​​Toronto had a marvellous green roof program. Starting in 2009, as the first city in North America with such an initiative, it required developers of large commercial structures to include a green roof. Since then, Toronto has seen 1,200 green roofs, totalling over a million square feet, absorbing 550 million litres of rainwater a year.

The green roof increased construction costs marginally, but it created significant savings in energy costs. Some developers found the program so attractive that they created a green roof even though it was not required.

And then, just as the World Series got underway last month, Premier Ford and his cabinet approved an order in council arbitrarily killing the program. No notice, no chance for the city to discuss the matter. 

City council has asked the province to phase out the Portlands gas-fired electricity-generating power plant, the city’s leading source of air-polluting emissions and greenhouse gases. Portlands electricity could be replaced by solar and wind power. The province refuses, stating it is waiting until the expansion of the nuclear plant in Port Hope is completed in 2035. That plant will use uranium from the United States to provide electricity which costs six or seven times solar and wind energy. And just to emphasize that addressing climate change is not part of the Ford agenda, the recent fall economic statement by the province cancelled any targets for climate change.

You may be aware of the province’s legislation to get rid of speed cameras, during which no public hearings were permitted, presumably because hearings would have given publicity to the studies that show that speed cameras reduce the speed of vehicles and save people being injured or killed. (There appear to be no studies showing that getting rid of cameras makes streets safer.) 

And you are probably aware of the province’s attempt to get rid of Toronto’s bike lanes, now tied up in a court decision that prevents that legislation from coming into effect.

But what’s new is Schedule 5 to Bill 60, rushed through without public hearings. Schedule 5 states: “a municipality shall not, by by-law or otherwise, reduce or permit a reduction in the number of marked lanes available for travel by motor vehicles on a highway or a portion of a highway under the municipality’s jurisdiction and control for any of the following purposes: A bicycle lane.” Which means that no municipality in Ontario, not just Toronto, is in a position to create a bike lane on any two-lane roadway.   

Bill 60, an omnibus bill, also denies tenants the ability to challenge “voluntary evictions” when they have been pressured or misled into signing. It cuts in half the time available for tenants to appeal unfair decisions to just 15 days. It eliminates the requirement for landlords to provide one month’s rent as compensation to tenants being evicted for so-called “personal use,” one of the main tricks used to get a vacant unit to escape rent controls. It cuts eviction notice periods in half and the options for requesting that an eviction be postponed. It authorizes hiring more enforcement officers to forcibly remove tenants from their homes.

Half of Toronto residents are tenants, so this legislation has an enormous impact on the city. The Toronto executive committee unanimously asked for changes in the bill, but the province passed it without holding any hearing.  

Toronto is being pummelled by Premier Ford and his gang through bad legislation and by refusing to hold public hearings. The Ford government is acting in a dictatorial and authoritarian manner. At Queen’s Park we’ve lost any sense of democracy.