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Every Thursday morning when I appear on Newstalk 1010, the producer sends me a set of news clippings the host, John Moore, may bring up. This morning my clippings included an article from Healthing.ca titled: "The over 50's are better prepared for the pandemic." It claimed that 41 per cent of Canadians over age 50 are faring much better than Millennials and Generation X right now. It was an odd thing to wake up to because my bedtime reading the previous night was a report about the other 59 per cent of seniors who are not faring well at all. Senior poverty We’ve all heard that Baby Boomers (like myself) have little to complain about because this generation is so wealthy. We are supposed to be well-pensioned homeowners who can easily tuck up at home until the pandemic is over. That is one of the first myths busted in a report by two respected social agencies in Toronto: Social Planning Toronto and Well Living House. Consider this: “There are about 78,000 working seniors in Toronto, some of whom may have lost work, experienced reduced hours, or stopped working because of exposure risks. Working seniors who have lost income as a result of COVID-19 may be eligible for the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB). The CERB, which offers $2,000/month, is a taxable benefit, and eligibility is not affected by pension income.” These Torontonians who work well beyond age 65 are usually still paying a mortgage or are renters. In other words, they are housing-insecure in a city whose costs are growing and work because they need to. Some of these working seniors live right here in Don Valley North alongside some of the wealthiest seniors in the city. We are a ward with a substantial senior population — and it turns out ours is an "uneasy" sort of wealth unless we own our homes outright. The numbers Seniors make up a substantial proportion of the population in many Toronto neighbourhoods, particularly along its edges. Hillcrest Village and Bayview Woods-Steeles are two of only four neighbourhoods in the city where 25 per cent of the population is comprised of residents over age 65. That won’t be the case for long; as the number of seniors grows across Canada, Toronto will see more neighbourhoods joining this list. Other neighbourhoods with fast-growing senior populations are racialized communities. Tower block villages such as Parkway Forest have a mixture of seniors who have downsized to a condo and immigrant seniors who have been hard-working, stable renters for decades but whose incomes aren’t keeping pace with the rest of us. As Social Planning points out: “Overall, immigrants have not seen income gains during the last 35 years; they typically earn lower incomes than their Canadian-born counterparts. Immigrants face discrimination and barriers within the labour market during their working life, which disadvantages them during retirement. They are far less likely to obtain pensioned employment than the post-war generation of immigrants who found their way to these types of employment in the booming fifties and sixties, more easily.” Pay equity One of the most important findings in the report is that we have not closed the gap between men and women — and it's causing huge challenges in the senior community. Canada’s universal pension schemes and survivor benefits were meant to address the challenges faced by widowed and vulnerable senior women long ago, but it hasn’t quite worked out that way. Early projections of universal wealth among seniors may have been based on achieving pay equity in the Canadian workforce by the year 2000 — which, by and large, has not happened. Futurists also assumed the practice of employer-provided pension plans would continue to grow and that working women would realize their own retirement incomes as a result. But as we all know, the number of employers providing pension plans is shrinking every year. In fact, feminized jobs were among the first to phase out employee pensions. Economic insecurity for senior women is shaped by gendered life courses. Women tend to have interrupted employment histories and low lifetime earnings, and their Canada Pension Plan (CPP) or private pension payments reflect that. This is because women are more likely to leave their jobs to care for children and other family members. Then, there's the fact that female-dominated occupations tend to be low-paid, part-time and precarious. These conditions systematically reduce the ability of women to achieve economic security through current retirement income programs. Among seniors who live alone, 70.1 per cent are women. Unsurprisingly, this number increases with age. Notably, seniors living in nursing homes, long-term care homes and other collective dwellings are not included in these figures. One of the reasons we see such high rates of senior poverty along the northeastern edge of Don Valley North is because this community has two low-income seniors' buildings where most tenants are women hoping to avoid long-term care. Many studies show that seniors who live alone are more likely to experience poverty. According to the 2016 Census, over one-third of Toronto seniors who live alone are in poverty — double the poverty rate for seniors overall. The squirrel and the grasshopper I know I am loading a lot of troubling information into this column but we must take this seriously. My 70-year old sister has already had to move to Nova Scotia to afford living alone on CPP. Recently, she asked me: “Why don’t people under 65 see this and do something about it?” I had to say that people who are doing well tend to relate senior poverty to the old fable about the squirrel and the grasshopper: We think everyone had a choice; that some were squirrels who stored nuts away every day and others were grasshoppers who sang all day in the sun and are now suffering for it in their senior years. However, the Social Planning report demonstrates that for many of us, inequity is built-in our system. In an earlier e-blast, I suggested we use this pandemic as a disrupter — an opportunity to design our economic recovery in a new way to solve our social ills. Senior poverty is one of those ills. It's true we need to rebuild our long-term care system, but we also need to provide affordable housing to help our aging population cope on their own. Every Canadian should be demanding that earnings-based employee pension programs be far more prevalent in our economy. Part of the reason "The 1%" have been able to accumulate so much of the world’s wealth is because they have been allowed to walk away from providing benefits to their employees. This is the most false economy of them all. We should remember to be kind to those who are struggling, but we should also learn from them and advocate for change. Social Planning Toronto and Well Living House recommend both short and long-term solutions for all levels of government — and I’m going to use these as my own personal starting point.

There are are so many important issues right now: pandemic response and recovery, changes to policing, the opiod crisis, risky provincial changes to housing and eviction policies, local service disruptions, growth and development continuing unabated by the pandemic, and more. I know that if I could open my constituency office right now, many of you would be coming to talk to me. If I was allowed to open a gymnasium to hold a town hall on any of the topics above, you would be coming to listen and participate. We know we can’t do those things for some time yet. Councillors have been asked to keep our constituency offices at North York Civic Centre closed, and while indoor gatherings of up to 50 people (100 outdoors) are now permitted, we've been asked to hold off until further notice. But there is so much to discuss with you that my Ward 17 Team and I decided to do a little problem-solving to get us all together — safely. Virtual meetings Throughout the pandemic, we have been holding virtual meetings to talk to residents across Don Valley North about anything impacting their local neighbourhoods. Earlier in the pandemic, we held one for the whole ward with MP Han Dong and the CEO of North York General Hospital, Dr. Joshua Tepper, to inform you about health and safety and federal benefits programs to get your household through the lockdown. Every time we held one of these meetings, you rose to the technological challenge and we had great discussions. Moreover, my team and I came away with valuable information about what you want and need from our office right now. Switching to virtual Council meetings has been an adjustment. In our discussions about how to serve you as we move towards the Fall and come in from the sun, we have decided to take topics you've said are important and turn them into weekly virtual community meetings. The meetings will take place on Thursday evenings throughout September and October at 7:00 PM. I will use this e-blast to remind you of that week's topic so you can plan to participate. Here's the schedule: September 10: Senior living September 17: Housing and tenants' rights September 24: Planning and development October 8: Pandemic recovery October 15: Transportation October 22: Public health Instructions on how to participate in these meetings will be in my next e-blast after my team finalizes the details. Stay tuned. I'm sick of Zoom! I feel you. My team and I miss our in-person meetings the most. Recently, we met with the Bayview Village Association and their members on an urgent issue specific to one street. We met on the street and managed to keep a safe distance. Special thanks to the Association executive who arrived early to draw chalk circles on the pavement to guide us. That meeting got us thinking. We met with residents of Blue Ridge Rd a few weeks ago to discuss community safety. While the warm weather is still here, we want to make ourselves available to you in-person by meeting outdoors in small groups. So, we are holding pop-ups in local parks across Don Valley North. We will be doing these a couple of times a week so you can drop by for a chat and let us know what we need to work on in your corner of the ward. It's easy to find us — just look for the bright pink tent! You'll spot the tent tomorrow night (Friday, August 21st) in Ruddington Park from 4:30 to 6:00 PM. And on Sunday, August 23rd, we will be in Lescon Park from 5:00 to 7:00 PM. Call my office any time to find out where we will be next — you can also follow my updates on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. We had our first park pop-up yesterday in Parkway Forest Park! Let’s keep talking as we continue navigating through the strangest year ever. To borrow a slogan from the Democratic Convention: if we stick together, we will be able to “Build Back Better.”

I’ve had my steel-toe boots on lately. After we got a call from a resident concerned about its progress, I wanted to tour a massive project underway in Don Valley North called the Duncan Creek Restoration. The Restoration was actually consulted on with the community around Cliffwood Park back in 2012. I wasn't the Councillor of that neighbourhood at the time, so I needed to see it for myself. While the community liaison for the project walked me through the details, my talented videographer, Yasmin Parodi, had the project manager relay information for you on camera. I want to share the video with you here because, as many of you know, Duncan Creek is not the only water course in our Ward that needs similar attention. This is a massive project. The creek has been virtually turned off, its water now contained and re-directed into a giant pipe so bulldozers can re-establish the course of the creek and shore up the eroded banks with huge stones. As I walked through it, I started thinking about Newtonbrook Creek. This is another creek facing erosion and other challenges from nature and especially from man-made nuisances. I’ve been working hard to make sure that the Toronto Region Conservation Authority hears the voices of the passionate residents who surround Newtonbrook Creek. But standing in the middle of the Duncan Creek Restoration Project in my boots and hard hat, I began to realize the enormous cost and disruption that will one day be necessary to protect any creek that needs to be kept alive through these types of interventions. We're not called Don Valley North for nothing. If you look at a satellite map of our ward, you'll realize our beautiful greenery is largely because of the East Don system that runs through us. I decided it was time to take my team on a hike and make sure they had a full appreciation for it, like you do. We went on a morning when we had no back-to-back virtual meetings lined up (for once!) and met at Leslie and Sheppard to hike up Newtonbrook Creek. I didn’t have to drag them. By the end of the 7.5 km hike, my team was fascinated and encouraged their old boss to keep going. The biggest eye-opener for my team was the number of people enjoying the trails on that very hot day. Nowadays, we know so much more about the importance of lifelong fitness. We all know our environment is precious and vulnerable. Knowing this, Don Valley residents take full advantage of our rivers, creeks and ravines. It’s very different to my childhood days in the Sixties when kids would play in those ravines and rarely be interrupted by an adult. Ours were the only bikes down there and only occasionally would an older adult walk by with a dog. When the concept of restoring the Duncan Creek was first brought to the community, we didn’t have all the tools we do now for gathering information and input. As future work on the Creek comes forward, my team and I will make sure you are in-the-know by making informative videos like the one above, posting the details on our website under the "Current Events" tab and, of course, on my social media platforms. Even during a pandemic, we can't forget about protecting our precious natural environment. And when our environment needs attention, you can be sure my Don Valley North team and I will always find a way to share what's going on with you. You all know this about me by now — I strongly believe all work in our community should always have your stamp on it.

As you know, we've been having pop-up constituency availability in parks across Don Valley North. Wherever we go, most residents dropping by are expressing their concerns about schools as re-opening plans continue to evolve. How schools manage the influx of students in their first weeks back is not something City Hall is directly involved in. But, we have our own "Three Rs" that we are doing our best to learn about and contend with — and no, it's not "reading, [w]riting and 'rithmetic." The new Three Rs are Reopening, Recovery & Rebuild. Toronto's plan We have talked about post-pandemic recovery in my e-blast before. I’ve shared my hopes that, as we rebuild our communities, we can change some things that were the source of inequitable treatment even before the virus became a part of our daily lives. This week, Dr. Eileen de Villa introduced her plan to help Toronto respond effectively to a resurgence, or "second wave", of the virus if and when one should occur. In a joint conference with Mayor Tory, Dr. de Villa reminded us that the medical community knows so much more now about COVID-19 and its transmission than they did back in March. As a result, the City knows which services need to be ready to adapt to a full-scale resurgence of infections and is prepared to manage this with appropriate funding and help from our provincial partners. Dr. de Villa is confident about our current supply of PPE and our cold-weather plans for homeless and vulnerable residents. Virus testing and contact tracing can be scaled up or down, according to the number of cases. Many city facilities are closed or have limited occupancy in order to keep staff healthy and ready to join the frontlines and put these spaces to use just in case. The list of ways in which we are prepared to help goes on. Areas of concern But there are areas where I have concerns. We have no word yet on whether Premier Ford and his provincial government are prepared to arrange for universal workplace testing for school staff. Currently, there is not enough capacity in hospital assessment centres if this becomes necessary. During virtual learning last Spring, we heard of many families who were left with phone data bills that simply cannot be paid due to lack of access to affordable internet. For those families, there is no choice but to send their kids to school. We still have no news on if school bus service will resume. And we are hearing from parents of special-needs children who still don't know if their schools can accommodate their unique IEP plans. It was disconcerting to hear the lack of clarity from Premier Ford in his press conference this week when asked about the inevitability of outbreaks in schools. He would only say, “We’ll be in there like Stormtroopers.” This late in the game, parents are looking for something more than rhetoric. I have nothing but admiration for my peers, the elected representatives on our school boards and the schools and faculties they govern. Many parents are at the doors of their child’s school right now desperate for answers that local schools may not be able to provide. In Ontario, all school boards are legislated and funded by the provincial government, and most major decisions need to flow from there. The Premier and Minister of Education should have had plans in place well before the end of August. If you're a parent of school-age kids and can't get your questions answered before this weekend, don't blame your local school. Teachers and principals are working as hard as they can to roll with the ever-changing announcements from on high. What the City can do Finally, there is one concern I have about the return to school that Toronto politicians can change: crowding on the TTC. Currently, 450 transit employees are laid-off to mitigate the loss of ridership during the early days of the lockdown. I’m happy that Mayor Tory and TTC CEO Rick Leary want to return 150 of those employees in time for school — but we really need every single driver back on the road. Our bus system is the backbone of the TTC, particularly during the school year. Schools can be located on any neighbourhood street, and it's students who fill up those shorter bus routes, like the 10 Van Horne in our ward. By high school, students begin to fill up streetcars and subways in long rides to schools that meet their course selections. We need our transit system to be safe for them and for all riders returning to work. The TTC now has about 50 per cent of its pre-pandemic ridership back. However, TTC Commissioners were told very early in the pandemic that physical distancing on buses can only be achieved with a maximum of 30 per cent ridership. Our transit system has been overcrowded for years. As we approach the first day of school, we are running a system that any other city in normal times would consider full capacity. People are plopping themselves down onto seats with signs that read "Seat Restricted" because there's no other space. At the next TTC Board Meeting, I will exercise my role as Commissioner to move a motion requesting that all laid-off TTC employees be returned to work. Optimizing our service is the only way we can create a safe environment as we return to work and school.

REMINDER: VIRTUAL COMMUNITY MEETING ON SENIORS’ HEALTH TONIGHT I’m holding a virtual community meeting TONIGHT at 7PM to discuss supports for seniors during COVID-19. Register HERE by 6PM to participate. I’ve been riding a roller coaster since Sunday in terms of writing a column for this week. Watching the heavy media coverage about a development application for the corner of College and Bathurst that would see the demolition of Sneaky Dee's, I got a little annoyed. I started writing a column about how it's odd that no one makes this much fuss when intensification threatens much-loved shops along Eglinton West, let alone along Sheppard Avenue. Then I remembered we have covered this ground recently. If we really don’t like that our own Official Plan drives developers to do all their property speculation along transit avenues, then we need to consider "gentle density" in our next Official Plan. I don't need to write yet another column on this topic for Sneaky Dee's habitués — they can read my column and apply it to their own circumstances. “Oops, now I have no topic for this week,” I lamented on Monday night. Then, Tuesday morning came with an announcement from Mayor Tory about the shocking statistics gathered from our 50 new automated speed enforcement cameras. In just one month, over 22,000 tickets were issued. That's over 700 tickets a day. So, I started a column lecturing all of us (myself included) to slow down — seriously. Again, I remembered I have already written about this, so I scrapped it. I recommend you read the articles I've linked above and also order a free "Slow Down!" sign from my office. I'll deliver it myself. What's most important to talk about this week is that our collective COVID-19 suppression efforts are starting to backslide before school has even opened. It's not from institutional spread. It's not from a spike in long-term care homes. It's just plain old carelessness. The plain truth So we went into the summer months steadily improving, in Toronto and across the province. We were rewarded with the wonders of Stage 3. But we’ve had too much fun at the beach. We've stood too close at the bar. We’re starting to forget to wash our hands when we get home from a bus ride that got too crowded. And what's really driving the numbers up is people — mostly those under age 40 — socializing with people outside their social bubbles without masks. It shouldn't come as a surprise that the numbers are now going in the wrong direction. All the businesses and services that have been able to open are relying on all of us to wear our masks, wash our hands and avoid touching our faces. No one wants to have to see our economy go into lockdown again. So let’s keep a Stage 1 mindset while enjoying the freedoms of Stage 3. All these activities can only stay open if we stick to public health rules. When my staff team and I go out to parks in Don Valley North for a pop-up, you will see us wearing masks, keeping six feet apart and still managing to have a great time chatting with you. Don’t take it the wrong way, but after we pack up the big pink tent, we rush home and wash our hands the minute we get inside. It’s really not that hard to keep everyone safe and get those numbers right back down — we've done it before and we can do it again.

REMINDER: VIRTUAL COMMUNITY MEETING ON TENANTS’ RIGHTS TONIGHT I’m holding a virtual community meeting TONIGHT at 7PM to discuss supports for tenants during COVID-19. Register HERE by 6PM to participate. Back in 2001, my husband and I bought our first and only house. It was the last affordable fixer-upper in Don Valley East, the ward I represented as a school board trustee. We fixed our little bungalow up enough to make it livable and thanked our lucky stars because, a year later, values had doubled. If we had hesitated a year we could never have owned a single-family home. Twenty years on, our house is worth easily five times more, even in a pandemic market, and there is not one tiny high-rise condominium in this town for the amount we paid for our house. In 2001, the year we stepped on to the property ladder, Canada’s median after-tax income was $45,800. Today, it's $67,400, while home values have risen almost 400 per cent. The property ladder is now hovering 100 metres off the ground where no one can reach it without generational wealth. But the biggest crisis in housing is playing out in real time in the rental market. Rent crisis As the pandemic stretches on, the rental accommodation crisis has been exacerbated. For months, our public health officials at every level of government have directed us to "stay home" as much as possible. But many Torontonians are learning they can't afford to. My husband and I spent 13 per cent of our wages on rent in 1981, when we were just starting out. If the people just starting out now are lucky enough to find a job that pays $50,000 after graduation, they will likely pay 45 per cent of that salary on rent alone. For younger adults today, all of this math plus one global pandemic equals mass job loss, evictions and changes to future plans that will affect their lives and the economy for years to come. To those of you reading this from inside your owned home: the renters' struggle affects you, too. If no one in the next generation is able to save enough to buy a home, the seller’s market we have enjoyed will evaporate. What's the solution? There are a range of solutions furiously being worked on to address all this doom and gloom. You will see Council and Mayor Tory discussing them next week in Executive Committee, but there is more than just talk going on: work on two affordable housing projects on surplus City properties and many more are in the pipeline. However, every day another one of our neighbours in Don Valley North visits the Willowdale Legal Clinic to get help because they've been served an eviction notice. Even if we build all 3000 units of affordable housing proposed in the Mayor’s Housing Now program, we need to provide more. We need to be far more imaginative and downright aggressive about opportunities. A city that can’t accommodate average, working people just doesn't work. Why would an early childhood educator take a job in a Toronto childcare facility that only pays $35,000 if she has to spend more than $20 a day commuting from the most affordable rent situation she can find? Wherever possible, we try to include affordable units in new developments. This can help in the short term, but the City must start maximizing its publicly-owned real estate — and that goes for every level of government. A bolder approach As I drive along the Eglinton Crosstown construction route, I see smart-looking glass cubes. These future transit stations sit on public land but no attempt has been made to maximize the space above and around them. Shouldn’t we be building housing opportunities above every new transit station? When building housing on public land, why must we always work with private sector, profit-motivated developers? This method only gets us a few hundred affordable units with hundreds more at market value. Why not follow the lead of other nations and foster not-for-profit housing development organizations that are mandated to invest in building and managing 100 per cent affordable projects? Over the years, I’ve tried to work affordable units into projects, always helped by great North York City Planners negotiating the details with developers. The net housing gain comes in the dozens when we need thousands of units. The provincial government could do a lot for us if they restored the former government’s mandatory inclusionary zoning bill and improved on it. It could have meant that, on dense development applications on sites such as Bayview Village Mall, developers could have been required to make 20 per cent of their units affordable for a minimum of 25 years. The result We all win when construction of affordable housing generates well-paid jobs and the resulting homes help people stay in our cities. That's what a healthy city should look like. So, let the pandemic inspire us to be bolder. As I've said before, the global impact of the pandemic has made it clear we will not return to "normal." It's revealed the weaknesses in our systems, including long-term care, transportation, education, small business and more. Sweeping changes are needed to make those systems more resilient — let's make sure housing is on that list, too. 12-24 Leith Hill Road The owner of 12-24 Leith Hill Rd has submitted a Site Plan Control application. The application proposes an 11-storey residential building and 48 townhouse units. The existing apartment building would remain. City staff will review this application and issue all the conditions the applicant must fulfill before the application is approved. 25 Leith Hill Road The owner of 25 Leith Hill Rd has submitted an Official Plan Amendment / Rezoning application. The application proposes a 31-storey residential apartment building containing 294 dwelling units. The existing apartment building would remain. A preliminary report on the application will be submitted to North York Community Council in the near future. 630 Finch Avenue East The owner of 630 Finch Ave E has submitted a Rezoning application. The application proposes a 12-storey mixed-use building that would contain 206 dwelling units and 897 square metres of non-residential gross floor area. There would be 311 parking spaces in a three-level parking structure located behind the non-residential space. A preliminary report on the application will be submitted to North York Community Council in the near future. Join our virtual community meeting on development next Thursday! If you read the updates above and wondered, what is a Site Plan Control application? An Official Plan Amendment? How does a developer apply to build a new building anyway? Don’t sweat it! We are hosting a virtual community meeting to talk about how the planning and development process works, and how you as residents of DVN can stay informed and engaged. Join Shelley and City Planning staff next Thursday, September 24, at 7 pm on WebEx or by phone to learn more. Register here.

REMINDER: VIRTUAL COMMUNITY MEETING ON DEVELOPMENT TONIGHT I’m holding a virtual community meeting TONIGHT at 7PM to discuss supports for tenants during COVID-19. Register HERE by 6PM to participate. A fairer municipal election could be as easy as changing your voting style from making a check mark on your ballot to marking it with a 1, 2 and 3. Council made a decision back in November 2019 (the ‘Before Times’, in other words) to have the City Clerk report to us about changing our election system to ranked choice voting in time for the 2022 city election. I was the one who asked for that report because I feel strongly about this. So does our Mayor. John Tory has supported ranked ballot elections every time he is asked, before and after being elected Mayor. It is refreshing to see a leader maintain his commitment to fairness and integrity of process, even after he finds himself in a position where, like Donald Trump, he could just as easily have closed the door. What is ranked choice voting? Some of you may be wondering: what is ranked choice voting? What's wrong with the way we vote now? Allow me to explain by borrowing phrasing from the experts at the Ranked Ballot Initiative of Toronto (RaBIT): Right now, voters choose one candidate on their ballot for each position available (Mayor, Councillor, and School Trustee). On election day, the votes are added up and whoever has the most votes is the winner. This system allows someone to "win" the election even if they only have 20 per cent of the vote. Ranked choice voting ensures that no one can win with less than 50 per cent of the vote by allowing voters to choose multiple candidates, ranked in order of preference by their first, second and third choice. On election day all of the first choice votes are added up (just as we do with our current system). If someone wins 50 per cent or more of the vote, they are declared the winner and the election is over. However, if no one receives more than 50 per cent, the candidate with the least votes is eliminated from the race. At this point, the supporters of the eliminated candidate would have their vote automatically transferred to their second choice. Again, the votes are counted and if someone has a majority, they are declared the winner. If not, another candidate is eliminated and it repeats until there is a majority winner. This method provides more choice for voters, and therefore more diversity. It also strongly discourages negative campaigning, reduces strategic voting and gives incumbents less of an advantage. Why I'm a fan Since amalgamation, when I was an unelected community activist, I have been determined to encourage Torontonians to be more engaged in their local government. I’ve always been a supporter of achieving this through ranked choice ballot elections. And in 2015, when I visited San Francisco during their municipal election, I became more determined than ever. I visited the campaign office of a San Francisco councillor running for re-election. They were having their third election using ranked choice ballots, and this councillor had been in office long enough to remember the former method as well. He and his team insisted there was nothing that would convince him to go back to the old way of voting. They enthusiastically told me how ranked choice voting has changed elections for the better. Candidates had to know their stuff and know deeply about the issues the local ward was facing in order to make the cut as one of voters' three possible choices. On that sunny October day I had reason to be jealous of these excited San Franciscans. A brief history This isn't new to Toronto City Council. Back even further, in early 2013, Council was convinced to make a big leap: in a vote of 26 to 15, Council directed the Mayor and City Manager to ask the province to give cities permission to use ranked choice voting in their elections. Mayor Rob Ford wasn’t keen but Council carried the day. The wheels of government turn slowly. The 2014 election, in which Mayor Tory was victorious, was held in the normal first-past-the-post way. The province needed a couple of years to review and give permission to municipalities to decide if they wanted to use ranked ballots in future elections. And they did, right after the 2014 election was over. Then it gets messy. Late in the evening of a Council Session in 2015, a one-term councillor named Justin Di Ciano moved a surprise motion, making Council decide right then whether they wanted a ranked ballot election in 2018. Suddenly, my colleagues weren’t so sure. Despite strong support from Mayor Tory himself, the vote landed in favour of keeping the status quo. By the time the next election rolled around, the Toronto Star reported Di Ciano was under investigation by the OPP's anti-racket's branch, "known for investigating enterprise crime and complex fraud, for potential violations of the Municipal Elections Act." He did not run for a second term, but he left his mark. Where we are now Now it's 2020, where we have 25 super-sized wards with more than 100,000 constituents in each one. The stakes in each ward are very high and the choice to run is harder than ever. The Mayor created a Special Committee on Governance to look at the impacts of this change, and I was lucky enough to be appointed to it. It took some work, but when the Committee’s recommendations went to Council in November 2019, I was happy to have the support of the Mayor and Council in directing the City Clerk to examine and report back on the possibility of conducting a ranked ballot election in 2022. That report was supposed to come to us in 2020. Then the pandemic hit. COVID-19 has redeployed City staff to many different tasks since lockdown began and there have understandably been delays in every department. Now, the City Clerk is recommending that all work on ranked balloting stop until further notice. I disagree. I think Council needs to ask how they can help our elections clerk make this happen because this is important. After all, this isn't about politicians or clerks — it's about you, the voter. Why you should care Every four years, we politicians parade ourselves past your door. Each ward race has seven or eight candidates at a minimum. How do you decide? Are there a couple of good ones? Is there one your neighbour likes but you weren’t home when they visited? The decision seems daunting — it’s enough to make you turn out the lights and pretend you’re not home. Or, worse still, skip voting altogether rather than pick the wrong one. What if you could talk to family, neighbours and parishioners and choose a first, second and third choice? If we could run multiple counts until the person who truly has the majority of the community's support wins, wouldn't that be the best and fairest choice? It really could be as easy as marking 1-2-3. If you agree and want to see a ranked choice ballot in the 2022 city election, let me know! The decision whether to move forward with ranked ballots will be decided at City Council next week, and I need to know if there's support. You can take action by visiting RaBIT's website and signing their petition here.

TONIGHT: VIRTUAL COMMUNITY MEETING ON PUBLIC HEALTH Join me for a virtual community meeting TONIGHT for an informative discussion with Toronto Public Health about COVID-19 and the current situation in our city. Register by 6PM to participate. Click here to sign up now. As promised, I want to provide a brief rundown of the discussion we had during our Virtual Community Meeting on Transportation last week. First off, I want to thank my two special guests: my fellow City Councillor, Brad Bradford, and Kevin Rupasinghe who is the Campaigns Manager at Cycle Toronto. They helped us take the conversation in new directions for Don Valley North. It can be very hard to talk about redesigning roads or introducing cycling infrastructure when there is a specific road being proposed. Stating the reasons why your specific street is proposed starts to sound like arm-twisting if you are emotional about change. That's why it was helpful when Brad and Kevin discussed past projects and outcomes around the city, giving us food for thought about our future in Don Valley North. It's important to note that specific cycling lane proposals for our ward are still a bit of a ways away and no consultation has taken place yet. Don Valley North has its transportation challenges and this is an opportune time to discuss them without getting too heated. City staff are able to do some minor traffic speed and volume studies at the moment, but the pandemic's impact on our traffic and transportation habits prevents them from doing any meaningful area-wide studies. Further challenging traffic data is the Eglinton Crosstown, which continues to impact traffic counts on all north/south routes. So, this is a good time to discuss and prioritize for later. The good news is the Crosstown is on schedule and our return to "normal" traffic conditions is little more than a year way. Safety Councillor Bradford discussed how community consultation influences cycling lane design, how chronic intersection flaws can be addressed as the lanes are installed and how car movement is counted and then incorporated into any design. Brad has professional expertise in this regard as he was a City Planner prior to being elected Councillor and took part in exactly this type of road design. Brad reminded us of the urgency surrounding City Council’s commitment to Vision Zero, a program he has been a real steward for at Council along with Mayor Tory. Last year, we saw 42 fatalities on our city streets and almost countless serious injuries. Brad’s team shares something in common with mine: both report their most common calls from residents are concerns about speeding and pedestrian safety. Kevin Rupasinghe was a pleasant surprise for some residents on the call. He outlined how Cycle Toronto tries to take an approach that serves all road users, not just bikes. Kevin and his team at CycleTO are more than just pro-bike lane activists; they spend a lot of their time and resources on safe cycling education and route-planning to accommodate all users of the road. This was music to the ears of some of our residents who have been challenged by cyclists speeding along sidewalks. The most common complaints we hear about the growing number of cyclists is that they don't ride safely. CycleTO runs workshops that actively promote using lights and reflective clothing for dark mornings, travelling at safe speeds on nature trails, staying off the sidewalks and obeying traffic signals and stop signs. These activities are supported by private donations from Torontonians who know that safe cycling is rewarded by the installation of more cycling infrastructure. Vision Zero Adding bike lanes to our roads can benefit all users. Every time we take a car off the road by offering its driver an alternative, we lighten traffic. Here's a local example: think of the hundreds of high school students who are driven during morning rush hour to A. Y. Jackson, Georges Vanier and George S. Henry Academy because their parents don’t think they would be safe riding a bicycle. If we remove that worry, how many cars are removed from the morning rush hour? Where roads are overly wide and speed is a constant issue, adding cycling lanes while narrowing and maintaining the same number of car lanes can act as very effective traffic calming. Vision Zero staff teams are looking at all sorts of traffic calming possibilities. Enforcement is an immediate one that requires no community consultation. Traffic has somewhat increased even amidst the pandemic, due to school trips and some businesses remaining open. In response, the Vision Zero team has deployed a 16-officer enforcement unit in the Toronto Police Service to combat unsafe use of our streets. Another Vision Zero initiative that is proceeding is city-wide speed limit reduction. Because we are taking a city-wide approach to the speed limit, consultation is not needed. Between now and the end of 2025, the goal of City Transportation is to reduce all major arteries (think multi-lane roads) from 60 km/h down to 50 km/h. All local arteries (think the through-road in and out of your subdivision) will consistently be 40 km/h instead of switching back and forth to 50. Lastly, local roads that feed into arteries of both types will be reduced to 30 km/h. Community consultation All other types of changes to roads require community consultation. There is a report coming in 2021 about whether or not we should add dedicated bus lanes on parts of Sheppard Avenue. I assured virtual meeting attendees once again that if City staff recommend this, a community consultation must come before any final decision is made. In the case of speed bumps, even when staff test speeds and recommend them, a neighbourhood poll is required before proceeding, as is the case on Ernest Avenue. City staff will be mailing out a poll to that neighbourhood in November. Virtual community meetings can allow us to consult with you or even facilitate a discussion about how to improve your local road network. All you need to do is contact my office and we can help organize a virtual think tank for your neighbourhood organization. We can make use of this cold weather season, when we will have to stay home to slow the spread of COVID-19, to plan future transportation requests for each neighbourhood. In the meantime, it will take time to convert all 5,556 kilometres of roads in Toronto but some changes are already in place. I don’t want any of you to get a ticket, or worse, be involved in one of those terrible collisions that happen in November — one of the most dangerous driving months of the year. So, here's a little challenge for you: Check the dashboard clock when you pull out of your driveway. Look for the speed limit signs along your journey and practise going the speed limit. Take note of what 50 km/h feels like with your car. What does 40 km/h feel like? When you reach your destination, check the dashboard clock again. Did it really cost all that much to travel at the speed limit? Is everyone in one piece? If you are feeling pretty good about that, pass it on. Get others to take the challenge. Our virtual meeting tonight will feature an informative chat with one of Toronto's incredible Public Health nurses for a pandemic update. The numbers are concerning — tune in to find out what these numbers mean and what we can do to stay safe. If you can’t join us, I’ll include a bit about it in next week’s column along with a rundown of next week’s City Council meeting decisions. Talk soon.

Day Two of our November City Council session is wrapping up, so I thought I'd summarize some key developments for you here. I've received lots of positive feedback from readers about the last couple of "Council highlights" e-blasts, so I will make this a recurring monthly series after each Council session. Here's what you need to know: Surface Transit Network Plan Update Council agreed to move the Toronto Surface Transit Network Plan (STNP) along to the City-wide consultation phase. At the meeting, however, it sounded like a number of Councillors aren't feeling much like going along for the ride. The STNP is led by the City's General Manager of Transportation Services to evaluate key avenues throughout the inner suburbs to determine if any could be redesigned to accommodate dedicated bus lanes. Almost every avenue being reviewed would need alteration, widening and more to accommodate dedicated or rapid bus lanes. Staff will continue to review their potential, including looking for more minor improvements such as queue jump lanes for buses and improved signalization. Then, they will reach out to you for your opinion. There were a number of councillors who claimed this would be impossible in their areas, even though we haven’t even seen completed designs. I voted to continue the preliminary design work and do the consultations. I think you will be able to form your opinions better once you can actually see what is being suggested. Avenues that are considered first priority are Jane Street, Steels Avenue West, Finch Avenue East and Dufferin Street. All could proceed, depending on community input, as early as 2024. Future corridors beyond these would be consulted on in a few years' time. Preserving Ranked Ballot Elections I've talked about ranked ballots in-depth already. As you may know, I moved a protest motion when Premier Ford removed the right of municipalities to determine whether or not they wanted to have ranked choice voting in their local city elections. The motion passed quite handily in Council yesterday. It bears repeating that, once again, I was able to count on the Mayor’s influential support. John Tory has consistently supported this democratic reform since he was first elected. Response to COVID-19: Persevering Through Resurgence The Toronto Medical Officer of Health was stuck in her office, answering endless questions from us Councillors while drama unfolded in Etobicoke. While a restaurant owner made a very public show of defying the Premier’s order to shut down indoor dining, we discussed how to turn around this very dangerous resurgence of the virus. In answer to my question, the good Doctor de Villa confirmed her public health team are constantly reviewing their communications strategy to find more forceful and impactful ways to express the need for everyone to follow these new directives. Fair Pass Program - 2020 Update There is some good news at last on the Fair Pass, our transit discount program for low-income Torontonians. While the program launched in 2018, funding will ultimately be required from other levels of government to fully implement it. The program is currently offered to anyone who receives OW or ODSP. Clients receive a specially-programmed PRESTO card to access discounted TTC fares. The cost is calculated based on actual ridership data, and when you swipe the card, the discount is noted and subsidized by the City. Lower TTC ridership during the pandemic has left the City with additional funds for the program. As a result, City Staff are recommending adding the next phase in the 2021 City Budget, which includes eligibility for any working Torontonian who qualifies for childcare subsidies or who meets the low-income measure plus 15 per cent. This program is going to be vital to getting people back on their feet post-pandemic. Response to Proposed Regulations under the Child Care and Early Years Act For this item, I am including a link to City Staff’s very easily-digested slide deck. The presentation clearly lays out the issues our Children's Services department has with the provincial government's recently proposed changes to the child care system. Whether you use child care or not, this is an issue for all of us. Right now, parents are desperate for child care centres to just be open. Due to the pandemic, they are not able to organize and protest changes that might be unhealthy for their kids - I suspect this is why the provincial government has chosen this moment to embark on changes that would really challenge our ability to deliver quality child care with our many not-for-profit partners. Pooling together age groups while simultaneously raising the ratio of adults to children in the room is ill-advised. Parents, grandparents and future parents should let their representatives know that “Building Back Better” after the pandemic means helping parents go back to work, safe in the knowledge that their kids are being well cared for. Reducing the State of Good Repair Backlog and Enhancing Cycling Lane Maintenance This report shows we are grossly under-investing in the state of good repair for our roads, both major and local. However, we can look at it in a good news way: it shows we have seen City staff improve in their ability to spend capital dollars on roads when they have the right tools. Transportation capital staff now have their own equipment to quickly and affordably assess the conditions of roads across the city. This allows them to put the dollars into the repairs themselves. They further submit that it may be possible to be even faster and more affordable if they allow in-house City crews to do local road improvements and leave the major repairs to the big-gun private firms. While all the recommendations passed, I find it amazing that five councillors voted against the recommendation that staff further study the in-house option to make sure savings are truly possible. To me, the issue here is savings and more roads getting repaired. This should be the least ideological item of the day. Ombudsman Toronto Report - Enquiry into How the City of Toronto Handles Homeowner Third-Party Liability Claims for Basement Flooding and Sewer Backups This Ombudsman report is worth a good read-through. Over the years, many Don Valley North residents have made liability claims, particularly after our most traumatic storm on August 19, 2005. If you are one of those people, you will appreciate the Ombudsman’s recommendations. Councillor Nunziata has moved that the report be brought to the next meeting of the appropriate Standing Committee in January so that residents will have the ability to speak to the report if they wish. When that meeting is scheduled, I’ll announce it in this e-blast. We are lucky in Don Valley North to have been amongst the earliest basement flood mitigation projects. I’ll confess to being a bit of a raging Councillor back in 2006 to make that happen. These days, significant sewer backups and basement floods have become a rare occurrence. You should still remember to call my office if this happens to you, though - my team will gladly help you and suggest the best steps to take. Opposition to the Government of Ontario's changes to Conservation Authorities This one is crucial to any Don Valley resident who is a fan of our spectacular natural ravines. Our local ravines are the main reason I stepped up to sit on the Board of the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority (TRCA). This is the multi-governmental body appointed to provide stewardship over watersheds and ravines. The TRCA Board includes councillors from all of the applicable municipalities but also citizen members, appointed based on environmental expertise. This balances out some of the politics that might otherwise dominate. TRCA staff play a very important role in protecting against over-development of our naturally significant lands. We have two coming up in Don Valley North alone, where TRCA has the authority to determine where the top-of-bank is on a ravine. For example, they can require an applicant to push development back 10 metres. But what happens when a developer applicant and the municipality band together and decide to proceed with a project against TRCA advice? Currently, the TRCA can register an appeal to the same provincial tribunal known as the LPAT, which residents and cities appeal to when they disagree with a development. The provincial government has introduced a Bill that would remove citizens from the Board as well as the ability of Conservation Authorities to appeal developments or even register to be a party to LPAT. The City of Toronto is joining other member municipalities in registering our disapproval of this Bill. Read TRCA's statement on their website here, which goes in-depth about how the approval of this Bill would endanger our precious ravines. That's all for the November Council session. Our next and final session of the year will be on December 16 and 17, where we will be discussing the 2021 rate-supported Budget. Stay tuned.

TONIGHT: VIRTUAL COMMUNITY MEETING ON TRANSPORTATION Join me for a virtual community meeting TONIGHT to discuss transportation in a post-pandemic city. Register by 6PM to participate. Click here to sign up now. I’ve been putting off writing about the resurgence of COVID-19 in Toronto and across Ontario. To be honest, I was hoping the upward trend that started in mid-September was a blip that would reverse itself somehow. Then, all that would be required is a discussion of recovery efforts and how to keep the curve flat. Alas, it is anything but flat at the moment. Second wave Case counts continue to rise, even after the provincial government put new restrictions on who should get tested. Experts warn that case count alone is not the most reliable measure. They look at a number of factors; for example, hospitalizations are up. This is an indication that we can no longer place the blame on fraternity kids and bar hoppers, as the Premier was fond of doing back in September. Hospitalizations indicate the virus is spreading, once again, in older and more vulnerable populations. In Ontario, 71 long-term care homes are currently experiencing outbreaks. Toronto's Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Eileen de Villa, says our ability to reach our goals in viral containment or spread is in the "Red" zone. She updates this data publicly in her COVID-19 Monitoring Dashboard three times per week. These are important metrics because Toronto Public Health (TPH) is in charge of virus prevention and control. If TPH is unable to keep up with contact tracing, prevention education and outreach then the hospital system will be in the Red zone soon afterwards. There is a lot to be scared of with the latest statistics — but we are going into this resurgence knowing much more about the virus than we did in March and we're better supplied. Remember the frantic scramble for face masks back in March? Now, the mask debate is over and it’s hard to walk into any store that doesn't have them for sale right at the cash register. Recently, I sat through a two-hour virtual course on infection prevention and control (IPAC) and hand-washing in order to be allowed to visit my Dad in long-term care. I was surprised at how much I’ve been shortcutting on the hand-washing over the summer — I doubt I'm the only one for whom the novelty of singing "Happy Birthday" while washing my hands wore off. Here are examples of the lessons I've had to re-learn: Thanksgiving was a real test of everyone’s social bubbles last week and it is probably best that we look at it as a rehearsal for the holiday season. How did you do? Did you keep your bubble small and avoid hugging and squeezing at all costs? My daughter and I drove over to a friend’s home to deliver some of my famous homemade Mile High Apple Pie. “Come in, come in,” my friend beckoned. It killed me to say, “No, no, no. We just want you to have your annual pie. Stay safe.” Building back better People have had some time to form opinions on COVID-19 management by now, which has led to some constructive suggestions and criticisms of government. That’s perfectly fair. I’m no different — I have also been more vocal as of late. We need to be much louder and clearer about our need for help from the provincial government to run a safe transit system. We have been struggling without day-to-day operating funding from the province since 1995. That is the reason the TTC was in financial crisis the minute the pandemic began — our transit system relies too heavily on the fare box, and when fares dried up Toronto had an immediate problem. This is in contrast to other cities like Vancouver and Montreal who receive income tax dollars to fund part of their operations. We need to be much more committed to this trendy new phrase, “Build Back Better." I first heard it in a Joe Biden stump speech, and now I hear it repeated throughout City Hall. It also appears in the massive new report from the Mayor’s blue ribbon consultants, Dr. David Mowat and Mr. Saad Rafi, in the new Toronto Office of Recovery and Rebuild (TORR). If my hunch is right, the phrase means building back an economy without the giant disparity between CEOs and their senior teams (both in the public and private sector) and the other 90 per cent of humanity who have seen their wages stagnate since the 1980's and thus, were unprepared for this pandemic. If that's correct, we're already off to a lousy start. At my last TTC Board meeting, despite my objections, we made the choice to give away decent jobs at the Wheel-Trans switchboard to a contracted service that won’t even be in Toronto. The service promises to deliver the same amount of work for about one million dollars fewer a year. However, they do so by paying poor wages to fewer workers. The service quality suffers and a few more Toronto workers join the housing and food bank lines that your tax dollars pay for. If we really want to build back better, every Councillor needs to devote this weekend to deeply reading the report from TORR before it is presented at the Mayor’s Executive Committee next week. Here is an abbreviated look at what the experts in TORR are saying: Dear Toronto, You can't rebuild using property tax funds alone. You need to start thinking holistically and partner more with other levels of government. What is Toronto's intergovernmental affairs strategy, anyway? Looks like a lot of requests, multi-panelist tables and dozens and dozens of priorities. You need to take stock of this mixed bag and pull it together. Toronto, you have to get out of this resurgence of COVID-19. Here's an entire appendix of advice on what Dr.Eileen de Villa can achieve using her own Toronto Public Health dashboard, even as the province grapples with the facts. For both the remainder of the pandemic and for the rebuilding of your community, Toronto needs a separate and robust strategy for Black and Indigenous People of Colour (BIPOC) — and it starts with populating City agencies, boards and commissions with BIPOC citizen members. You are going to have to take a hard look at your budget. You’ll need to find savings, not so Council can boast about keeping taxes low, but because your health system needs those dollars to get through this pandemic. Ultimately, what you really need are more appropriate streams of non-property tax revenue. You are kind of bad at community engagement, especially where BIPOC are concerned. Proper and meaningful engagement is something you have to actively invest in if you truly want to “Build Back Better.” Now, this is an extreme distillation of the many thoughts of authors Dr. David Mowat and Mr. Saad Rafi, but it gets their key points across. If you've been a reader of this e-blast for a while, you'll know I'm in strong agreement with these recommendations — in fact, I've written about every one of these points before. If my colleagues on Council take these recommendations seriously and heed the advice of TORR, I believe our City can emerge from this pandemic as a more resilient and better city for everyone from all walks of life. I urge you to read the report and decide for yourself whether you agree. But before we start looking to the end of the tunnel, we have to make it through this resurgence, first. I know the advice we've received from the provincial government has been unclear, so just remember these golden rules: Maintain your distance from others (at least 6 feet) and avoid crowds Wear a mask when distancing is difficult and in indoor public spaces Wash your hands frequently and do not touch your face.

City Council met this week for the first time since July. In any normal year, August is the one month where Council does not hold a month-long cycle of standing committees culminating in a full session of Council. This year, while Council took that annual break from meetings, our battle against COVID-19 and its impacts on Toronto carried on. That leads us to September, where we've made an attempt to restart some important policy work and enact any new initiatives that will help us prepare for this second wave of the pandemic. Since there are so many moving parts loaded into this week's Council meeting, I've decided to simply list a few key items with my comments. Heaven knows that printed newspapers are getting thinner and thinner and some of our actions won’t appear in the thick "GTA" section that used to be delivered to most doors. As of this writing, Council is still going! This meeting had 163 items to consider, so it was bound to be a long one. Here are just a few of them: Changes to policing First and foremost, Council made a commitment to 36 important recommendations to bring about changes to Policing in Toronto and to confront anti-Black racism in our June meeting, after the deaths of Regis Korchinksi-Paquet in Toronto and George Floyd in the USA. To underscore the importance of these recommendations, we required City staff to update us regularly on the progress of these recommendations. Staff brought their first update today. I'm going to continue holding the Police Board and the City Manager to account to make sure the recommendations are enacted — I've been keeping in touch with the team weekly, as has Mayor Tory. Renaming Dundas Street A somewhat controversial item of business is "Responding to the Dundas Street Renaming Petition." I have observed that people have very definite opinions on this matter, and you will have an opportunity to have your voice heard. City staff will be proceeding with holding a city-wide consultation (virtually) that includes these four options: do nothing retain the legal street names with additional interpretation and recognitions retain the legal street names but rename those civic assets with Dundas in their name, except TTC facilities rename the streets and all other civic assets now carrying the Dundas name. I will let you know how to participate in the consultations once the process gets started. Stay tuned to my social media and e-blasts. Transit On the transit front, we adopted a couple of sets of recommendations that have long-range impact. The first, Metrolinx-City of Toronto Master Agreement for the GO Expansion Program, authorizes the City Manager to negotiate with Metrolinx on our behalf where their expansion plans affect us. I asked that, in these negotiations, the City Manager emphasize how very important it is to proceed with relocating Oriole GO station to connect access to the Leslie TTC station. Residents have been asking for this connection for a long time, and it needs to be done as soon as possible to encourage more ridership in our newer neighbourhoods. The second bundle of transit recommendations was an update on "Provincial Priority Transit Expansion Projects." The City of Toronto receives regular updates even though all expansion of rail transit is now under provincial control. Premier Ford is adamant that his top four priorities must be the Ontario Line, the western Crosstown expansion, the Scarborough subway and the Yonge Line extension to Richmond Hill. Even though these projects will take him well into the 2030's, I successfully moved a motion on behalf of Don Valley North for City Council to request that the province and Metrolinx advance the priority of the Sheppard Subway extension, given the population projected to move in over the coming years. Ranked ballots A report called "The Impact of COVID-19 on 2022 Election Preparation Activities" delivers a bit of bad news for passionate fans of enhancing democracy. As you know, last week I wrote about ranked ballot elections and why they'd be beneficial for Toronto. We learned that the City Clerks in charge of election preparedness cannot possibly purchase badly-needed new election tabulators and also prepare for our first ranked-ballot election in time for 2022. Regretfully, I had to accept the situation. But rather than agree to "cease all work" on ranked ballots, I am going to move to direct the City Clerk to continue to meet the legislated requirements and consultations and report back to City Council by the end of 2023. That way, City Council can consider adopting ranked ballots for the 2026 election. COVID-19 As often happens with COVID-19, a report presented a week ago to the Toronto Board of Health had to be updated. In light of the steady daily increase in case numbers in Toronto and the rest of Ontario, the Medical Officer of Health updated her report at Council and has recommended strengthening bylaws to reduce gatherings, restaurant group sizes and enforce cleaning in multi-residential buildings. Council voted unanimously in favour of these stronger measures. You can see the full list of the latest health and safety rules here. Golf courses One of the drawbacks to contracting out the management of the City of Toronto’s five public golf courses is that, whenever it is time to extend those contracts, the conversation rolls around to this question: why do we still have public golf courses? For many golfers who cannot afford a private club membership, these courses are absolute treasures. But for non-golfers, these courses represent precious green real estate — land that could be transformed into public parks available to all. It's easy to sympathize with park enthusiasts during the pandemic, when people need space to spread out. I'm hoping that rather than make a snap decision, Council will consider renewing the five courses’ leasing management agreements until 2023 and will study the options in the meantime. Housing and homelessness As you know, people experiencing homelessless and poverty are among the most vulnerable and hard-hit by the pandemic. That's why one of the first discussions on the agenda was about "Addressing Housing and Homelessness Issues in Toronto through Intergovernmental Partnerships." The item requests that the provincial and federal governments provide the City about $727 million to create 3,000 affordable rental and supportive homes over next two years. I supported this ask because I believe we in the suburbs need to be part of the solution. I've received messages from some of you about new encampments in our ravines that were set up during the pandemic. This serves as proof that we're not immune to the problem. I have always believed that one of the real solutions to ending homelessness in our city is to build permanent supportive housing instead of more shelters. Shelters should not be a permanent solution — we have to help people make their way to a home. That's the strategy that will yield long-term results. Exploring Indigenous Economic Opportunities in Toronto Ravines I also placed a motion called "Exploring Indigenous Economic Opportunities in Toronto's Ravines." Over the coming years, all three governments and the Toronto & Region Conservation Authority are investing large amounts of dollars in ravine management and flood mitigation. Given their deep connection to the land, our first peoples should have the opportunity to take part in that work and benefit economically. I’m happy Council adopted it. That's all for the highlights! If you'd like to read the full agenda, you can access it here. Remember that you can also watch City Council meetings live on YouTube.

Nowadays, I don’t come across many Torontonians who aren’t fully aware of our crisis in housing affordability. Since the dawn of this millennium, it has been clear that this city is fully built out, more or less. This means as we grow in population, the short supply is driving prices up for both rental and ownership of all types of housing. This is driving some people out of the legal housing market altogether and into illegal accommodation. Background Don Valley North is an area that started this millennium offering a wide range of legitimate housing options. From the late Fifties onwards, we have become host to almost every new housing approach; from post-war single family subdivisions to semi-detached second-suite homes, both rental and condominium townhomes, government rent-geared-to-income homes and, of course, our tower block villages that have provided first homes to so many in Toronto. All these housing types face challenges during this extreme affordability crisis. Pre-COVID, rental apartments had vacancy rates of less than one per cent, and some landlords took advantage by charging as much as the market could bear, feeling no pressure to maintain their buildings properly. (NB: In recent months, vacancy rates in Toronto have risen above two per cent for the first time in 10 years. Whether this trend remains in a post-COVID world remains to be seen.) Council has struggled with enforcing standards in our apartment blocks for years. Most recently, the new program called RentSafeTO is being used to improve building maintenance standards and monitor adherence to COVID-19 guidelines. We know the short-term rental market for travellers was exploding before the pandemic began. So many homes were being rented by tourists and party hosts that Airbnb and similar services expanded beyond Toronto's tourist district to residential neighbourhoods. When houses are used for this purpose, it takes that home out of the rental market for a family who really needs it and may have been the ideal tenant and neighbour. As many of you know, Council has created strict new laws for short-term rentals and won its legal battle to be able to begin enforcement. Unfortunately, the effectiveness of this new law can’t truly be put to the test until pre-pandemic rates of travel resume. What the City is doing The biggest challenge we face, as so many of you know, is the proliferation of illegal rooming houses. What started at about the time of the double-cohort year in colleges and universities in 2003 has become a widespread, unlicensed practice across Etobicoke, North York and Scarborough. I have been trying to herd together all the City forces necessary to address this problem since that time. Now, City Staff is finally ready to work together with local communities and councillors to get the problem under control. Next week, councillors can attend the Planning and Housing Committee to hear what City Staff are proposing to present to residents in consultation sessions across the inner suburbs. After incorporating your suggestions and addressing your concerns, they hope to have a final rooming house strategy that the Mayor and Council will be able to review and vote on by summer 2021. I have some concerns with the solution that has been proposed, but I am going to support bringing it out to you for consultation. At the end of the day, the status quo is not sustainable. This is a city-wide issue badly in need of a city-wide discussion, and I have some strong ideas about how that discussion should proceed. The challenges Let’s agree on what the challenges are and agree they exist for multiple stakeholders — namely both neighbours of illegal rooming houses and the tenants within. After all, having a common understanding is conducive to reaching a consensus. Council has taken a position I think we can all agree on: access to safe, affordable housing is a human right. Because the average rent for a one bedroom apartment in Toronto is $1900, single minimum-wage earners, students and many ODSP recipients are left without this human right fulfilled. Multi-tenanted houses, meaning more than two leaseholders, are illegal throughout North York, Scarborough and most of Etobicoke. While they might be affordable, we have absolutely no way of ensuring rooming houses are safe when their tenants can’t admit they live there due to fear of becoming homeless. Because rooming houses are illegal, the City can't consistently enforce the property standards set out in our by-laws, nor can we ensure they meet building and fire codes. So long as the owner maintains he is not running a rooming house, provincial laws do not allow Toronto by-law officers the power to enter a private residence and inspect it because they need permission from the owner. While rooming houses are illegal, City by-law enforcement must monitor and investigate rooming houses for months in an attempt to prosecute and close them down. Currently, there is no proper source of funding for this work, other than a drain on conventional property taxes — your taxes. Similarly, fire fighters must do their best with preventive inspections without a revenue source while being painfully aware that 14 people have died in rooming house fires in the last 10 years. The proposal These are all problems that have led City staff to make a bold recommendation. Staff propose that we allow property owners to apply for licenses to legitimize multi-tenanted homes (rooming houses) under strict conditions and under the agreement to allow City inspection and enforcement at all times. If you live on a street where these residences exist, you will have the same reaction I had when I read this staff proposal: that this seems impossible to implement. Here’s the thing. Having read all 34 pages of their report, I’m prepared to have this discussion. However, I want to hear much more detail than the report offers about how the City will embark on this licensing program while moving aggressively to bring action against rooming houses that continue to operate illegally with no license. In the suburbs, City Staff are proposing that we enforce a maximum of six tenants per home, which is more stringent than what is allowed downtown. That would be good news because it's far fewer than the numbers I've seen in some of the problem properties in Don Valley North. Staff also suggest that parking must be brought into compliance with all other homes on the street, which is a very fair demand. After all, in any legal apartment building where a unit doesn’t come with parking, you make other arrangements for your car or look for housing where a parking spot is available. Staff are also proposing a very thorough list of fire-safe and building code requirements. Only after Council agrees to these licensing pieces, will staff develop their implementation and enforcement plan. This is where the proposal loses me. I need a plan of action before I can vote to proceed with licensing rooming houses on any street across the City, and more importantly, so do you. You need to know how this is actually going to work on your street before you agree. My thoughts We have a tendency in Toronto to make big decisions and big commitments without having an honest look at what it will cost, year after year. In order to get to "yes", Council tends to want to hear that things can be done for free. When that doesn't turn out to be true, we are stuck with a program that will cost more to execute than we thought and our first instinct is to cut back on the proper resources to inspect and enforce. That's why there must be a concrete plan on how implementation and enforcement would work when this proposal is presented in community consultation events. I’m looking for a solution to rooming houses that is so well-executed that it drives this form of housing to suitable locations — and I don't see it yet in this report. I want a program where both tenants and neighbours feel safe, where no property is approved until it is thoroughly evaluated and inspected. This means rigorous initial inspection of building code and property standards compliance, and then true regular follow-up to address any illegitimate alterations. Right now, I'm not seeing the numbers necessary to make this possible. But one thing both tenants and neighbouring homeowners will need to know for sure is that we have a real solution that works in the contexts of both the suburbs and downtown — not just a new regime where we end up brewing licensed rooming houses and just as many illegal ones. Lastly, I’m looking for a solution that restores the vibrancy of every street in our ward. In a city like ours, everyone should have a fair shot at putting a roof over their head and a fair chance at becoming a valued member of their community, which is something we can all agree on. Community Notices Upcoming Community Meetings City Planning staff will be hosting virtual community meetings in the coming weeks to hear from residents about two development applications in the ward: 1181 Sheppard Ave E: Monday, November 16, 2020 at 6:30 pm The application is proposing a 22-storey office building and a 25-storey residential building with 513 units, connected by a mixed-use podium. It includes a new day nursery. 680-688 Sheppard Ave E: Monday, November 23, 2020 at 6:30 pm The application is proposing a 24-storey residential building with 527 residential units, including 35 rental replacement units. It includes a new day nursery.You can join the meetings online by WebEx or call in by phone. Please register through the links above and you will receive further instructions by email.