this Advisory Panel earlier this week with dynamic culture leader and influencer maxine bailey (maxine prefers lower case names that put us all on equal footing), who is currently the Executive Director of the Canadian Film Centre. A behind-the-scenes shot from Guillermo del Toro's Shape of Water, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture and was partially filmed in Toronto. What a first meeting we had. This group is not shy. During our first discussion, the Culture Plan began to broaden in scope to accommodate all of their concerns for the future. Broader concerns like housing affordability threaten our ability to keep artists in our city. Others, like our transit woes, make it harder to attract audiences to our shows. These artists and influencers want us to consider the full range of issues facing City Hall and just how deeply they impact the culture sector. They also remind us of how deeply intertwined all of these elements are when we're talking about the health of our city. Our senior staff left the discussion buzzing with inspiration. We will continue developing this work all summer long, and then begin to engage with the new mayor, all of Council, and, of course, you. These two plans are being developed in this broadly consultative way because the senior staff I'm privileged to work with know that their work can't be confined to the ivory tower or even the Council chamber. It needs to be informed by the very communities it seeks to serve. They've made it their business to reach out to residents and organizations across Toronto to be able to recommend the best long-range plans for the quality of life we all want. It is early days, but I wanted to share with you that this work is underway. Our City has an essential role to play in stimulating our economy and creating policies that allow our local culture to flourish. The more we uplift our economy and energize our cultural sector, the better able we are to build a city that gives everyone the supports they need to succeed. Through this important work, we can build a Toronto that families and businesses alike can call home—one where you can follow your passion, put down roots, and enjoy a city that is vibrant, day and night. North York Community Council Updates Below, you’ll find a rundown on the most notable items coming to North York Community Council next week. From local safety initiatives to development updates, read on to learn how these items impact our community here in Don Valley North. Local Safety Initiatives There are multiple items coming to NYCC that aim to make our streets safer for local residents. First, we’ll be considering a motion to improve parking at Steelesview Public School on Bestview Drive, allowing 15-minute parking for student pick-up and drop-off. We will also be looking at another motion to prohibit parking on a section of Forest Manor Road at George Henry Boulevard, in response to several visibility concerns that staff have received from residents in Parkway Forest. We have also been making progress on various traffic safety concerns on Sheppard Avenue, east of the 404, by working in partnership with residents at the Crossroads Complex (1900 Sheppard Avenue East). I will be moving a motion to increase the size of signage at the driveway of the complex to be at least 50% larger to address issues with drivers contravening existing signage. Development Updates We have three reports about development applications on the agenda this month: 1181 Sheppard Avenue East This item is an update on the developer’s appeal of this application to the Ontario Land Tribunal. For over a year, City Planning and City Legal staff have been attempting to negotiate a settlement before they must appear at the Tribunal this fall. City staff are recommending City Council oppose the application in its current form. At present, the application proposes a total of 805 dwelling units, with two residential tower heights of 33 storeys and 34 storeys. Negotiations around tower height, the size of the floorplate, and the direct connection to Leslie Subway Station are ongoing and we will likely see an updated report in the coming weeks. I will be sure to keep you updated as this report goes from Community Council to City Council next month. 1 Herons Hill Way This application proposes to redevelop the east portion of the site into a 34-storey mixed-use building while retaining the existing two-storey office building, for a total of 334 residential units. City Planning has worked through a number of issues with the original proposal and are currently recommending approval of the application, given the Provincial government’s legislative changes around major transit stations (which this site falls inside of). One major win here is that we’ve been able to secure affordable units as part of the proposal. This is one of the last times we will be able to secure a benefit like this. The Province has removed the old Section 37 regime, which means that securing affordable housing will be very difficult. Bayview Village Mall (2901 Bayview Avenue and 630 Sheppard Avenue East) Lastly, there is an item that requests to lift the holding provision on part of the lands at Bayview Village Mall. You will recall that the City and local residents settled this Ontario Land Tribunal appeal a couple of years ago, on the condition that sewer capacity be addressed prior to construction proceeding. Now that the sewer work at Leslie and Sheppard has moved to the next phase, the City is recommending that this holding provision be lifted. North York Community Council will be meeting next week on Tuesday, June 20th at 9:30AM. You can watch in-person at North York Civic Centre or online via YouTube. More Info: NYCC Agenda Economic & Community Development Updates It was another action-packed week! Some highlights include: Celebrated 98 years of Destination Toronto's work to promote Toronto as a world-class city to tourists across the globe at their Annual General Meeting last week. Commemorated those who have lost their lives in the line of duty at the Toronto Fallen Firefighter Memorial Service. Toured Youth Without Shelter's North Etobicoke site, seeing firsthand the incredible work they do to support youth experiencing homelessness in our city. Visited my friends at the Youth Association for Academics, Athletics, & Character Education (YAAACE) to check out their state-of-the-art facilities and see how they help kids from all communities build their skills and confidence.

Here in Toronto, Pride is not just a parade, or a day, or a festival. It is a month long celebration of Toronto's 2SLGBTQ+ community within the city limits and beyond. For the month of June, there will be events, parades, and programming put on by local organizations and supported by all three levels of government. 2SLGBTQ+ stands for: Two-Spirit, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer. “Two-spirit” refers to a person who identifies as having both a masculine and a feminine spirit, and is used by some Indigenous people to describe their sexual, gender, and/or spiritual identity. This year's Pride celebration deserves our special attention, as members of the queer community are feeling increasingly unsafe in our city. This past March, Statistics Canada released troubling statistics on the rise of hate crimes across the country. Hate crimes based on sexual orientation are up 64%. It's important to note that after decades of fighting for equal rights and the respect of their fellow Canadians, reported hate crimes against the 2SLGBTQ+ community were steadily decreasing until 2019. While statistics only speak to reported incidents, we could hope that this downward trend reflected decreasing bias held against the community. Unfortunately, we still have a long way to go to completely stamp out homophobia and transphobia in our country. It's important that we acknowledge the history of queer communities, both across Canada and here in Toronto. It was May 14, 1969 when Canada decriminalized homosexuality with the passage of the Criminal Law Amendment Act. It received royal assent on June 27, 1969, one day before the Stonewall riots took place in New York City. Members of the queer community started protesting in the years following decriminalization, because passing a law about acts in the bedroom did not stop unequal treatment in most institutions and workplaces, harassment from the police, or general prejudice in everyday life. A photo of an early Toronto Pride Parade from the City of Toronto Archives. By 1973, Pride Marches were popping up in major cities across Canada and the rest of the world, and were often subjected to homophobic mob harassment. In Toronto, there was a slow evolution towards the festival we celebrate today. There was still so much hurt and anger to work through given the decades of discrimination against the queer community. In 1981, 286 men were arrested in a single night when Toronto Police Services made targeted raids of several bathhouses under the suspicion of sex work. Not a single sex work charge was proven, but mistreatment by the police certainly was. Outcry from the community resulted in media mainstays like news commentator Dick Smyth and the Globe and Mail Editorial Board taking Toronto Police to task for their irrational focus on queer life. To this day, Pride Toronto features a blend of celebration and activism as we remember the history of homophobia and transphobia in our city.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3a9b0P2x_uQ A video explaining the history of the Toronto Bathhouse Raids. This is the first year that Pride Toronto is back in full swing, post-pandemic. There is no one way to celebrate—it is a city-wide state of mind. This year, we are flying the Progress Flag at every civic centre to honour the full spectrum of the 2SLGBTQ+ community. Mel Lastman Square is the closest location to us in Don Valley North, and I encourage you to stop by and see it flying proudly. There are many other things you can do to celebrate pride and be an active ally to the queer community, including: Supporting local organizations like LGBT YouthLine, the 519, and PFlag Canada Learning more about Toronto's Queer History Taking some time for self-reflection and speaking up when you hear homophobic and transphobic comments And, of course, joining the Pride Parade and the dozens of other events taking place this June! I'm always proud to join for the Pride Flag raising at Toronto City Hall. What the statistics show us is that hate and prejudice creep back in when we let our guard down. Pride will always need to happen, and every one of us has a role to play in it. The more we do to recognize and celebrate Pride, the closer we move towards a city that is a safe and loving place for all.

Last week we wrapped up our last Council session before our new mayor is elected. Below, I've provided a run-down of the most notable items and what they mean for us here in Don Valley North. SmartTrack Stations Program: Provincial Funding Update Let's start with some good news. As you may recall, former Mayor Tory started the SmartTrack Program to leverage existing rail lines in Toronto to create more surface transit. A few months ago, we learned that an additional $244 million was needed to build the five planned SmartTrack stations. City Council asked the Province to fund the outstanding amount or the project would need to be cancelled. I'm happy to report that the Province will be providing $226 million to our SmartTrack program. This will allow City staff to move forward with new stations at Finch & Kennedy, East Harbour, and three new stations through the downtown west end. The pressure is now on the Province to consider full Presto fare integration to attract riders to these new stations and reduce congestion in the core of our city. Canada-Wide Early Learning and Child Care Agreement Implementation in Toronto – Update We're making progress towards $10-a-day child care here in Toronto. This motion called on the Province to address some of the gaps we see in the current plan. Specifically, we need to increase the actual number of child care spaces available in our city to make sure this program is accessible to every family that needs it. We also asked the Province to update the existing income thresholds to further expand eligibility. Most importantly, in my eyes, we are asking the Province to make sure child care workers are paid a living wage. This is an incredibly demanding and impactful line of work, and we do not have enough Early Childhood Educators and other workers to meet demand. Without paying our child care workers fairly, they won't be able to afford to live in the city and provide the care our children and grandchildren need. Temporary Signs By-law Review This item added a new classification to our sign by-law. We now have rules for "advocacy signs", which are the signs you see on front lawns supporting a specific cause. Things like "Save Our Local Hockey Arena", "Electrify Our Go Trains", or "Say No to This Development". While it's great to see a community get passionate about a specific cause, too many of these signs can be visually distracting and cause safety issues. Going forward, there is a reasonable limit of three advocacy signs per property, and property owners/tenants must consent to the signs being on the property. Unlike election signs, advocacy signs must be kept on your private property and not put on public right-of-way, like boulevards. Cycling Network Plan: 2023 Cycling Infrastructure Installation - Third Quarter Updates This Cycling Network Plan update gave the green light to ten planned bicycle lanes across the city, including the bike lane planned for Sheppard Avenue from Clairtrell Road to Leslie Street as part of the Sheppard Reconstruction. As I first wrote about a couple years back, road reconstructions only take place every 75 – 100 years and we need to build them in a way that supports both our current and future community. Cycling infrastructure is essential to making our roads safer for all users and encouraging folks to take zero-emissions modes of transport to help us reach our climate goals. City Comments on the Proposed Provincial Planning Statement This report from our Chief Planner, Gregg Lintern, itemizes the potentially disastrous updates to the Provincial Planning Policy Statement (PPS). Councillors needed only to look at the long list of recommendations to see how completely lacking the Provincial Government's position on planning and growth really is. The biggest issues with the PPS are that it lacks a definition of affordable housing (and is more or less silent on the issue), and it muddies the water around designated Employment Zones so much that these strategic parts of so many Ontario cities may be lost forever. In an earlier item (PH4.5), staff recommended that we vehemently oppose five applications to convert employment lands in the Parkway Centre Business Park here in Don Valley North (south of Sheppard, between the 404 and Victoria Park) to residential. I will keep you posted on these conversion hearings as they come up. Request to Implement an Adequate Temperature By-law I moved this motion with Councillor Amber Morley after hearing from tenants across Don Valley North who were stuck in sweltering units in both April and May. We had a couple of early heat waves, and some tenants were stuck in units with temperatures as high as 32°C. Currently, our heat bylaw is based around dates. Landlords must provide heat from September 15 to June 1, to maintain an indoor temperature of 21°C. However, we get some very hot days in early fall and late spring, and some landlords don't turn off the heat in these circumstances. This motion asks staff to devise a bylaw that is based on safe and comfortable temperatures rather than arbitrary dates. I'll keep you posted when we get the report back from staff. Modular Housing at 175 Cummer: Proposed Relocation & Reconfiguration Much ink has been spilled and many months wasted on this small modular housing project over in Willowdale. I heard from residents who were both passionately against and passionately in favour of this project. I understand that the proposal here became quite polarized, and found it extremely unfortunate that so much organized fearmongering was targeted at the seniors in the surrounding community. Similar modular housing projects have been completed elsewhere in the city with extremely successful outcomes for both the new residents and the existing neighbourhoods. Based on what I know about those projects, and the fact that we are in a housing crisis, I voted in favour of the project proceeding as soon as the Ontario Land Tribunal hearing is completed. Local Councillor Cheng will find that there are many community improvements she can make for seniors in Willowdale even as the modular housing is constructed. I can't stress enough how much these homes will help 59 new Willowdale residents rebuild their lives. A video showing one of the City's modular housing sites. Mitigating Disruption of Betty Sutherland Trail Closure As many of you have seen, the portion of Betty Sutherland Trail that runs under the 401 is now closed due to ongoing work by the Provincial Ministry of Transportation. I know how disruptive this closure is to trail users, so I moved a motion with neighbouring Councillor Burnside asking the Province to come up with a plan to mitigate the impacts of this closure on the community. We also asked that they have plans in place to allow the trail to be used for annual events such as North York General's Rally in the Ravine. Other Notable Items There were a number of other items I want to touch on briefly: We approved a plan to expand access to pickleball courts across Toronto. I know how popular pickleball is here in DVN and look forward to more courts cropping up in the years to come. I seconded a motion from Councillor Pasternak to develop a framework to install outdoor working stations in some of our city parks. These cool stations were recently installed in Montreal, and let folks work-from-home but in the park instead—a great way to make even better use of our public spaces. Deputy Mayor McKelvie led Council in making a strong request that the Federal Government provide the necessary funding to allow us to keep supporting incoming refugees. I seconded a motion with Deputy Mayor McKelvie to ensure that at least 20% of our City's housing and shelter grants go to Indigenous housing providers, helping us advance our commitments to truth, reconciliation, and justice. Update: Banning Gas-Powered Leaf Blowers As you may know, I've been working with our community to restrict the use of gas-powered leaf blowers in Toronto. One hour of leaf blowing equals a 1800-kilometre drive, the same as an 18-hour drive from Toronto to Halifax. Leaf blowers and similar lawn equipment emit dangerous pollutants and generate disruptive noise, both of which harm our ecosystems and pose a threat to our health. Yesterday, City of Toronto staff released a report outlining two paths forward to restrict the use of leaf blowers and other small lawn equipment across the city: Option A recommends that City Council reaffirm its support for the City of Toronto phasing out the use of leaf blowers by its own staff and contractors, but does not move towards a city-wide ban. Option B recommends that Council support a ban on the use of gas-powered lawn equipment and begin working towards the implementation of a bylaw to impose the ban in 2024. Hundreds of cities across North America have successfully banned leaf blowers and similar lawn equipment. As the fourth largest city in North America, Toronto should demonstrate leadership and ambition in our commitment to reduce carbon emissions by banning gas-powered leaf blowers and similar lawn equipment city-wide. The staff report will be considered by the Infrastructure and Environment Committee on June 28th, 2023 prior to being considered by City Council during its July session. You can help push for a full ban on leaf blowers here in Toronto by either submitting your comments or registering to make a deputation at Infrastructure and Environment Committee next week: Click this link: https://secure.toronto.ca/council/agenda-item.do?item=2023.IE5.1 At the top of page, click either the “Submit Comments” button or the “Request to Speak” button Each button will open an email to send to iec@toronto.ca with your comments or request to speak I will be speaking at the Infrastructure and Environment Committee on the importance of moving forward with Option B to implement a city-wide ban. If you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to reach out.

Every year on Canada Day, I have the pleasure of joining several celebrations put on by community groups across the ward. Special this year was a City-hosted celebration at Mel Lastman Square, where Councillor Cheng and I shared greetings on behalf of City Council and the Deputy Mayor. While I was there, I ran into a Member of Parliament and we got talking about one of the biggest challenges facing Toronto right now: the growing refugee crisis. I want to be crystal clear, I fully support and commend the Federal government's efforts to bring more refugees into Canada. We have a moral imperative to help people escape humanitarian crises. Not only that, but there's also a strong economic case for welcoming more refugees to our country. Refugees, like all newcomers, come to Canada to create a better life for themselves and their families. They are active in their neighbourhoods, start businesses, and become part of our thriving communities. They are also integral to helping fill the labour shortage that challenges Toronto's competitiveness on the global stage. Our City can provide refuge for those who need it most and reap the benefits of doing so, but we will never help refugees succeed and support our city if we can't provide adequate care and services for them when they arrive. This is where the Federal government is failing both refugees and Torontonians. Currently, as many as 600 new refugee claimants come to Toronto's central intake each month, and we are only able to house about 300 of them by the end of that month. That leaves over 300 new refugees entering the City's shelter system with no housing plan. As this cycle repeats each month, we're seeing an unsustainable level of refugees in our shelter system. Graphs showing occupancy trends for refugees and refugee claimaints in our shelter system. Click the image to view a larger version. Toronto's shelter system is already facing significant pressure. During the pandemic, we dramatically expanded the system from 6000 beds to over 9000 beds today. We've even developed a refugee shelter plan to better serve families fleeing violence, but we're hitting a breaking point. Each night, over 300 individuals seeking a shelter bed are turned away because there is no space to spare. We no longer have the space, materials, people, or funds to expand this response on our own. When I mentioned this to the MP on Canada Day, they responded, "What do you mean? We give you money to deal with refugees." This is true (technically). The Federal government gives us money to support refugees at pre-pandemic levels—enough to support about 500 in our shelter system. We currently have over 3000 refugees occupying shelter beds, and the City is using every penny of our Federal funding plus pulling from our own rainy day financial reserves to make that work. The Federal government upped the number of refugees who are able to enter our city without upping their financial support, and that number far exceeds what has ever been accommodated here in Toronto. This is simply not sustainable and is putting unbearable strain on our system. A photo of refugees walking with their belongings as they flee Ukraine for Hungary. The strain is becoming more visible each day. After enormous effort and care over the past 18 months to reduce encampments in parks, we're seeing them grow again in Allan Gardens, Lamport Stadium, and churches across the city. While we're using a community-driven approach to address encampments, called the Dufferin Grove Model, it takes considerable time, effort, and trust, and it can only work if there are both safe shelter spaces available and a path to permanent housing. Both of these are becoming less possible as we struggle to keep the entire system from collapsing. Last month, Deputy Mayor McKelvie and I held a press conference and stressed this point to the public. We also made the unprecedented announcement that as of June 1, 2023, new refugee claimants would be diverted from our central intake to Federal IRCC Centres and refugee hotels. One challenge: the Federal government wouldn't even tell us where the IRCC spaces were. City staff had to investigate and find the locations themselves. [embed twt vid here] A clip from the press conference I did with Deputy Mayor McKelvie. Gord Tanner, the General Manager of our Shelter, Support and Housing division, recently spoke out about why our city is being forced to turn refugees away. Mayor-elect Olivia Chow also recently spoke at length about the lack of support our city is receiving from the Federal government to support refugees. This issue will be top of mind for all of Council in the months ahead. So, you may ask (as the MP did), where do we go from here? We need the Federal government to step up. We need them to listen, understand the severity of this crisis, and act. They need to either provide the necessary services themselves or urgently provide the $157 million we need to cover the costs of supporting refugees in our shelter system. They also need to come to the table with a long-term strategy to support incoming refugees with the most dignified humanitarian response we can provide. We need this strategy in place now to be fully prepared for the winter months, when our shelter system faces even greater strain. Toronto prides itself on being a welcoming city. We want to welcome refugees and asylum seekers with open arms and a wide array of supports to make sure they have the opportunity to build a better life here. We don't want to turn them away, but we are at a point where we truly have no other choice. If you want to help us secure proper support for refugees here in Toronto, please read and sign the petition below: Summer Celebration! Summer Celebration is happening this weekend! Come out to Oriole Community Centre on Saturday, July 8 from 1 PM - 4 PM for a barbeque, ice cream, face painting, a bouncy castle, and more fun activities for the whole family to enjoy. We're also partnering with Ontario Basketball to put on an epic competition with special guests Kyle Johnson of the Brampton Honey Badgers, Ashton Smith of Raptors905, and Ontario Basketball's own Claude Nembhard. Come out to show your stuff and win prizes. I can't wait to see you there!

We have a new mayor: Olivia Chow. She is the first woman to be elected mayor of amalgamated Toronto, and the first racialized person to be elected mayor in Toronto's history. She won support across the city, downtown and suburbs alike, and has a strong mandate to realize her vision for the city in the years ahead. But what happens right now? The answers will take some time because, once again, we are in uncharted waters. There is a real pattern to the beginning of a term of office, no matter the mayor's political stripe. There are also some traditions around re-assigning chairships and board memberships at the mid-point of a term (about two years in). A new mayor taking office at a random point in the term is a new one for all of us here at City Hall, Councillors and public servants alike. Given the unprecedented circumstances, Mayor Chow has wasted no time getting started on the transition. She will be formally sworn in on July 12, but went into City Hall the day after the election to meet with the City Manager and Deputy Mayor to understand our most pressing files from an internal perspective. She has also signaled that she is taking the time to get to know our public service and absorb their detailed briefings. While Olivia and her team settle into the Mayor's Office in the coming weeks, I can help you get to know our new mayor and, of course, thank the other candidates who were on the ballot with her. Olivia joined me at the NetworkTO event put on by City staff last night for Collision, a global tech conference being held in Toronto this week. I first met Olivia when I was an education activist fighting the slated closure of 134 schools across Toronto. Things were pretty dire in our neighbourhood, with 21 schools set to close in the area now known as Don Valley North. The other moms and I knew that we should rally and march to fight these closures, but we didn't know much beyond that. Olivia and her late husband, Jack Layton, were full of advice on who to invite into the process to turn it into a movement. Olivia was instrumental in getting Mayor Mel Lastman to meet with us—ultimately, he went to Premier Harris and then the proposal was abandoned. When I then became a School Trustee, I was appointed as the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) representative to then-Councillor Olivia Chow's Children & Youth Action Committee (CYAC). Mel Lastman had appointed her as Chair of the CYAC to have her work through all the impacts of amalgamation and downloading on our youngest Torontonians. I marveled at the way she worked with City staff to assemble a committee comprised of all the relevant agencies and school boards. Those were day-long meetings where we pulled together strategies to address all the gaps in children and youth services being caused by the municipal reforms. As soon as I became a City Councillor, I began visiting Olivia for advice on everything from how to parse the City's oddly-formatted budget documents to how to get community benefits from developments that had already submitted their applications. Olivia's style was not to spoon feed, but to enable me to get all the information I would need by teaching me where to go to get it myself. She ran through a list of her most trusted staff members in finance and who would be most helpful. This not only helped me get through my first budget, it also prepared me for some tough years ahead. On development challenges, Olivia gave me sage advice and pointed out that there was a world of difference between her waterfront ward and the wards north of the 401. Knowing that then-Ward 33 was facing so much subway-related growth, Olivia suggested I find a mentor in Councillor Howard Moscoe. That was great advice—it helped me bring a slew of benefits beyond the standard amount to our neighbourhood, including parks benefits, transportation capital works, and public art. A photo of Olivia during her time as as a Toronto City Councillor. I guess what I'm trying to tell you is that our new mayor has a long history of bringing the right people together to realize potential and find solutions. Despite a lot of negative campaign rhetoric from her opponents, I can honestly tell you that we are in good hands. I have full faith in Olivia's ability to lead our city. We will finish the current cycle of meetings with Deputy Mayor Jennifer McKelvie on July 11. The next day, Mayor-Elect Olivia Chow will be formally sworn in and preside over a Council session the following week. I will be sure to keep you all updated every step of the way. Some of you will be aware that long before Olivia Chow registered to run for mayor, I publicly endorsed my friend and former Council colleague Ana Bailao. I know our new mayor won't mind me congratulating Ana on a well-run campaign and an impressive result. The real story of this mayoral by-election is what the outcome says about you, the voters. Both here in Don Valley North and across the city you had no qualms about putting a woman in charge, and you were totally open to a mayor that was not born in Canada. At the end of the day, the race came down to two people, both of them women, both of them having arrived in Toronto as school-aged girls with very little English. Despite these barriers, both managed to succeed and realize their tremendous potential. Everyone else finished out of the running. Now we know that every little girl in Toronto can dream big. For the next three years (at least), they will be reminded that they, too, have the potential to be mayor.