Transcript - Congestion and Climate Strategies Discussed - Infrastructure and Environment Committee

Congestion and Climate Strategies Discussed - Infrastructure and Environment Committee - April 7, 2026

and we're ready to uh begin our meeting. My name is Councelor Paula Fletcher and I chair the infrastructure and environment committee with this fantastic committee here. Councilors Pastor Knack Saxs, Chernos Lynn, Deputy Mayor Morley, and Deputy Mayor Mike Cole who is offsite today and will be back later. and then councelor Anthony Pruda. Welcome to our meeting 28. It's in order. We have quorum. I'm going to start and today we're have a meeting that's held by video conference and in person at city hall in our committee room one here. And the meeting is also being livereamed online at youtube.com Toronto city council live. I would like to acknowledge that the meeting that we're t that's taking place today of the infrastructure environment committee is on the land that is the traditional territory of many nations the missagas of the credit the hneson the anishnab the chippoa and wendad peoples and is now home to many diverse first nations matei and ninua people we also want to acknowledge that Toronto is covered by treaty 13 with the missagas of the credit if you're registered to speak today. Please listen for me to call your name and I will call the speakers in the order that they appear on the list. The list of speakers can be viewed online by visiting infrastructure and environment committee link at toronto.ca/countsel and clicking speakers box. Um I'm going to cut the speakers off at 10:00 anyone who's not been put on the list by that time and we have quite a number of speakers. Yes. So, I've just a motion that the infrastructure and bar committee set the following rules. Speakers who have not yet pre-registered be allowed to register until 10 a.m. this morning, after which no further registrations are allowed. Um, and just wondering if you'd like to go to a 3minut presentation or not today, members of the committee, we have about 3540 people that are speaking here today. I'm happy to move that, Madam Chair. Oh, I didn't know you were with us. Thank you. Thanks so much. Councelor Prosa, there you are. I see you now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I've been with you from the getgo. You just don't notice me. Okay. I just say it's very hard for uh us to hear councelor Prussa. So, I don't know if it's the system or just you up at your mic or not, counselor. So, make sure you're leaning in pretty close. So, councelor Prussa is uh moving that the length of public uh public presentations be limited to three minutes. Is there support for that here? Yes. All in favor? Opposed? That carries. Thank you. That questions of the public speaker by members of the committee and visiting members would be 3 minutes to match the speaking time. Councelor Pastor, you willing to move that? Yes. Yes. All in favor? Oppos? That carries. The questions to staff from members of the infrastructure environment committee and visiting members of council. um that speakers speaking time still be 5 minutes and that speaking time for members also be 5 minutes. Thank you. So that's to manage our many deputations. We're now going to uh start with the agenda run through. Thank you. Oh, could we have a motion please uh Deputy Mayor Mley to adopt the minutes from the last meeting? Happy to move, Madam Chair. Thank you. All in favor? Opposed? And that's carried. We'll go through our committee meeting today. Uh 28.1 i.e. 28.1 is the congestion management plan 2026 spring update and that's being held because we have a presentation and very excited to have our new chief congestion officer here with us today. It's his first appearance at committee. So very happy that you're here. Thank you. Look forward to that. Uh item 28.2 the redesign study of the intersection of Egun West and Allen Road. April 2026 update. I believe there's speakers on that. So that's held for speakers. Uh IE 28.3 approach to public electric vehicle charging three-year plan. I believe we have a speaker that's held for speakers. Uh 28.4 the electrification advantage. That is held for speakers. 28.5 update on climate action plan. There are speakers I believe on that. Thank you. I may move that up so OMR's folks can after number three. I'll switch that agenda when we're uh I think when we're finished, right? And then IE28.6 seeking clarity on the Toronto City of Toronto's application to the community sport and recreation infrastructure fund. I'll hold that item. It's held by councelor Pastnac. Thank you. Uh 28.7 delegation of authority for crossing agreements. It's just a technical amendment from parks. Can I have somebody move that council? Pardon? You I'd be happy to move. Yes. Thank you. All right. All in favor? Opposed? That's carried. Uh 28.8 Community Sports Equipment Sponsorship. I don't know if there's speakers. I'm holding that. Pardon? Yes. Yeah. 28.9 Durham boundary facilities agreement renewal Kingston roads Kingston Road bridge over the rouge river technical revised port from transportation going to have a mover or mover deputy mayor Mley moving that all in favor opposed carried iie 28.10 10 traffic control signals Victoria Park Avenue. I don't think there's any speakers. Anybody wish to hold that? You'll move that. Deputy mayor moving IE 28.10. All in favor? Opposed? That's carried. 28.11 utility construction photo documentation. I'm sorry, Councelor Saxs. I have to hold that because I have a lot of pictures and I've been working with Mr. Curtis. So, it's going to make it's going to reappear. Um item 28.12 review of highly polluting personal watercraft. I don't know if we can do that. There is a um item that's at executive all about jet skis. If councelor saxs you want to put that there or you want to have it here, I'll ask because it got sent here. It really shouldn't have been should have been sent to executive. Sorry, I I couldn't understand what you were asking me. You want me to The jet skis would be in one place at executive polluting whatever dangerous safety everything about jet skis in one place. Uh you would have to move that and I would move that out of order and ask you to place it at executive. Thank you. Is that what we can do and then have it an executive next week? Okay. There's a motion here. You can just read that. So this is from the clerk in order to get this to the executive committee which has an item on personal watercrafts next week. I'll rule this out in out of our committee's jurisdiction and request councelor Saxs to submit a proposal as a communication to the executive committee for consideration along with the larger report. I'd also ask the clerk to provide any registered speakers with the details on how to register to speak at the executive committee. So, councelor Saxs, if you agree with that, then I'll move that this morning. Is that all right? All right. All those in I'm ruling it out of order, so I don't think we're voting. Okay. Just to let you know. So, it'll all be at one place with uh jet skis. Thank you very much. And I think that's all except I think there's some letters uh counselors may have put in. Yes, I know you did. Councelor Pastron, you can introduce them. Would you like to introduce them now? Yes, go ahead, please. Yes. Thank Thank you, Madam Chair. Uh just uh a couple of construction uh concerns in our area. One is rehabilitation of the Wilson Avenue BIA area which was which were which were sending um some direction to staff uh on the urgency of getting the restoration of the BIA uh public realm improvements repaired and uh I'd like to just add that to the agenda. All in favor of adding that to the agenda everybody? That's great. Thank you. Anything else? Uh the second one concerns a construction notice that we received in the last few days uh which um seeks clarity. It looks like they're tearing up uh they could be working on roads that were just redone uh just a few years ago and it's also um could be impeding the entrance and exit ways for the Roger Stadium. So we want to make sure we understand the scope of this project and that the uh project is modified to make sure those uh effects are not are not felt. All right, that's in for you. All in favor of adding that to today's agenda urgent notice. Thank you. That's added. Mr. Clerk, is there anything else now besides Okay, great. Uh so we will begin with our first agenda item and we're going to have a presentation from our great new congestion chief congestion officer Mr. Andrew Plland please. Thank you chair. Uh it's uh very nice to be here. Thank you to the members of the committee as well. I think you're going to have to get in a little closer. A little closer. It is my first uh presentation here at committee so I'm still figuring out the We have lots of space to learn how to do it. No problem. I'll put that mic right. Okay. Got it. Everyone can hear me. Great. Uh as as the chair mentioned, I am uh Andrew Pawins. I'm the chief congestion officer and executive director for the strategic capital coordination office here in the city. Uh and I'm joined as well by a number of colleagues today to to support the discussion on this item. Uh in this short presentation, I'm just going to give you a little bit of the context of our congestion challenge. Uh some initial observations. uh that I've had coming into the role, an update on our congestion management plan and a look ahead to how the city will further its efforts on managing congestion into the future. Uh just to start off, there are a lot of uh numbers on this slide. Um Toronto is a large and vibrant city and congestion is a part of that. Um in many respects that's an indicator of our success, but congestion is also a challenge and it's a frustration to residents, to visitors. It's a drain on the economy, has an impact on our environment and uh left unchecked, it can lead to a lower quality of life. Um so for that reason, congestion is something we need to work to manage. Uh as we face the challenges of growth, development, changing behaviors and also the phenomenon of induced demand, which speaks to how when we make room available on our network, often it can be filled up by people choosing to use it. So, we need to plan for congestion and manage it and do everything we can today and into the future as well. Um, as I mentioned, this is an update and the city has had a congestion management plan that has worked from since 2013. Just keep going. Uh, first of all, some good news. Uh, in 2025 and more recently, we've had some pretty uh notable big winds in the area of congestion. Uh the first one is that our travel time index, which is the main indicator metric that we use to assess how we're doing on congestion, uh saw a 12% drop in travel time in the PM peak during the uh construction season last year. So things are improving uh in the area of congestion. We also undertook efforts and I'll get more into this on how to manage construction on our roads uh and and lessen the impact of that on congestion. We saw a reduction of 2.4 days in the average amount of time that construction leads to road closures. And most recently uh with the implementation of enhanced transit signal priority on lines five and six uh we are seeing notable improvements in terms of uh travel time savings for the folks who use that uh transit line. And you can see 20 minutes saved roundtrip on line six which is a big impact. Um, the other new thing in this role, and as it's been mentioned, I joined the city on January 5th as the city's first chief congestion officer, providing strategic advice and guidance to the city's senior leadership, to the council, to the mayor uh around congestion issues and with a big imperative to work across the city to align and coordinate our actions in regards to managing congestion. Um, a few of my early observations in the role is I think there's uh a lot that we can do uh in terms to focus on what needs fixing now to continue to make uh a positive impact on congestion. I think there's opportunity to take a larger view and by that I mean to think about how people move through the city uh as well as to focus on our services and our construction projects and and bring that into our thinking around congestion. And uh there's more we can do to change the culture as I call it and and this speaks to efforts that we can undertake in the city to ensure that we're really applying a congestion lens in every time that we impact the right of way. Uh when I joined the city, my immediate priorities were to uh focus on the FIFA World Cup uh mobility plan to provide oversight and leadership to our strategic capital coordination office and to bring forward this congestion management plan. And just to give a sense of what I've been up to in in the first few months that I've been on the job, the FIFA World Cup mobility plan was uh uh released on um March 26 and I've been engaged particularly around congestion related aspects of that plan, transportation demand management and road closure mitigation. Uh we are bringing this congestion management plan forward today and we've been working with the strategic capital coordination office. I've been working with them to try and bring that that larger picture thinking to some of the more complex construction projects around the city. Uh moving ahead, uh I want to share with you now uh the five pillars of our congestion management plan that are featured in the report that uh before you today. Uh these are all actions that we're undertaking right now. In implementation of this plan uh well really it doesn't eliminate congestion but it really helps to manage uh some of our key drivers of congestion as the continu city continues to to grow and thrive. The first pillar of the plan uh revolves around reducing the impact of congestion of construction I'm sorry on our roads and uh in 2025 we implemented uh the road disruption activity reporting system or roads. It was implemented on April 1st, 2025 uh as a new measure to to help incent uh those who undertake construction on our roads to to manage their time uh by charging a fee that uh uh helps def helps offset the cost city undertakes to provide congestion management services when there is construction. Uh as I mentioned those those fees are already having an impact. We're seeing shorter time uh on the right of way already and uh uh in this report there you will see that we are recommending some structural changes to the program to improve it in terms of clarity and review processes and closeout and things like that. And we're also uh revising the fees to reflect growth and costs related to congestion management. We are also introducing uh two measures to provide uh an exemption from fees for street events uh street festivals and events and things of that nature which uh provide a benefit overall in terms of the vibrancy and culture of the city. And also an exemption for affordable housing uh projects being undertaken um uh to reflect the fact that they also are a key priority for the city. The second pillar of our plan revolves around traffic management. This is really where the very front line of helping people to move in and around the city. Uh the city has a traffic agent program that has been playing a critical role in helping uh residents move through congested intersections uh associated with with those that are the most hot spots in our city uh as well as construction and sporting events and things of that nature. That program has been successful. We're seeing increasing uh requests for for the deployment of traffic agents and uh because of that we'll be uh hiring more traffic agents and have 127 of them by this time uh next year. We're up to 100 now. Uh we're also looking to uh um update our traffic operations center. The traffic operations center is a 24/7 center that helps to manage in real time uh movement on our roadways uh dealing with uh incidents, emergency management, traffic signal adjustments and things of that nature. Uh the center uh will be upgraded. Uh its displays, for example, are over 11 years old. Uh no longer uh able to accommodate um new technology today. So that center is being upgraded. And finally, uh we're working extensively on enforcement with the Toronto Police um alongside traffic agents. Toronto Police are focusing now on congested related violations, things like blocking the box, no stopping, uh parking violations and the like that can have a big impact on congestion. Uh a pilot began in October of last year and uh with the success of that pilot will be carried through for all of 2026. A third pillar of our program is to support surface transit. Uh providing and ensuring that transit can have uh a reliable, fast and efficient way to move around the city is a significant uh um is significant for ensuring that people have the option to choose transit uh and thus alleviate congestion on our roads. Um, we are upgrading the I spoke a little bit already of the success of enhanced transit signal priority on lines five and six. Uh, there will be 72 more new and upgraded transit signal priority locations in 2026, focusing first on those to support the FIFA World Cup. Uh we are also working to with the TTC to review uh uh on major transit corridors uh parking rules and and things of that nature to help enable buses and street cars to move faster. Uh the goal here of course is to be able to move people uh through the city in modes that place less demand on our roadways. Our fourth pillar revolves around AI and smart technology. Uh here there are two significant initiatives or ways in which we're doing that. One is through smart traffic signals uh which are able to adjust on their own to to take into account congestion on our roadways and provide more optimized signal prioritization with no human operator. The other is through intelligent intersections using camera feeds, radar and other uh data and sensors in roadways to provide the operators more information to make complex decisions particularly in intersections that are more crowded. Consider for example downtown locations. Uh we're continuing to expand both those programs in 2026 and deploy in more locations. We're also starting our efforts on digital twins uh by focusing on a pilot in the downtown to provide uh an even more enhanced uh technolog uh an option to uh bring forward data in real time to help us make and plan for uh transit I'm sorry transportation and construction. The last pillar I want to speak to is shifting how people travel. Uh trans this is essentially travel demand management. It's looking for ways to ensure that we can reduce pressure on the network particularly at peak times uh because even small increments in reducing uh uh demand on our roadways can yield significant benefits in terms of travel time. Uh we've seen greater uptake last year uh out of our efforts to promote, for example, people using transit and active transportation around major events like the Pride Festival. We're working with major employers to promote and and incent the use of alter uh uh alternative options such as transit, cycling, and car pooling. And we continue to expand uh other options such as bike lane. There's been tremendous growth in bike share which grew 10% in 2025. The the bottom line here is that when we are able to encourage uh the use of modes of of transportation that have less demand on our roadways, we're able to move more people through the network, freeing up uh providing a better experience for the users of uh these modes and freeing up road space uh in the process, meaning less congestion for everyone. Looking ahead uh now into a little bit more of what will uh be part of the plan in 2026. Uh as chief congestion officer, I'm very focused on making congestion management part of the city's DNA. I spoke uh at the outset of my role to align and to coordinate city actions and there are a number of activities uh I'll be focusing on in the coming year. One of them is implementing an a congestion lens on every policy and initiative the city has that impacts upon the right of way. Um related to this is also the thought of developing a congestion commitment within the city that will elevate the understanding of what we're trying to achieve around congestion and drive a culture of accountability for the actions we take when it comes to congestion. I'm also looking at identifying opportunities that we have out of the work that we already have underway uh or are considering to be able to deliver targeted relief in particular instances around the city when we find that there could be opportunities to adjust our infrastructure for example to address a congestion hotspot. Um, I also want to expand the digital twin that I spoke to earlier to to start focusing on how that can be of use around the entire city and work with partners because the city is not alone in managing the transportation infrastructure. Uh, few final things. Uh, construction is a big part of what is a driver of congestion in this city and I already spoke a little bit to uh, expanding our zone of focus if you will on mitigating congestion. There's also opportunity building on the work of the uh already underway around enhancing capital construction delivery to coordinate uh projects in a more uh uh on on a slightly larger draw fee to minimize overlaps and really think about how people move through the city when we undertake our work. to incentivize faster work and also to anticipate when issues do arise because they will to to be better at anticipating those to coordinate with PA partners more effectively and to make sure we're considering congestion as well when we address those types of situations as they occur. Finally, the last thing I'll I'll mention here is uh broadening the effort to think long term. And I spoke a little bit at the outset about how congestion we we need to manage it in the present, but we also have to be thinking about how we will continue to grow as a city and we will continue to have more demand on our road network, which is not increasing. And so we also have to think long term about how we're managing congestion. A few of the things that need to fall into place to do this is enhancing our metrics uh beyond just the travel time index to be able to have a suite of metrics that will inform us about how we're doing and also help us set objectives into what we want to achieve when we manage congestion. Taking research and best practices from elsewhere. And perhaps most importantly, expanding the scope of what we're doing to really think through our policies and our investments uh even if they're aiming four or five or 10 years out in the future and have them align to our congestion objectives as well to ensure that we we manage congestion today uh through the the actions like traffic agents and signal timing, but also in the future through our decisions around capital investment and land use planning and such. So with that um I'll conclude the remarks. Um really uh the things I want to leave you with are that we are working across our five pillars of the plans to advance strategies and initiatives that are contributing to our recent success and bringing down travel times and reducing construction impacts, speeding up transit in the presence. I think with the addition of my role um and now with me as a singular individual focused on congestions, we're in uh off to a good start in terms of enhancing our construction management and aligning the activities of the city to focus on congestion across everything we do. And finally, looking ahead to the management of congestion, uh putting in place, if you will, the policy framework to broaden our efforts and make sure that as we continue to grow, we don't lose ground on the success we've had today, but in fact, uh enhance our efforts. Um there are a number of specific five of them you'll see there recommendations in the report which relate to implementing the changes I spoke to around roads and requesting the TTC and city staff to focus on a report on resources required to accelerate transit signal priority in the 2027 budget process. Thank you very much. Thank you so very much and welcome to the city of Toronto and welcome to this really exciting new role and opportunity and for your first presentation. One of many, many, many that I know you'll be making here to this committee. So, um we're now going to move to deputants so we can hear what they have to say and then Mr. Pausland, our committee will be questioning you uh on your report just because I know you're new and you don't know how it all runs. So, that's how it's going to run today. That's great. Thank you so much. We have four speakers here on the uh congestion management plan. We have Michael Longfield, Cycle Toronto, Dominic Rosac Rosac, Toronto Board of Trade, Hamish Bilson, and Brian Mlan, Atomicico Climate Action. Mr. Longfield, are you with us or are you online? Oh, there you are. Hello, Michael. Please come on up. Well, I'm when we're finished this item, I'm going to move to your quick item, councelor Pastnack, for the sports one to Yeah, I'll move that quickly if it's unless you need to speak. Oh, you have questions. Okay, I won't do that. We'll move to We'll move up uh after item three after we're done this one. Or do you need some help getting set up there, Michael? Are you good? I think I'll be good. One second. Just need to Sure. Wait for this to cue and then I always I know I'm coming. I should always make it to mirror my display. That's definitely not a cycle track. That one cloud. All right. Second. Sorry. Will that take you long? Ready. Done. Okay, great. Um, thank you. You have your time. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. And again, uh, really happy to be here and really pleased to see as part of the congestion management plan being the city's being quite explicit in that strategy of identifying, uh, cycling as, uh, part of the solution. Um, again, this is something that we all know and I I I'm only repeating it because the province keeps insisting otherwise. So, like we heard in this presentation, we all know uh bike lanes are part of the solution. They're not part of the problem. And again, this is something the province knows, and I'm repeating it because the province keeps insisting on spending hundreds of thousands of dollars fighting this, which is actually impeding the efforts that all of you are doing to try to make things better. So, internal cabinet briefing from August 2024, cycling has been shown to have a positive impact on congestion in North American cities. Also from the same briefing, economic risk of negative impact on local businesses. Evidence shows that bike lanes have a positive e economic impact on local businesses. Then from another briefing, risks. The proposal uh may run counter to provincial initiatives and may not reduce congestion. Also risks uh this is just about them ignoring all the comments. uh engineering report that they commissioned. Induced demand is a widely accepted uh is widely accepted and repeatedly proven in the transportation industry. In addition, the effect of adding a traffic lane may give the appearance of congestion reduction over a short distance, shorter Q links at intersections. And I think this is something that's really important when we I'm sure all the counselors hear this where people come and complain and they say, "Oh my god, look at this bike lane. It's empty." And look at this line of cars. Traffic looks worse. But when you actually study it, often what you'll just have is just um what you're seeing is the physical geometry of the street. And often you'll just have more cars lined up in a single row rather than the same number of cars in two lane stopped at the lights. It's the same number of vehicles. Just optically it looks different. And if you're not thinking about this as a broader study, it can look like traffic's getting worse when in fact it's not. And again, this is the net result of bike rail removals may simply move more vehicles queued along already congestioned streets without significant reductions in travel times. And I just want to say really quickly um again I think it's you know all deserve credit for the number of kilometers the city's approved and built especially under really difficult circumstances this year. Um you know in the presentation identified 59.4 kilometers of new bike lanes over the last three years. I do want to highlight though that you know if this were you know we're being marked in school this is maybe a C uh because the city's targeted 100 km of new bike lanes over 3 years that's in the council approved cycling network plan and specifically cycle Toronto um ourselves actually uh called for 150 km over 3 years so essentially in what we've built over three years is kind of the pace we need to be doing every year if we want to make riding a bike a better uh transportation option for more people across the city, not just downtown where we have lots of bike lanes, but in other parts in uh Atobbico, in Midtown, in North York, and Scarboro. Again, it's part of the solution. Um um yeah, that's just all I want to say on this part. Uh again, really pleased that um that biking is being considered as uh one factor and one pillar in this. So, uh thanks everyone for your time. Thank you very much, Michael. I'm sure there's some questions. Any questions for Michael? It's Yeah, it's self-evident. No, I'm sorry. I'm just being smug there. Thank you. Very nice to have you here on this. Thank you for your uh adding cycling into the congestion plan. Appreciate that. And our next deputant is Dominic Rosac, Toronto Regional Board of Trade. Good morning, Dominic. Nice to have you here. Do you have any special effects that you're going to use? Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Please don't forget your new microphone that uh Yeah. Yeah. We're green. Great. All right. That's good. No. Great. All right. Good morning, chair, counselors. I'm glad to be joining you again today on behalf of the Toronto Region Board of Trade, which represents over 13,500 businesses in the across the city and region. Through our breaking brid gridlock action plans, the board has consistently emphasized that congestion is a direct threat to the Toronto region's economic competitiveness. It's costing billions in lost productivity, disrupting supply chains, and making it harder for businesses to attract talent and grow. here. I'd like to thank council uh for adopting all five of our recommendations made in last year's report and also uh to thank councelor Fletcher for recognizing the rec the recommendations in our most recent report. Uh the city's congestion management plan update reflects real progress and we want to acknowledge that from our perspective the priority now is implementation and impact. First lane closure reform must meaningfully change behavior. We strongly support the direction on escalating lane closure fees and improved coordination. These tools need to be calibrated to reflect the true cost of occupying road space, especially on high impact corridors, and to create a real incentive to shorten closures, reduce overlap, and shift work where possible. Second, improving traffic flow through signal priority and corridor management. In our recently released finishing the job report, we called for expanded use of advanced signal coordination and transit signal priority. The opportunity now is to scale and accelerate deployment of this technology across key corridors, particularly in the downtown core, and to ensure signal systems are actively managed in real time. It is also one of the most practical ways to improve how the network performs today without requiring new infrastructure. We would also emphasize the importance of supporting Canadian companies that are leaders in this space space such as Mayo Vision as the city continues to modernize its traffic management systems. This would help retain leading technology and aligns with the city's by Cananadian by local procurement objectives. Third, accountability and measurable results. We have consistently called for stronger accountability mechanisms including clear metrics and public reporting. We're encouraged by progress on coordination and governance and appreciate the earlier work done by the new chief congestion officer in this regard. The next step is to tie this work to clear measurable outcomes that reflect how the system is actually performing. Th that includes tracking travel time reliability on key corridors, the duration and overlap of lane closures and overall network performance during peak periods. In conclusion, we support the direction of this plan and recognize the meaningful steps the city has taken particularly on coordination, governance, lane closure, pricing and traffic operations. At the same time, the next phase of this work will be critical. That means ensuring these reforms actually change behavior, accelerate uh deployment of tools like single priority and and technology. Finally, uh we also recognize that managing congestion on our roads must go handinhand with continued investment in a reliable high-quality transit system. The Toronto Region Board of Trade stands ready to continue working with the city and province to enable this next phase. Thank you for your time. Thank you so much for joining us this morning. Do we have question? Uh councelor Saxs, thank you Dominic. Appreciate uh the hard work on this. Um, in relation to your last point about transit, um, do I take it that we can count on your support for transit priority measures? Yes. And and as as you will know, councelor, after our our meeting following the last report, uh, we discussed the priority on Danforth and and for rapid rapid for bus services. So, we we were pleased to support that publicly and we'll continue to to support uh, uh, transit solutions that help alleviate congestion in the city. Uh yes, rapid transit does alleviate congestion, right? Yes. That's why we supported it. Okay. And similarly, given all the evidence, including the decision of the court, that bike lanes reduce congestion as well as improving affordability, does your organization support bike lanes? I think we appreciate that there are some solutions, including some that the mayor proposed about making it possible to accommodate on main routes, two lanes of traffic and bike lanes. I think there are smart solutions there that can help preserve bike lanes and improve traffic flow. So, we look forward to that those types of alternatives being explored as well. But you do recognize the research that bike lanes contribute to reducing congestion. Uh we are concerned with bike lanes on major routes, major arteries through the city because that does really clog uh traffic. So, so we're look, we we're not against bike lanes in general, but we think that there are uh there are smarter ways of deploying them in a way that does not affect our main routes that transport goods and and and people across the city. So, we we suggest prioritizing uh traffic based on on where where that flow is is most important. And we at least agree that we should make our decisions based on data and evidence. That's why we put out our reports and do our research. We were very thorough about it and and uh absolutely and and we have some strong arguments in our reports that suggest exactly that that prioritizing uh uh vehicle traffic on major routes will significantly alleviate uh congestion in the city. We'll have to continue to discuss it. Thank you. Absolutely. Thank you, councelor. Is there councelor Thank you. Thank you madam chair. I just just for clarity sake um rapid does it ease congestion or exacerbate congestion? I think in the routes that were identified by the city um uh it does help the movement of traffic especially as we approaching now uh FIFA which will be a huge challenge for congestion in the city. So uh we had argued that actually uh that connection that that currently goes to Blur should actually go all the way to Egun. understand that the city uh took a different path for now but uh but in in some cases buses uh in certain areas will those that type of priority is is improving congestion in in others it wouldn't so it really requires that that depth of analysis so you are aware under rapid these lanes are 247 buses only uh yes I I'm I'm not the uh the transportation expert at the board but uh but uh certainly appreciate any comment you can offer and I'm happy to bring it back to my team for further analysis. Okay, we'll leave it at that. Thank you very much. Thank you. Anyone else? Well, I'll just ask a a quick question because uh we're looking at transit signal priorities and moving things faster, but I think you'd have to agree that the massive Ontario line construction is playing a pretty major role in congestion with the closure of Queeny Young and probably a few others. Do you think it's helpful if we understand that a little bit better for frustration for people trying to move around? Absolutely. And and uh but that's also why some of our recommend many of our recommendations are focused on the province, what the province can do to enable uh the city to be able to uh to improve some of this. Some of this is not in the city's hands and requires that enabling legislation. So, uh we certainly recognize that and and are keeping our focus on the province as well. So for just the downtown routes with the closure of the uh of Queen and Young, there are street cars now on Adelaide, street cars on Richmond, which basically were simply traffic lanes with one bike lane there and all of the various routes that are now having to accommodate the fact that there's no Queen Car. Do you think we've really looked at that and people understand that that's really I guess it's kind of ground zero for traffic congestion in downtown Toronto? For sure. But that's why we have these tools available and that the city's working on. We're glad to see it in terms of signal priority and intelligent intersections for for example. Using that technology can really help alleviate situations like that in terms of redirecting traffic flow. So, we hope to see more of those uh technologies and intersections deployed to help with situations exactly like this. And would you agree with me that one thing about uh congestion is if you if you're advised that you're going to be hitting something that's going to slow you down on your commute, you want to know that earlier rather than when you get there. That's one that's a pinch point of frustration moment for many many people in Toronto. Would you agree with that? Absolutely. And education is really important here and and and ensuring that people are understand the rules of the road and that's why we've talked about uh stronger enforcement of blocking the box for example, right? Because people don't realize how much of a an impact that has on traffic across the city. So absolutely education is important here. Thank you very much. Thank you chair. Thank you. Uh we have our sorry councelor Peruta. Yes, there you are. Go ahead. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, I I just wanted to um get your sense in terms of Could you get closer to the microphone? Your mic, please, counselor. You know, if I get any closer, I'm going to be like swallowing my phone, right? Well, then you need a better microphone, but that's fine. Go ahead. Oh, I'll do my best to to to use as strong a voice as possible. Who's that? Go ahead. Okay, good. wanted to know if the board has thought about um how the city's vision zero um program jives with congestion i.e. you know, narrowing road widths, uh, you know, making corners, uh, for trucks, uh, and other, you know, larger vehicles more difficult to, you know, to make rightand and left-hand turns. Slowing, um, speed limits, adding more traffic lights and, uh, more traffic calming uh, measures on our streets uh, to make them feel safer. how that have you thought about that and um and have you got anything to say about that about it? Uh recognize that the city has to consider all all kinds of different aspects here. We're focused on what impacts uh business and and in terms of the congestion issue that has been our priority to see how we can how we can speed up uh the movement of uh goods and people across the city. Uh so so I don't I don't want to speak to specifically to to that. I think our our recommendations in our reports, counselor, speak uh speak clearly for themselves and and obviously we trust uh the members of this committee and and uh and council to take all of these factors into consideration, but uh but no specific comment on on that. Have you thought about it? Um you you haven't u looked at it. You don't have a comment. Is it a good thing? Is it a bad thing? You support it. you don't support it or you're just leaving it up to us, not doing anything on it. A as you'll appreciate, counselor, uh for us as the board of trade, we are focused on representing the interests of our our business members and we do look at everything that they bring to our attention. So, we we definitely look at the whole uh whole gamut of of challenges that the city faces. Uh but again, we've taken that into account in our reports and in our recommendations. And I think uh I think again those those speak for themselves. So, so appreciate that you highlighted this counselor and and certainly we'll bring that back. Um, but uh but anything that that negatively impacts the movement of goods and people is is of interest to us. So did council. That's interesting because I I have uh I have a couple of BAS and I'm not making a comment on this on whether it's good or bad, but the biggest complaint I hear from companies uh that you that move uh goods and services in and out of the their neighborhoods. Uh they they complain about the road uh narrowings. They complain about, you know, the right-hand turns. Their DR their trucks have difficulty. They complain about speed bumps. to complain about all of those measures. Interesting that you're that you that represent the the the entire business community haven't heard anything from any of those folks and you just simply want to take it back. I'll take that back with you. Okay, I will. Although again to clarify, counselor, we we have heard, but just just not going to comment specifically on this at the at this time, but I appreciate the question. you didn't want to say. Thank you very much for being here, Dominic. All right. Thank you for all the questions. Yep. Appreciate it. Have a good day. Thank you. Uh, next deputentant is Hamish Wilson. Uh, good morning. Three minutes. Uh, thank you all for being here. Um, it should be obvious now, I would think. Please. Oh, this is wonderful. I was wondering where that was. Great. Thank you. Um, cars cause congestion. That's the the big deal. Uh, this is from 1958, public transit is the key to traffic congestion problem. It says at the top, Mr. Gardner had the opinion, there is no mystery about what has caused the problem. um half a million cars uh in in Canada and half a million or pardon me half a million in Toronto and now we're uh up to 1.3 million. So we need to thin out the cars somehow. I would strongly suggest that we get to a bit more user pay such as a uh vehicle registration tax and ideally tolling on the uh the incoming uh uh highways to again encourage efficiency and equalize it for transit. Uh part of it as well is that the way that the u uh cars work and the the laws of physics when a car or a truck moves faster, thank you. Um they take up more costly road space. So actually slower speeds are really more helpful for getting more people in to uh a given amount of costly public road space. Uh the other thing that uh I would like to see a little bit more uh around is um um uh the the the graphic images of of of uh road capacity by mode of transport. I haven't actually uh sent this in by digit yet digitize it, but at least it's on the phone. uh 50 people uh on foot in a in a set of roadways, 50 people on bicycles, 50 people on a bus, and oh my goodness, the road is full and they can't even get 50 cars into it. So when you start looking at the number of people in the cars, um we're catering to a fairly luxurious uh crowd and cars are subsidized. One of the ways that they are subsidized is through the road space. Um the there there is a an issue with having um uh cycling safety in the core and making sure that the cars can move quickly and fast because the faster they go, the nastier it is for cycling. Sometimes there are not other options and cyclists are also traffic. Bike traffic is real. We don't need to have more deaths and uh uh bikes are good for the environment. Uh the other thing is it's a shame that we don't have a little bit more uh better transit because uh this is uh a fun thing. Uh what a concept. What a concept. Would that not get rid of congestion, but we would have to have had a Queen Street subway from the 1957 plan. And I'm very glad that the councelor Fletcher brought up the issue at the congestion point of Queen and Young. What can be done to get the street cars moving through there? Even if they took a European solution and condensed it to one set of tracks with signals. Sorry, can you wrap up please? Haish, your three minutes is cars cause congestion and bikes are part of the solution. Uh, and killed by a traffic engineer. A very good book in the public library system. Thank you. Thank you so much. Are there questions for Mr. Wilson? No. Hearing none. Thank you very much for coming today. Uh, and then Brian Mlan from the Atobbico Climate Action Group. Are you with us today? Are you online, Brian? Is Brian online? We don't see Brian online. Is this Brian? Are you Brian? No, it's Michael. All right, we're going to stand that down then. Brian isn't here. Thank you. And then we're going to move to uh our questions of staff of you. Where did you go? Where did our Oh, he's there. Just right there. Thank you very much for Mr. Pausland. Are there questions starting with you councelor Saxs? Uh yes. Uh thank you Andrew and uh congratulations for your your first report and I also wanted to express my appreciation for the first time in a congestion report recognizing that the major cause of congestion is too many cars. Um something we haven't seen before. Um with uh recommendation 2B uh you're proposing an unlimited indefinite delegation to staff of fees. Um given that it's the responsibility of council to set fees. Uh is this something you could do without to the chair? Uh thank you for the question councelor. Uh recommendation 2B uh is a delegation to the general manager of transportation services to amend the policy uh for that has been put in uh proposed from the attachments to the report that governs how uh the affordable housing exemption for uh roadarts fees will be administered. it was put in place uh my understanding is is to uh alleviate any the burden that might be associated with minor changes to the policy all having to come to council. Having said that uh it um it is not essential to to to maintain that. All right. Um to Mr. Curtis, is there uh some way that you can limit the discretion you're looking for? make it temporary, put criteria around it as opposed to just a blanket blind indefinite dump of authority uh through the chair. Uh yes indeed we could do that. It could be a time limited uh delegation or if uh this committee so wishes and council so wishes then we're happy to continue to be directed by council in terms of amendments to the policy. Okay. So you don't need this section to the chair. That's correct. Right. The second question uh back uh I think to you Mr. Pausand is some of my constituents have pointed out that public researchers, individuals, transit advocates do fabulous work in this city analyzing data and providing public analyses that frankly the city doesn't provide. Um wouldn't first of all do you agree that that kind of public involvement in research and commentary is helpful to us to the chair? Yes, I do. Okay. And you're aware that that um having a multi00 fee for the signal timing at every single intersection makes it impossible for public interest groups to get that data and do analysis. The my understanding is there is also there is uh already in place uh a stream of open data available to the public that uh provides information related to our signal timing and other aspects of our system. Uh I also understand that the format sometimes of this information is uh sometimes fairly dense and you may need to be a traffic engineer to be able to to use it. The the fee is sometimes helpful for uh those who might need something more of a nature of an official record. But having said that, uh I think the point you're raising is that uh there is benefit to having open and accessible data available to the public or researchers or those who want to be able to use it and sometimes it can be a challenge given the nature of the data that we're providing. All right. So in some we can do a better job making this data available for public and research use. Correct. Uh I I think we can go back and take a look at it and see what might be uh what what there might be uh potential to change uh and then consider whether or not that's something that could be achievable. All right. Well, before you're asking us to approve a whole schedule of fees, um so can you brief bring a supplementary report to council on that particular fee? Yes. So, I'm going to also uh look to my colleague Roger Brown who manages the data feeds in the traffic operations to see if he has anything to add, but I think in principle, yes. Okay. Mr. Brown, can you bring a supplementary report before council on this issue? Well, through the speaker, just to add um and further to uh um Andrew's point, um when it comes to university type applications, like capstone projects, this sort of thing, we do make the information, the data free and available to universities currently. Um they're not subject to the charge. The fees are established specifically for the purposes of recovery of pulling the information together and providing additional support primarily to the development industry when they're going through LPAD processes for approval for development condo sites. So, it's really intended to be a recovery fee for the the staff time associated with pulling the information, providing uh additional technical support to those consultants, but universities, researchers, we've always provided that data to them uh free of charge. All right. Well, we clearly have a problem judging from the comments of my constituents. I'll be asking for a report back on how we can make research access easier. Thank you. Thank you very much. Uh next questioner, Deputy Mayor Mley. Thanks, Madam Chair, and good morning everyone through you. I wanted to just pull a few questions on this uh report and thanks Andrew for the presentation and for the information today. Um we know that the city's travel index time for 2025 indicated a decline in congestion and uh a lot of the great pieces you pointed out in your your presentation highlighted what's contributing to that improvement. Um but it also showed a lot more improvement in the downtown than citywide generally. Um how are prioritizing congestion improvements in the city outside of the core? How are you sorry um prioritizing congestion improvements in the city outside of the downtown court as well through the chair? Thank you for the question. Uh the there is congestion. First of all, I would recognize there is congestion uh throughout the city of Toronto. It's not solely uh a downtown issue. Uh I think there are also uh a number of there are a number of hot spots and uh areas of the city which are experiencing congestion. Later this meeting we'll be talking about Egun in the island which is certainly one of them as well. Uh there are strategies in included in the congestion management plan that are in fact a little more targeted towards areas outside of the downtown. One I would point to is our smart signals where uh the um I spoke a little bit to smart signals using sensors in the roadway uh to be able to assess the congestion in real time and automatically make adjustments. Those are actually very well suited to intersections outside of the downtown where the the nature of the traffic is a little more predictable. Great. And and able to manage. We also have traffic agents at the who are able to be deployed uh at any location throughout the city uh where we might be facing a challenge with respect to congestion. And then the third thing I would say is when it comes to uh any of the strategies that we've discussed uh in the congestion management plan including uh construction projects for example um transportation demand management and other strategies. Uh we would deploy those anywhere in the city where we're facing challenges with congestion. Thank you. I want to pull the thread on smart um signal intersections and I agree with you. We've seen some improvement in our community as a result of their use. Can you tell us what's the difference between a smart signal intersection and an intelligent intersection through the chair? Thank you for the question. I'm going to suggest that my colleague Roger answer that one. Yeah, thanks Andrew. Through the chair. Um so smart signals are basically AI based traffic signals that whereby staff have to establish parameters but then after that they're able to run essentially uh on autopilot. Um whereas intelligent intersections basically analyze the data in terms of multimodal data and provide recommendations to staff in terms of changes they could physically make to the traffic signals. So from that point of view strategically we found there's a much greater benefit to cost when employing smart signals in the suburban parts of the city where there's a lot more flexibility for the AI to take effect and have impacts. Um, and that alleviates staff time to focus on the more complex parts of the city with competing challenges and priorities such as in the downtown core where intelligent intersections do prevail there again from a a benefit to cost perspective in terms of providing recommendations to staff to make changes to uh to make traffic move better. Great. Thank you. Um, that's very helpful. Appreciate that, Roger. Um, I'll try to uh speed it up here. Um, I'm going to skip a few of these. Um, we know that work performed by transportation services and by contractors performing work on their behalf is exempt from roars. Um, while we understand why that makes sense, what measures or incentives have been put in place to ensure the length of city initiated construction closures are also being minimized through yeah through the chair. um depending on the city projects. Um so TTC related projects, Toronto water related projects, those are not exempt from roads fees. Um but other uh city projects for example, transportation related, they they would. But um that being said, um internet construction services has uh through uh their contracting processes made a number of changes to basically incentivize uh longer work uh durations, 24/7 work operations and has successfully seen a number of projects recently ending uh ahead of schedule. Great. And oh, thank you. I have two more I want to try to squeeze in here. Um I'll ask them both. Um thank you. One is um of the uh three observations, one of the three observations is to broaden our approach and change the culture and think in the long term. Can you expand a little bit on what you mean by um what does this mean and what role does culture play in improving congestion? And then my last question is just around an overview or expansion on what types of uh key performance indicators will be reported on in the future and how will we communicate that out to the public. Thank you for the question through the chair. Uh my initial observations on uh broadening the scope of what we're looking at really relate to uh the experience of congestion that individuals would have moving through the city. Uh we have a lot of construction going on in the city concurrently and it's important to keep in mind that we can do the best job possible around mitigating construction or planning for construction in an individual location but an individual moving throughout the city may encounter three, four or five of those instances in one trip. Uh I think there is room for the city to uh ensure when they're thinking through their plans for construction and mitigation that we take a wider lens uh if you will draw the circle around the construction project a little more uh generously and take into account whether or not we anticipate people may ant experience that and then work to mitigate that as well. In terms of speaking to the the culture of of of congestion management, uh the city has a a wide array of activities that can impact upon the right ofway. Uh there's been tremendous work already underway uh to manage that particularly in the areas of construction and in the areas of transportation services. uh areas which logically you would start with when you're thinking around congestion in the city. But there are events, festivals, uh activities around economic development etc. And uh ensuring that we think through these things across every aspect of what we do in the city uh with a congestion consideration when we advance those types of works will ensure we have a more comprehensive response to congestion in the future. Uh your last part of your question was around KPIs. Am I off? Okay. Should I stop? Yeah. Just that last one was around what types of KPIs will be reported on in the future and how will we communicate that out to the public through the chair. Uh we're looking to broaden our network of KPIs to focus for example more on as much on how people move through the city uh as in addition to just simply measuring the travel time of cars. Thank you. Uh very comprehensive responses. Thank you very much for that. How who else? Uh councelor Chernos Lynn. Yes, please go ahead. Councelor Prutz, are you online still and do you have questions to on this? Okay. No answer. Thank you. Go ahead. Okay. Thank you through the chair. Um, so just picking up on something uh my colleague had asked about and you were you were talking a little bit about looking at existing programs. Um, I wonder if you can expand on how you're looking at existing programs and their impacts on the right of way through congestion through a congestion lens that's been identified in this report. So I know you mentioned street festivals, but I'm wondering about things like cafe t0. Um, I don't know about my colleagues, but I get a lot of emails about cafe TTO causing congestion. Thank you for the question through the chair. Uh we're my approach to building up knowledge and understanding of how we're impacting the right of way is starting with an inventory across the city which we have not done before to collect information on all of our programs and functions that can impact the right of way and assemble through that exercise and understanding uh to date of where and how we've considered congestion in those uh initiatives and how we've considered mitigation of congestion in those initiatives as well that uh will provide a baseline of information and understanding on the city's approach to date. From that baseline, uh we will uh look to develop a more comprehensive congestion lens in in alignment with the strategies and plan that I've outlined today and be able to work with that back with other divisions in the city to ensure that we take a consistent approach managing competing demands going forward. Uh I would look to my colleagues in transportation services who manage the cafe to program to see if they have anything they want to add. Did you wish to add to that? Uh through the chair. So my only comment would really be that as part of assessing the I hear you. As part of assessing an application for a cafe TTO site, we do look at um the impacts on the surrounding network as well. So we do take that into consideration. Um really uh whether you have a cafe to it's really about what we want to do with our streets. Do we see them just just for people movement or do we see them as part of creating community in a vibrant streetscape as well? So I think cafe TTO plays plays a couple of roles and you know we need to decide as a as a council and as a community what what we want what role we want our streets to play. Okay. Thank you. I would have more to say on that. Uh, and I guess I'd be looking for more a more thorough lens of that when it comes back in terms of perhaps we treat different parts of the city differently and whether we look at actually closing streets, but that's sort of another another section. Um, I guess I wonder um the digital twin concept. I'm really interested in in this idea that we're we're building. Um and I wonder how granular the application of the congestion lens will be in this regard. So for example um when we have that digital twin, will we be able to take a closer look at the congestion impacts of cumulative development in areas that are already experiencing significant volumes of traffic? Um right now we tend to get um individual studies for each development but if we were to have a digital twin we could say look at multiple developments and what's the impact of that? Are we thinking about it that way through the chair? The uh concept of a digital twin or the idea of the digital twin is to be able to uh have a tool at our disposal which allows us to undertake and consider uh all nature of scenarios in real time as well as from a planning perspective that can help us mitigate congestion. So the answer to your question quite simply is yes. uh that uh a well-developed digital twin would give us a powerful tool to be able to broaden the scope and consider congestion in all of its facets. Uh to give you a a sort of example, we would be able to uh in real time consider the closure of particular roads, reconfigure the movement of vehicles on a particular road, etc. and be able to uh assess and see the congestion impacts of such a scenario and help us refine and enhance our planning and mitigation efforts. Okay. Thank you. And then um changing gears, you talk a little bit about uh ROAR's compliance uh which suggests to me that you perhaps there isn't always um you know perfect compliance with Rotor's rules and certainly um observationally we often as an office see closures that we don't find in Roars uh when we look it up. And so I wonder um you know would you be able to expand on um whether you're looking at fees perhaps like if you could there be like an additional levy um I don't know if you'd call it a levy but an additional fee or a penalty for people who aren't registering for roars who are actually closing roads without permission because then you know we're not necessarily going through the exercise of um is this something that should be closed at this moment because there may be other factors uh through the chair. So um if uh if an applicant has a permit but doesn't have a rotor's notification associated with it, there is already a fee that's applied uh with respect to that. Um and to your point, we have seen um you know in the past prior to us implementing the system a compliance issue. That being said, it has been improving and just between the last couple of years, we've seen a 25.6% increase in terms of the number of rotors that have been submitted relative to the permits. Okay. Thank you. And I I guess I would just be looking for tracking of this publicly so that we know um when you guys are looking at how you're measuring. I would be interested to see publicly that as well down the road through the tray. Yes, I think that's something uh B Andrew's earlier comment that we're looking at new KPIs. We would definitely provide that information as well. Did you want to move that uh councelor that that become public and the KPIs when you have a chance or not or council? Maybe maybe for council. Okay, that's great. Uh councelor Fruit is not here. Councelor Pasn's just going to speak. I'll just ask a couple of very quick questions because I did ask about the Ontario line and just the impact on traffic in the core for the closure of that intersection. We're used to it now, but it's still having a fairly major impact, is it not? Through the chair. Yes, you are correct. The closure of Queen Street, for example, has had significant impacts on both Adelaide and Richmond Street, primarily uh Adelaide in the PM peak and the AM peak on Richmond. And then there's all the street cars that are diverted onto other roads that are already uh traffic heavy. Correct. That is correct. We've had to make a number of street car diversions and also traffic signal timing changes. There have been over 90 traffic signal timing changes just to accommodate the impacts of that construction. So are there any other projects of that scope or say mini scope that last that long that you can tell us right now or I'll ask for that for council just to have a sense of large impactful projects that we tend to forget are having a major impact because once you get used to it it's like it never it was always closed right yeah that is correct and then just one of the things with you uh Mr. Pause is is um the small things mean a lot for people that are traveling and are there when you said draw a circle around construction project. Is that something that we're now doing in a different way or we plan to do in a different way so people really do have a heads up that they can choose a different route through the chair. uh the stemming from some of my initial observations, it's something that we've started to talk about within uh the work of the strategic capital coordination office in my office. Uh for an example, um it was uh with that thinking in mind that we took a look uh at the plan for construction projects in and around the downtown following the FIFA World Cup. when we know things will be busy and that led us to a discussion internally among staff about how we can coordinate projects uh on that larger sort of circle basis and space them out accordingly in a way that has uh a lesser impact on congestion. There's nothing formal in place yet that uh uh has been put in place that would you know guide us or require us to do that but it is part of the thinking that I want to bring forward. Thank you. So, when you send this out information to councilors, you send us a list of things you're planning to do. Do you have that circle around the construction project yet or not? Is that something you could introduce rather quickly? To the chair, we can to the chair. We can take that back. It's not something we have in place. I don't know. We don't have it in place. So, uh, I think you'll have it in place very shortly because that would help everybody to know exactly how big your zone of impact you're considering. Chair, if I may add to that, when the strategic capital coordination office sends out those maps to the councilors about projects in their ward, that's after a process of conflict review that's taken place a few years prior to congestion um, construction. And that takes an eye to construction impacts on parallel as well as perpendicular corridors to make sure that we don't have planned work taking place simultaneously that would impact the network. So that view it's not about your work. It's about people traveling and their heads up. Correct. Yes. So the communication side of of the of the work that you're referring to is is something that we have an opportunity to grow on. Yes. Because we've had to fix a couple of those. So it's not about how you do your work. It's about how the public perceives your work. That's the congestion plan. You have your work and then there's the public receipt of your work and congestion. Two very different things that I think is why we have it. Sorry, I'm speaking now. I just want to know about have we looked in any way, shape or form as a city uh on congestion, possible congestion impacts of moving from 2 million passengers a year to 10 million passengers a year at the Billy Bishop airport of and of adding the uh spa and a concert venue and a convention center on the waterfront on particularly on Lakeshore Boulevard. I'm not sure we've done that work yet or is that started? Yes or no? Who wants to the chair? I'm not uh certain either. I think that's a question I would take back to my colleagues in the planning division and get back to you. Well, would it be not be the planning transportation planning division? Yes. Yes. So, so through through you chair. Um so the Ontario place um impacts were assessed as part of that um that development proposal and a report has been brought to I think it was IEC about 6 months ago if I recall on the impacts of that. Uh what we haven't done yet is obviously the proposals are fairly new in terms of uh expansion of Billy Bishop so we don't currently have any work on that at the moment. Thank you. You could send that report again as part of this congestion management plan. So it's one of the base documents that we have the one for the spa uh for you chair. Happy to do that. Yes. Would you do that for council please? Okay. Thank you very much. All right. We're going to move to speakers now. Starting with councelor Pastnac. Well, thank you very much uh Madame Chair and welcome uh Mr. Pins to city hall. You're very brave to take on this this new role. Uh so thank you very much for your presentation. Um I I would just like to highlight uh a few a few issues. Uh, one, and I moved a few motions on this, um, pet peeves and the although you've referenced construction, one of the big problems we have is unjustified lane closures, particularly over the weekend where the orange barriers are up from Friday to Monday with no construction work, no materials, no digging, no holes, no equipment, no personnel. And uh these construction companies that are our subcontractors that we pay millions of dollars to should be held accountable uh for closing lanes unnecessarily. Uh a secondary problem under the construction umbrella is unjustified um abandonment of sites. In other words, they they set up the construction site uh they bring in their equipment and materials and then they disappear for weeks on end. Uh this is another problem that has very limited in the way of consequences. Um many of the complaints I get are of those two varieties. One, orange barriers up all weekend or all week with no work taking place and construction companies that have abandoned uh abandon uh their their work. Uh we don't know when they're returning. Uh so I've always felt there should be a way to identify a construction site with a clearly visible number, a reference number. Uh that there be a reporting system where individual residents can report uh that site that it's been it's it's been abandoned or there's um there's unnecessary uh lane closures uh or or there's other matters. and that that site number can be referenced through 311 or a counselor's office or transportation and that there be consequences uh or an investigation of of what's what's really going on. The the number of complaints of this nature are so high that it's it's not anecdotal. It is it is um it's a serious problem uh particularly uh when we see it going on all weekend. On the more positive side, people have to realize uh and and I see this when I roll into a city in in another country, let's say the United States, there's no cranes, there's no construction, there's no pylons, nothing's going on. That is a city in trouble. That is a city that has no capital dollars to upgrade infrastructure and to make sure uh that their roads are safe and their water systems are are up to date and state-of-the-art. Uh there's a lot of construction in this city and it is inconvenient. Uh but at the same time it protects many cases it protects homes. It protects it saves lives. Uh it creates prosperity and jobs and we have to look at we have to look at the positive things as well. So I'll leave it with that. Um but something I will pursue probably at council uh is is this idea of some kind of enforcement mechanism reporting and enforcement mechanism in which we can relay to staff those sites uh that are closing lanes unnecessarily and have abandoned construction work for weeks. Thank you very much. Thank you councelor uh councelor Saxs. Uh yes, thank you. So thank you again to everyone uh working on this report. We all know that congestions is important, but it's not just about cars. Um, and that we need to give priority to transit and to bikes. I do have two motions. Um, one is to eliminate 2B. Um, if staff want to come back with an alternate proposal for council, I think that makes sense, but an unlimited uncontrolled discretion. I mean why come and ask us fees and then say but we can change any of them for as long as we want anything else we want without any criteria that doesn't make sense. Um uh the second one is about accesses public access to data. Um, we do know that we get tremendous value from passionate members of the public who analyze data about transit, about traffic in Toronto and come up with analyses that are often really useful and helpful that hadn't been done or hadn't been provided uh publicly by staff. And so I take very seriously the concern from my constituents. Absolutely. developers should pay for the staff time to create a report that they need for their application. But when we're talking about bulk applications for nonprofit or research purposes, then if it's hundreds of dollars per intersection, then no bulk analyses can be done. So I I understand that there is some kind of access, but what I'm hearing from my constituents is it's not effective access. So, I'm asking staff to tell us how we can improve public access for research purposes to our data so that people can help us fix these problems. Um, you know, we have a lot of another motion too, counselor, can you move them both? I I did. You moved the second one. Yeah, there were two on the screen. Oh, I'm sorry. The clerk just thought you hadn't moved the second one, so I apologize. Yes, I moved them. Um, and they're wonderful motions and everybody should vote for them. Um, I mean, other than that, absolutely. I do want to agree with with uh um my colleague councelor Pastnac. We do often have problems where roads uh lanes sidewalks are bike lanes are blocked off for prolonged periods of time with no work being done. Um we had a lot of discussion about this about the harbored construction last year where the contract had been designed to make life easy for the contractor and the impact on the neighborhood the businesses was terrible. Um, so I know that our chief engineer has been working very very hard to improve this. I I'm not making a motion on this, but I do want to emphasize there everything you do are trade-offs. We know that. Um, but we do have to think about the impact on the people and the businesses who are there, not just on the convenience of the developers. So, thank you. Thank you, councelor. Uh, others, Deputy Mayor Morley. Thank you, Madam Chair. through you. I just wanted to speak in support of uh this report and all of the important work that the city is doing. It's always heartening in my time here um in the last term of office to see when we're actually having the impact that we set out and intend to have. Uh we saw about 12% reduction in travel times generally as someone who does drive in from Atobbico most days to city hall. Um you know it's really I've been experiencing that firsthand. um you know, really seeing the impact of our traffic agents out at our intersections and how they how they are helping to clear the box, keep traffic moving in our city. Um the investment that this council is making into transit. We heard from the Toronto Region Board of Trade and I thank them for their work and their ongoing advocacy in this area. Um that these are really important investments and this is something that this council has been really focused on and I think has is starting to bear fruit. Um I do want to I do want to continue to advocate for and underscore the importance of attention outside of the downtown core. Um in communities like mine in Atobbico Lake Shore, we have been doing the hard work of building infrastructure for a sustainable city uh including bike lanes on blour for example and continuing to do our part to build out the cycling network um where wherever possible and uh that's difficult work to do. Um and so information, empowering people with information, sharing data is critically important to this journey. Um we're doing generational change here uh in terms of how we approach moving through our city, especially again in neighborhoods like uh the ones that I represent in Atobbico. So making sure that we have transparent data um clear information, clear measurables and track tracking data is really helpful um to offices like mine and to communities like mine um that are really uh in the midst of some significant change um but again really trying to future proof and set ourselves up for a successful sustainable city down the road. So, with many thanks um and appreciation for the opportunities for uh intersection improvements along the way, we'll continue to work closely with Andrew and our colleagues in transportation services. Thanks very much, Madam Chair. That's all for me. Thank you, uh, Councelor Chernos. Thank you. And I just want to, uh, say thank you for this first report. Um, I think you're off to a great start and I want to acknowledge that you've only been here a few months and we can't expect everything to change overnight. Um, but I am heartened to see that uh, while there there is certainly a focus on the downtown core and I understand, you know, also um, with FIFA that's particularly important. Um but also I am grateful that you're looking at case almost like case studies at some of the challenges we have uh related to the Ontario line um and big construction projects for example uh in Thorncliffe Park and not just looking at them in isolation but at other construction or pinch points in the neighborhood um as you expand outward. And so, um, I just I just wanted to say I want to make sure we continue that looking at that lens of not simply the downtown, but how, um, other areas of the city function, their own unique challenges. Um, and I would encourage, you know, as you look at and work together with different departments, um, and assess, you know, how each program we have functions, um, with a lens to congestion management. um that we don't treat all areas of the city necessarily with the same um broad strokes because there are unique challenges to each area and each neighborhood. Um, and so I hope that, um, you know, as we, as we look at this sort of from 10,000 ft and then get down into the more granular, um, we continue to think about the different challenges of each area and how we can solve them. Um, and that perhaps a one-size uh, fitsall solution won't always work. Uh, and so I look forward to future discussions with that in mind. um and just appreciate the tremendous job you have in front of you, but I think you're on the right path and we're looking forward to really fruitful discussions around this table in the months and years to come. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, councelor. Councelor Prutz, are you with us in body, not just spirit? No, you're not. All right. Thank you. Uh, I will speak and I have a few motions. I think councelor Saxs, I'm just going to amend that motion because mine was very close. That would say so that the amending authority rests with city council on your motion to delete number two, which I'll be supporting. Also have Did you need something from me? No, I wondered if you wish to speak. Suggestion. Yeah. Yes. No, no, no. I'm okay. Thank you. Oh, that's fine. Thank you. Okay. Sorry. I'm just going to reset now. Just was giving you that opportunity, counselor. Um, councelor Sax has discussed clarifying that by deleting that the amending authority still rests with with city council. That has to come forward. And then some motions that would reflect the request in the Toronto Region Board of Trade report breaking gridlock, finishing the job through provincial action that are ones that we would or they would like the city the province to do and we would support those. Here's a suite of motions all the way to G which are there for your perusal. I also sent those as uh advanced motions. And then I have some motions just about reporting directly to council on that impact of the Ontario line, the number of cars that have been displaced and are obviously going somewhere else. That the intersection, other street closures lasting over a year. Where are they? The impact and the number of street car routes impacted by the closure. not just the number of street cars as Mr. um Brown was saying on Adelaide and Richmond, but their impact once they have to fan out from there because they're not they're not able to stay on those routes particularly in the east end. So that would be very helpful. And then also Mr. Uh Curtis has agreed that he'll send the spa report, the spa traffic report, because I'm sure there'll be some questions about not just that report, which shows a lot of traffic, but when we're adding potential um convention center, then going from 2 million to 10 million passengers at Billy Bishop as may have been proposed. Those are very significant traffic impacts on the lake shore. and Deputy Mayor Morley, you've indicated you're driving in on the lake shore every day. So, this is something that you would be more uh from the west end that that would have that very large impact. I also want to welcome Mr. Pausence here and for his first number of months and thanking him and thanking all the staff because this is definitely a team effort here at the city. I think that we uh will be helpful if we think about the team with counselors who are very aware of what's taking place in their wards because the chairs kind of need to move out and look at where are those pinch points that we know about what are we hearing about from our constituents. Everybody is uh really having a difficult time moving in or getting across town from the east end because there are so many construction projects and I think Mr. David Ryder did a whole story in the Star about just coming off the Dawn Valley now. How difficult that is because the uh number of exits, Richmond exit is closed. Then you get down to Gardener Gardener, the gardener construction. I can't even start talking about all of it, but it does create a very large circle. I do appreciate this notion of looking at the circle and the impact on everywhere else other than the job that is just the focus of that tender because the tender is going out. It says do X but doing X you're going to create Y Z ABC around it. And I think that's the message that counselors and council want to send here, that we understand that you have a specific tender, but they're all related in some way in what's going on in our neighborhoods and how we can uh make it easier, how it can go faster, and I really do have to say we appreciate when you go faster on a project, it makes a huge difference. That would be Bay and College. That would be Queen Street East. And I'm sure there's a number other of other projects where we're just speeding up to make things go faster. And the last point is just one that I think so important that little things mean a lot. Understanding as you're coming to something whether you're cycling that those those lanes are going to be closed that the sidewalks going to be closed the Ontario line paper and Danford that there's going to be car lanes closed. know ahead of time so that you don't get so frustrated. Road rage is really something that's bad for everybody or bike rage. We all have that when we're walking, cycling, or driving. Let's try to lower the temperature on all of that. And while Mr. Ashley uh sorry, Mr. Mr. Pausand can fix things. What needs fixing? We can fix uh lane occupations. We can fix traffic flow. We can fix transit priority, but we can't fix stupid for drivers. That's still one thing that we just can't fix. So, let's all be clear on that, too. That's often what happens for that frustrates everybody. Thanks very much. Uh we'll take this now to the votes. You're putting these up. And the first one is uh you know, these are really hard to see. That's councelor Saxs. It's just amended by uh the amending authority staying with council. Pardon me. Oh, is there a typo? Sorry. We're going to fix that. Thank you. This new system is very hard to see from that big one back there. What are you fixing? Amending the authority for four. Okay, we're good. Are we good now, counselor? Yes. All right. All right. All in favor? Opposed? That carries. Uh the next one are the requests to the provincial government that we were asked to make on behalf of the board of trade. And thank you very much, Board of Trade, for being so clear on where these rest. Oh, sorry. Which one is this? Councelor Sax's second motion. Got it. All in favor and that's a request to council. Thank you. That passes. The next is what I was just mentioning these breaking gridlock finishing the job through provincial action request to the province. Everybody's seen that A to G. Do we have support for that one? Colleagues? Yes. All in favor? Opposed? That carries. And the last is just on our big projects that close intersections uh for up to a year. Also, just to be really clear about Young and Queen and that impact the volume of cars, etc. Uh all in favor opposed and that carries. And the item as amended. Shall we just have a recorded vote on that one because it's pretty significant. Our first congestion management report. All those in favor to receive. Councelor Pasternac, councelor Pernoslin, Deputy Mayor Mley, Councelor Saxs, Councelor Prussa, Councelor Fletcher. That passes unanimously. Thank you. It's a very significant moment. Thank you for all your work to all of our staff and to our new chief congestion officer. Thank you. We're good. Moving on to uh I want to just make one change in um like to do our next item. All right. The realignment. Um I'm just going to ask would you is is Deputy Mayor Cole coming today? Would he like to be here for this? Pardon me? Yes. So if we hold that down because he would he's at a funeral or an event and so if we hold that that would be better. Correct. All right. Could we move u the report because we have here if that's okay with you before I can release six. Oh, sorry. Yes, you want to release six. Can we move the report up to hear from a few deputants and get that? All right. Thank you. This an important one. Councelor Saxs, I think you may have asked for this one. So, is that all right with you if we put this next? You're moving that. All right. All in favor? Post? That's carried. And while we're getting the deputent, first deputent whose name is I have it here. All of this down. I don't think uh it is Lee Ramsey, Hamish Wilson, and Adam Scott. Those are our three deputants. And I will just also be while they're getting ready, members, uh councelor Pastor had item six. And what I would like to do with item six is um clarity ask you if you'd like to just move. I can. Yeah. So, I do have a motion uh with four four parts if we put that on the screen. Uh but as an FYI, the province of Ontario had a fund last year called the Community Sport Recreation Infrastructure Fund. It's a $200 million fund. Uh Toronto received um zero from it. So, we want to make sure that doesn't happen again. I don't really see any merit in flogging a dead horse here, but I have put some motions in place, recommendations to council to really closely watch the next trunch of money that's coming up. It I'm told by a cabinet minister that's it was embedded in the re recently released budget uh presented by the government of Ontario. So, we want to make sure that we get our fair share uh for for our recreational assets. So these are my recommendations to have staff watch it very closely, contact the minister, express our disappointment with the past, but move on and secure funding on the new Toronto money. Thank you, councelor. That was your quick release of item six. Yes. With a few words and you're moving. I squeeze in a couple of comments. Uh I guess well done. Well done. All in favor? Opposed? That carries. Thank you, councelor. and the item as amended because you've amended the original. All in favor? Opposed? And that's carried. Thank you very much. Now, is Lee Ramsey here? Nope. Yes. Lee Ramsey, I'd asked you to be up here and ready. Sorry. I'm asking everybody to be ready. We're going fast here. Lee Ramsey, Hamish Wilson, Adam Scott. Uh, that's the order. And we're ready to roll. You could just sit in the back or wait up here. Thank you. You must be Adam. Great. Go ahead, Lee. On. Yes. Um, I'm Lee Ramsey. I'm a Midtown resident and I'm also a retired librarian from the Toronto Public Library and therefore an Omar's member as are many people in this room. As municipal workers and elected officials, we have a front row seat for the increasing chaos caused by climate change. We're already dealing with the excessive heat, unprecedented snowfalls, flooding, wildfire smoke, biodiversity loss, and so much more. And we are only getting started. We are folks who are spending or in my case have spent our careers working to build up our communities. So, it only makes sense for us to have a pension plan that is not helping to tear those same communities down through investments in the fossil fuels that are driving this calamity. I asked my first question about fossil fuel investments at an AGM more than 30 years ago. Since that time, has certainly made some improvements. They have a climate plan now and a chief sustainability officer. And in recent years, they have been quietly shedding some of their fossil fuel holdings, but it's not enough. They still have a reported three billion dollars in the game and a CEO who talks about how they're invested in fossil fuel companies with quote the best long-term climate positions, unquote, and a board member who also sits on the board of a fossil fuel company. Worst of all, they still absolutely refuse to commit to no further fossil fuel investments in 2026. This is completely unacceptable. The city of Toronto continues to be committed to being a climate leader. Its employees pension plan needs to step up and be a climate leader, too. and not only for our benefit, but also for the 14, 15, and 16 year olds who are paying into wondering what their future will be like. Thank you. Thank you very much. Are there questions, Councelor Saxs? Yes. Thank you very much, Lee, and for your work in the library service, but also your your passion on this issue, which you know I share. Um, we can't tell how to invest, but we can ask questions. What is the most important question you want me to ask them? Ask them why they haven't committed to no further investment in fossil fuels. Okay, I'll ask. Thank you. Thank you, Councelor Sachs. Thank you, Lee. Thank you so much for being here today. Uh, Haish Wilson. Good good morning again and thank you. Uh, and nice to be after Lee who had a very good set of positions and outrage. Uh, this is from the Star uh, at some point. Uh, greatest crime ever committed, a column by Heather Malik. It was about a book uh, by Jeff Dembicki. uh the petroleum papers inside the farright conspiracy to cover up climate change. So yes, there's that. Um it is uh happening far faster than we want it to and we're backsliding uh almost everywhere. Uh and we are not being totally honest here in the city either with the consumption uh greenhouse gases not always being included. We're not including concrete yet. uh and the air travel, especially jets. That's a a big one. Uh this is from uh councelor Sachs may recognize this one, but uh this indicates that yes, we're doing relatively well uh uh uh in comparison with some other places. Uh but uh like other provinces, but uh the consumption based is is definitely a a problem. Um I don't know if you saw this uh cartoon or not. This is absolutely wonderful. um in the globe. Canada is one of the worst for our greenhouse gas emissions per capita and we're not counting the forest fire carbon. So in fact there's an awful lot of uh emissions that are uh uh lurking and going to bite us. Uh so I think there's a certain amount of liability uh from uh trying to say that there's willful blindness that it's not measured therefore we don't know about it. there's a lot of stuff coming down and coming out or you know that that is going to have an impact. So uh just because it's not measured doesn't mean to say that there's an impact. So as as the attribution science gets clearer and stronger I think you we may have an issue with being pursued in courts and uh uh pension funds even the ones that are relatively progressive uh uh are still tempting targets. I would suggest that uh the nuclear power is not necessarily a good investment long term. Uh especially with the rad waste. Uh so the costs of the rad waste uh are not necessarily uh uh uh being uh allocated well enough. Uh and in terms of being positive about where money could be spent, I've had this idea and I've been nudging the federal level in my own limited way that we nationalize all the school parking lots throughout the country for housing sites. a little bit of parking but energy lifeboats as well. Uh because we need resiliency centers in our schools. So perhaps maybe that's the sort of investment that the the fund would consider to do uh investing in housing in local communities uh throughout our because the the amount of land that's taken up by school parking lots uh is significant, not as much as parking lots generally. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Any questions? No. All right. Perfect. Thank you very much. And last is Adam Scott from Shift Action. Good morning. I'm Adam Scott. I'm the executive director of uh uh Shift Action for Pension Wealth and Planet Health and we're a charitable project which helps pension members and stakeholders like the city engage with their pension funds on climate. Um we've submitted a short brief related to this item as well. Uh folks in this room are likely aware that of the financial risks that the climate crisis poses for our pension funds. Um, as warming continues, financial impacts and risks are expected to get far worse. At Shift, we've been analyzing the quality, depth, and credibility of pension fund climate strategies for four years with our Canadian pension climate report card. Um, so I'm happy to note this year's scored in the overall B range for the first time in our report, reflecting efforts to invest in ways that contribute to decarbonization. for example, making s significant investments in renewable energy, energy storage, electrical utilities, and reducing the emissions intensity of their portfolio and investing in green assets. So, it's good to see that continues to build real momentum on climate. Um some other funds are continuing to score higher than uh the Quebec p pension uh manager Lass achieved all of its climate goals early and then released an even more ambitious 2030 climate uh strategy last June. Um and other funds have drawn a firmer line than when it comes to ruling out investments in risky new fossil fuel projects. Um, we wanted to quickly draw your attention to two important legal developments for pension funds um that are ongoing. Four young Canadians launched a legal challenge against the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board last October, alleging that it is failing to adequately manage climate related risk while continuing to invest billions in fossil fuels. Theirs is the first climate related case to make such a challenge on the grounds of intergenerational fairness underlining the reality that climate risk is a matter of fiduciary responsibility. So that case is highly relevant for all pension managers including owners and we should be watching it closely. Um, and I also wanted to note, um, recent changes in greenwashing legislation in Canada have led, um, some pension funds to misguidedly pull back on their climate related communications and in some cases on their commitments as well. And that's something we're watching very closely for. um that should not happen and because pensions have a generational obligation um to their members um we need them clearly and constructively communicating and increasing the ambition of their their plans. I wanted to quickly highlight um one final piece which is there are a number of major projects being proposed in Canada which could uh help meaningfully build can the Canadian economy and to meet our climate commitments. Um but we're quite concerned that several of them including LNG uh export and oil industry projects would lock in fossil fuel production. Pension funds like are under pressure to invest domestically at the moment. Um the pension funds are meeting quarterly with the finance minister. Um, and we would really hope that the city should call on to ensure that its framework for any project investment, major or not, serves to accelerate the energy transition and not delay it while also requiring the free, prior, and informed consent of indigenous communities. Thanks very much. I'm sure there'll be some questions of you. Yeah, thanks for being here, Councelor Saxs. Yes, thank you, Adam. again appreciate the work that you and your team do and have done for years bringing attention to the performance of pension plans and um you know it's I notice you always compare to the Kess but Quebec has a very different political and legal structure um in terms of how the compares to other pension plans in Canada outside Quebec um Who is there anyone that you think is doing better than who are they and in what respect? Um it can depend on the the sort of piece of what part they're doing better on but yes generally uh in Ontario I I didn't get to speak about uh the university pension plan in Ontario. um that is a fund that has more ambitious climate strategy um more uh aggressive targets and um a lot more work in terms of implementation. So they are further up the ranking. Um some of the other funds have um leadership in other areas as well around um setting investment limits and ambition. Um so we are seeing OMR is now joining that potential leadership pack which is good to see but I think there's still some more room to move in that direction. Now the university pension plan is quite new right it's what two years old now um in terms of actual track record what have they achieved uh well they've they've put in place uh investment practices that will shape their portfolio as it grows over time so they're because they're a new plan they're they have the privilege of being able to do that early and not dealing with a legacy um like has but I think there's nothing stopping funds like from being more proactive in setting up the future of its investment strategy. Um, and that's what we'd like to see. So, one area that we're particularly concerned about is um, pension funds own the whole economy. They own um, every sector essentially and they're exposed to risks everywhere and they have a a real stake in public policy. um the actions of the city for example, but actions of other levels of government as well directly impact whether or not those companies will be able to achieve climate safety and whether the fund as a whole will be safe. And so we want to see pension funds get off the bench so they can and advocate for climate policies in line with um achieving real world decarbonization. And some funds like the UP are doing that. Um and that's something we're seeing like CAS do in Quebec. Um and we think it's appropriate given the financial risks um involved here that pension funds are more proactive uh and public about the need to decarbonize. Well, they might go either way. Um as I said earlier, what we can do is ask questions. What question would you most like me to ask? Uh we're quite concerned right now about this discussion about major projects in Canada. Um there's a lot of bulldozing of environmental laws and indigenous rights potentially built into that discussion. Um we think it exposes um potential investors like OMRs but other funds as well um to a lot of financial risk and as well could compromise climate targets. And so we'd like to see some clearer guidelines from the pensions themselves about how they're approaching that question about domestic investment and major projects with respect to climate and indigenous rights. So, if you could ask about that, that would be appreciated. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions? Deputy Mayor Morley. Uh, thanks, Madam Chair, through you. Um, thanks, Adam, for the important work that you do and for joining us today. Um, if you could share three key priority um priorities that you would recommend for to get to the that leading pack that you mentioned in terms of moving from a B to an A on the scorecard. What would those three key priorities be? Um, first and foremost, I think we'd like to see um, there's a bunch of different ways we could go with this. The, uh, I think the level of ambition, um, you know, ratcheted up over time and extended further. Um, 2030 is actually coming up really soon and decisions made now are sort of already impacting beyond that threshold, especially for a long-term investor. So, what's next? Direction of travel. Um and I think a a higher level of uh ambition. We would like to see credible screens for inappropriate investments around fossil fuel expansion uh and some uh discussion about longer term the the phasing out of of assets that are exposed to that sector. There's a huge amount of financial risk um and those assets are also contributing to making the problem worse. Um yeah and I think uh oh there's a lot of other pieces. Yeah I think just generally increasing the transparency um towards how they're thinking about these problems. I want to say this is a very difficult problem for institutions to tackle um they aren't going to be perfect and it's okay if they're um disclosing that that they're on a journey to do that. would like to see how that's progressing. Um, and it's not something they should be worried about disclosing to us. We're all on a journey and we're all in it together. I appreciate that. Thanks so much, Adam. That's all for me, Madam Chair. Thank you. Anyone else? Uh, I will just ask about, of course, one of the things that uh is often said is the return on investment in the fiduciary responsibility. So, you've given this example in Quebec. Do they have a very low ROI or uh do they have a fairly good ROI? Uh very good ROI portfolio. Um I will say we've reached the point now um of understanding that investing in line with climate action and a net zero uh future is fully in line with fiduciary responsibility and maximizing risk adjusted returns which is their mandate. Um when we consider in particular the financial implications of failing on climate on a macro scale um we are seeing a lot of reports that show we could see doubledigit declines in pension um valuations by midentury if we're not on track for a state. So there the mandates of pension funds are directly tied to our ability to address this problem. And in the short term, there are very substantial short-term risks like stranded assets that we're quite concerned about, particularly with fossil fuels. Um, but longer term, um, the opportunity of investing in the winning side of the energy transition is incredibly profitable. So there's nothing I've said that's out of line with the legal mandate of pension funds. So the portfolios of mers which the portfolios of Cass they're they're they're you know receiving excellent market level returns um and they're pursuing climate objectives at the same time and that's fully possible. In fact it it it's a risk lowering um thing to do for funds and so it's completely in line with how they um manage funds financially. Great to hear that. And there was a pretty major loss that had I believe in England through a water company. Are you aware of that? Temp's water. Yes. T's water. And what was the value of that loss? I'm not sure what the exact uh write down was something in the billion dollar range. Billion. I will ask exactly because that was a very an investment that impacted a lot and I don't know was that considered a uh an investment that was was a P3 investment. Was that considered a an environmental investment or what was the nature of that? No, I I think that falls into the category of the risks of privatizing public assets um and selling them to uh private investors creates these sorts of risks which are I'd say bad for public interest often and often bad for the investor as well and it's a model that I think is problematic and that was a good example of of that. Thank you very much. Okay. Um, those were the last questions. I think we now have some questions. Mrs. is here and I'm fortunately I thank you. Thank you very much. Uh, Adam, how would you They have a presentation for us. I'm sorry we didn't have that first. That was my mistake. Apologies to you. So, everybody wouldn't be able to address that. But you're up with your presentation. Then we have questions of mers and then we have I guess Diane I don't know if there's questions of any other staff that we would have simply and perhaps can let us know who our representative is. Do you know who it is Diane? ask him. Could you let us Thank you. We all got a lot of people here this morning. You can all introduce yourselves. Appreciate that. And could before you start, would you just let us know I think the city of Toronto or uh somebody has a rep on the MREs board and who is it? Are they here? So, let us let us start, Madam Chair. Um, my name is George Cook and I'm actually the board chair formers. Yes. I'm asking who the city of Toronto does the city of Toronto have an actual rep. Yeah. Yes, you do. His name is John Armstrong. He's not present this morning. And he's from finance. He's from What's his background? No. Which division is he? I'll ask the deputy. No, no, he's he's an he's a skills-based outside director. He's not an employee of the city. He's a former senior official at the Bank of Montreal. I see. So we don't have anybody as we do on other boards. That's correct. Okay. Yeah. Can I just the union rep perhaps we could just clarify in in that regard. Um historically is since 2006 has had a two corporate structure. The admin corp which is what we are. We do the investing in the plan administration. Um, prior to government legislation being introduced this past uh past November, December time period, there was a sponsors corporation where the city of Toronto actually had representatives from the city that were true representatives of the city's interests. That particular corporation dealt with um uh benefits and uh contributions and those types of issues. Uh it's now in the process subject to uh legislation and related um uh regulations being passed being replaced with the sponsors council at which point in time city of Toronto will have representation on that council. But in terms of the uh investment side and the plan administration, you've you've chosen as as have the other sponsors to uh populate our board with skills-based directors against a uh a skills matrix established for those purposes. Got it. Thank you very much. So please proceed with introduce your people here with you and then proceed with whatever presentation you'd like to give us. I will. Thank you very much. So to my immediate right is Selene Chaveetti who is our chief pension officer. Beside her is Katherine Preston our vice president of sustainable investing and beside Katherine is Thomas Mchuan who is the associate director uh sustainable investing at Oxford Properties. Um I think Katherine is going to largely lead this uh lead this presentation and then of course all of us are here to respond to questions. I I might start by saying uh thank you very much for the opportunity to come back and do this. I think this is the third or fourth time we've been here. Uh it actually is an opportunity for us in a public forum with a very important sponsor to actually talk about what we're doing and why and to demonstrate our progress. Uh I would also highlight before handing this over um our annual report is publicly available on the website. There is an expanded and I I think very um uh substantive section now in that annual report related to climate action, our climate plan. And this year at our annual meeting with our with our plan members, which will be on April the 23rd, we will actually have a presentation from the for the first time from the uh from the floor, if you will, from the from the panel presentation to our plan members on climate action. So we we welcome the opportunity to talk openly and to share with all those that are uh important to us what it is we're doing and why. Katherine, thanks George and thanks to the committee for having us uh back again this year. It's been a real pleasure to come and see you once a year to update you on the progress we've made against our climate action plan. I thought I'd start just by framing how we think about climate within our broader approach to sustainable investing at we've had a very long-term uh commitment to sustainable investing that's grounded in the belief that companies that better manage environmental social and governance risks and opportunities to their business will perform better over the long term thereby helping us fulfill the pension promise to all of our members. So how we actually do that we have a three-pillar approach. Integration is the first one. So that means how do we think about incorporating the material issues in every investment we make. That could be in real estate, infrastructure in the public markets. We have different approaches on how we do that based on the strategy, but it's part of all the investment processes that we have at MREs. The second pillar is collaboration. We work with like-minded investors and other partners including stakeholders across the industry to help advance sustainability sustainability reporting. Uh and we heard um a comment earlier around the importance of working with public policy makers and regulators. This is something we actively do both directly and with groups of other investors uh around sustainability disclosure and enhancing the standards for which to do so. So we have the data we need to make the decisions and measurements around the climate exposure. And last but not least is engagement. We recognize that being a large institutional investor, we have a voice at the table, particularly in our large direct investments, often through board seats where we can influence the direction of the company and ask those hard questions around sustainability and climate that we expect them to manage. So that leads us to the launch of our climate action plan which came out in the fall of 2023. We did this in recognition of the fundamental concern that climate the climate crisis is happening around the world and the impact that it has in various degrees in which the companies in which we invest. Whether that's from the physical impacts of a changing climate or from the transition to a low to no carbon energy future. We need to make sure we're measuring and account and holding our companies accountable for those changes. So the commitment we made was around net0ero 2050. We have not stepped away from that commitment. That is the commitment that persists. That's the goal that underpins the Paris climate agreement as well as what the intergovernmental panel on climate change scientists uh say and this is incorporated into investment frameworks that we follow these net zero investment frameworks that help us guide our approach and the commitments that we've made. So what are those commitments? We're focused in several key areas. One, reducing the emissions in the portfolio. Two, investing in climate solutions. And three is engaging with the companies were already invested in to ensure that they're transitioning their business in line with these commitments that we've made. We know we have to do all the things. We can't just do one thing. We've got to be doing everything to help support this transformation that's occurring. So how do we hold ourselves accountable? We set out some commitments around reducing the emissions in our portfolio by 50% by 2030. We made a commitment to grow our investments in green assets to $30 billion by 2030 and to engage the biggest emitters in our portfolio, the largest 20 emitters, which account for more than half of the emissions in the portfolio that we want them to have credible transition plans in place by 2030. The next question is how we're doing against those commitments. And I know there's a lot on this slide here, but I'll focus on on the chart on the right, which has two different uh types of measures we use to measure our portfolio carbon footprint. So the blue bars indicate from 2019 the reduction in the carbon intensity of the portfolio over that time period. Well, there's been significant reduction to date. I'll talk a little bit more about how that's happened, but really we're we're very happy with how the prog progress we've made, but we do note that this progress can go up and down year on year because this is a point in time measure we take on December 31st each year. It may not reflect uh sort of up and downs that can happen throughout the year. So, we're always cautioning that we're going in the right direction and this this is the great direction that we're going in. The second graph on that line is the line graph which indicates absolute emissions. So, it's another way to measure portfolio carbon footprint to show that the actual emissions of the companies we're financing going down over that period of time as well. I'm going to turn it to my colleague Thomas here to talk about some examples of how decarbonization's happening in the portfolio. Thank you, Katherine. So, just want to very quickly demonstrate three examples of what that decarbonization looks like in the real world uh and some real assets and particularly Oxford assets. and it looks different across the asset life cycle. So firstly I'll talk about what that looks like in development. Uh so the stack is a is an office tower in Vancouver. It's Canada's first net zerocarbon certified office tower and that demonstrates that decarbonized assets can work at scale. U the next is in asset management. So we're doing a deep retrofit of Mid City Place. It's an office building in central London in UK and we are while occupied replacing all of the boilers in the building with airsource heat pumps totally eliminating the emissions in the building or the scope one emissions and reducing uh the emissions at the building by about 30%. And then lastly in operations, Alto 57 is a residential asset in New York City and we've engaged with an HVAC optimization software where we're able to cut the energy use dramatically and reduce the emissions by about 200 tons per year. And so that's just a an an example of the different ways that decarbonization looks like across the asset life cycle. Thanks, Thomas. Another area we're making progress against our commitment is around green investments. You'll see an annual increase in that number each year and this year reporting 26 billion uh in green investments. So when I say green, what I'm talking about is buildings that have been certified green, some of the buildings Thomas just talked about, renewable energy infrastructure, lowcarbon emitting energy assets, uh, and energy efficiency assets, an example of which is a is a broadband fiber network um, operator. As we move from, uh, the oldfashioned coaxial cable to moving data through broadband internet, it's much more energy efficient. So that's an example there. Really, what's driving these adjustments are both strategically allocating capital, making new investments in companies that are lower emitting, including the green ones I talked about, and also working with the companies that we're invested in today to help help them decarbonize. And this happens across the different asset classes that we're invested in. On the right, uh we're always focused on continuous improvement. We know there's a lot of work to do here. So what we enhanced this year in terms of our measurement and reporting was to expand the coverage of the portfolio to include more external managers uh in the private credit book to get the emissions of those investments they're making. Uh we can also improve by having more real data from companies. So this year 75% of the emissions um of the companies we invest in actually disclose their emissions which means we can do our calculations more accurately. when you have to estimate emissions there, they can wildly swing in one direction or the other. And last but not least, we expanded uh to cover the sovereign bond investments we're making uh as well as part of the portfolio carbon footprint. And the last area I'll focus on is something uh that that OMR's put out the end of 24, which is our climate taxonomy. And what it is is a way to look at investments through the climate lens. There's no global standard on how to do this. We've kind of looked at other markets that have emerging taxonomies to come up with our own. There's a clear standard on what is a green investment, but everything else is not standardized. We want to be able to communicate to our stakeholders what's in the rest of the portfolio. And so when we break it down beyond green, we have investments in the enabling category, which is things that help enable the energy transition, like the electricity poles and wires that distribute green energy to consumers. We have a big section of low climate impact which is companies that don't tend to have a huge carbon footprint. Think healthcare. Then we have the gray and the orange which are the more hard to abate and more energyintensive types of companies that we invest in and whether that be uh electricity generation that's trans you know as it transitions to lowcarbon generation or the more hard to abate sectors which are oil and gas exploration, cement and airlines. Can you just tell us how many more slides you have? We thought we were just going to be 10 minutes. Pardon? This is the last one I'll speak. Okay. Thank you. Uh and so just to wrap up on that note, so when we look at the whole portfolio through this lens, 62% is invested in in low carbon or enabling or green investments. And I'll leave it there. Thank you. Thank you. Sorry, I didn't know that was because I don't have a copy of it here. All right. I'm sure there's some questions for you. Uh starting with you, councelor Saxs. Okay, let's try this again. Well, thank you very much for coming again. Um, really, really exciting to see the improvements that you've made since we first uh talked about this and thank you for the improvements in the slides. Um, as you heard from the deputants, the primary concern that I'm hearing about all of our investments, which you manage, is are you putting new money into fossil assets which are taking our climate apart? I I would so it's a it's a difficult question to answer in absolute terms. um less than 2% of our portfolio and it's been at that level now for three or four years is invested in what I think you would call fossil fossil fuels or fossil fuel related assets. So it's a relatively small part of the portfolio. Um those particular assets, many of them are publicly traded equities and they're equities that are held in uh companies that albeit connected to the fossil side are heavily engaged in uh efforts of decarbonization and other activities that relate to the transition that we're all trying to pursue. Um our view at this point in time is that it's too early to simply walk away from those activities and those particular ventures um uh in the context of a broader climate strategy. So the answer is uh we we have not made a commitment as to when we will walk away from there but we have made the commit we made two fundamental commitments. One is net zero by 2050 which we've not walked away from which a number of other plans have. Uh we have no intention of walking away from it. And secondly we had that in the in the interim period at the moment we have a 2030 commitment which we've already exceeded. That that does not mean very clearly it does not mean that we're sitting back doing nothing because we've already met 2030. We continue on because what we've been able to do by taking this particular approach is entrench the logic and the rationale into our investment approach that recognizes that that addressing climate action properly prudently. It's good for business so to speak. Well, let me try to be more specific. We're not we're not going to I'm not going to give you a commitment that we're going to turn around and sell a bunch of stocks tomorrow to to make that commitment. I'm trying to ask you a question. Yeah. So, I understand the arguments about the publicly traded equities, but in terms of direct investments and the concern that we heard from Adam, our if you put all of our money into building new pipelines, new LG facilities, new fossil fuel things, you'll they'll have a lifetime more than 2050 and they'll do damage for a long time. You'll you'll note I think that when the most recent pipeline was people are trying to attract pension plants to invest in it, we did not. Um there is no plan that I'm aware of of investing in a new pipeline. We may very well invest in a new nuclear plant, but we will not be investing in a new pipeline. Right. That's really good news. Thank you. Um, we we heard some suggestions about the university pension plan having um really industry-leading investment practices uh outside Quebec. Uh, have you are you I guess Katherine, are you familiar with those um practices? Have you considered adopting them? Yeah, we look to our peers regularly about who's kind of doing what, but it really comes down to the different mandates and structures of the portfolios we have and and they have a very different uh structure of their portfolio. As someone said, it's all new uh money coming together with all external managers and so they don't have the long-term commitments we do when it comes to private direct investing. But that gives us an advantage when it comes to being able to engage directly with those companies on the climate action we expect them to take. Okay. Um uh back to you George. One of the things that I think would be helpful for people to hear is um how much impact has it had on the conduct of your organization? The fact that you come to this committee every year and that we care about these issues. Um I I think it's material uh for a number of reasons but one because you're a large sponsor two because this is done in public three because you ask very good questions uh and facilitate a forum for for this discussion. Uh people inside take notice. Now we would make them take notice in any event but this helps. This is actually a very positive positive venue for us. We also although some of the debutants may not believe this, we actually listen to them. Just because we don't always follow their advice doesn't mean we don't listen. Okay. No, I appreciate that. And um I know we don't have a lot of time, but would you get back to me please on what you're doing about radioactive waste from Bruce? For sure. Uh I I I might say that uh if you look at it the the relative amount per uh for the compared to the amount of electricity produced is going down quite considerably uh as we move forward there there's tremendous initiatives being undertaken at Bruce. It's actually it's actually a phenomenal story in terms of what they've done in terms of managing the risk the ris both the both the waste and the risk associated with the waste. It's also tremendous um tremendous story in terms of the way they've worked in the community with the indigenous folk the uh the recent investments which we are also part of uh in the production of isotopes for medical purposes and the like. There's a very very good positive story there. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Uh any other questions? No, I'm just going to follow up on the temp's water. I'd like to understand that a little more. What was the loss? Uh temp's water. It was it was substantial and it was in the order of a billion dollars. I I don't have the exact number, but that's a good round number for the purposes. Temp's water was was one of a number of uh water utilities in the greater London area. So people need to understand that that uh water in the greater London area is largely supplied uh through investments that are made by pension funds and other um uh private sector activities. We were one of eight or nine with the particular temp's water uh factor. um the the rates that are allowed to be charged uh by those particular utilities are regulated by uh some form of of government in in uh in in Britain. Um post the investment uh in this particular uh utility the regulatory approach changed dramatically and temps unfortunately compared to the other water utilities there was in the older part of London. So the cost of repair and the need for repair was both much greater than elsewhere. The regulatory approach rather than being bespoke was to actually put standards across all eight or nine utilities some of which were materially newer. Yeah. Thank you. The point is the point is we lost money in it. You lost a billion dollars. We did. And when you're making Do you believe water is a human right? Have you got other investments in privatized water anywhere else? Not that I'm aware of. Not. Well, you'd have to be aware because you're the man. So, there aren't that's not what you're doing any longer. I'm trying to I'm trying to give you an honest answer. We may very well own shares in some public company that has a position in water someplace, not as a primary position, but nothing that nothing like the utility that that you're talking about with temps. So when you come to June, which councelor Saxs, I know you're very aware of to government management to talk about your annual report, right? Perhaps you could look at how many uh how much how much investment there is in our pension plan in privatized water services. There's no direct investment whatsoever. There may well be at any point in time there. If we had shares in Tesla, I can't tell you what our friend will do tomorrow. So you I'm not asking about Tesla. I'm asking about water. We're not invested directly in water indirectly in water then. Not that we're aware of. Not that you're aware of. Well, by June, you're going to know exactly what you've got invested in water when you come to the committee. How's that? I will try to give you the best answer in June. I don't need it now. I'll give you the best answer in June that I can. I'm trying to suggest to you that when you're invest it may well be that some publicly traded investment that happened the day before that meeting has a water component to it. Okay. I can't I can't tell you that it doesn't. But you're what you've indicated here is as a privatized system you're looking for an ROI from that and you didn't have the right to charge whatever you needed in the temp's water to do the state of a good repair and everything else. That's what I've heard. And so is OMR's position that uh I just I'm really going for this now. Privatization of water is a very serious matter. Uh do you have a position on the board or you've changed your position on the board now that you've lost a billion dollars on this privatized outfit? I think the position with any of these types of assets is we would look we would look to see whether or not they actually meet the various investment screens which among others would include by necessity an adequate level of return and and in addition to that um the climate responsiveness. Part of the part of the motivation back in 2017 was to actually use private money to clean up an environmental mess uh in the water systems in in uh in London. Unfortunately, the regulator didn't cooperate. Yes. Do you mean like the environmental mess in the Hamilton Harbor when that uh was privatized and all the I I don't know anything about the Hamilton Harbor. We were not part of it. Oh, you didn't weren't part of that. So anyway, just checking that um that's fine. I I think I've made my position clear and I think all your pension money is coming from people that are in the public sector, is it not? Do you have any private sector businesses in private sector? Correct. Do you have any private sector employees? Public sector employees in correct. Correct. So then a public sector approach to investing is something that you have as your mandate. I just don't know how you got involved in a billion dollar loss in privatized water. The the the the water delivery systems in the greater London area have been privatized for many years. Yes. But we did we were not in the process of privatizing. They were privatized. Most of the Canadian pension plans are invested in water utilities in London. Correct. But not private. All private or public ones. What other public ones were invested in London? would besides well I guess it would depend how you how you view uh how you view the say teachers of Canada pension plan for example or BCI well I think public sector workers that deliver water I think you're getting some help there answer wise from I just want so I just from a management perspective I just wanted to kind of bring it high level to just talk about we've got an investment strategy that essentially is diversified and so as part of our investment strategy. We invest in infrastructure um real estate um as well as Yes. But you have a mandate for privatized water investment. We have a mandate or have you stepped away from that clearly? We have a mandate essentially to look at infrastructure investments that fulfill that. So there's not something specifically for example there's not a specific exclusion. I have an opinion and you have a strategy. Thank you. Councelor Saxs, where are you? Because I think you want to speak. Why don't you go ahead then? Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for coming. I want to remind my colleagues that the responsibility of OMRs is to create wealth so that tens of thousands of retired persons who contributed to over the the the duration of their career receive a safe, secure and livable pension, more than a livable pension. And then I worry about this committee going down a road where we're micromanaging their work and every investment and and some investments that they're making. We should let them get on with their work being a secure reliable source of funding for thousands of people that contributed to various municipalities and other organizations across the province. And I think I don't think this committee has the has the mandate to question their various uh their various investments maybe on a broad scope with policy but not micromanaging. Thank you. Thank you very much. Uh I'm going to let councelor Sax go and then you deputy mayor. Go ahead. Yeah. Um so thank you uh everyone who came and also to the deputants. Um, we we all know that your primary job is to make sure that people work a lifetime in public service and they can then count on their pensions, but they also need to count on their pensions in a world they can survive, that they and their children can survive. Um, and it's there's it it's like the old Midas myth. It's great to have money, but you can't eat it or drink it or breathe it. Um, and so we do need you to do both, and we recognize that it's hard. Um I am uh grateful to see the really substantial progress that's occurred since I was first elected and we uh and again Adam Adam's group has done tremendous work helping the public to understand the conduct of our pension plans and how you measure up and I know how much it stung um the way they scored you in 2023 and I'm really glad to see the changes that you've made and that they're being recognized. I'm also really glad to have you confirm again that our interest in having you come here every year is helpful and is making a difference in the conduct of your company. So, I I'm uh really appreciate that. Um, everyone's got as much to do as they can do, right? We're all struggling to keep up. Uh, and you folks are working in the background managing I always forget how 140 $150 billion approximately 146 billion. Okay. Approximately 146 billion. What's a billion between friends? What you do is really important. It has a big footprint and intends to go unnoticed. the decisions that you make every day affect all of us and will continue to do so for a long period of time. So, um I want to express my appreciation for you paying attention to this issue and for making progress. Of course, I want more. Always want more and faster, but I'm really really pleased to see you are setting targets. you're measuring your progress both absolute and um and intensity basis that you're helping make real change and not just pass assets on to somebody else. These are these are all very important and I and I take very seriously we are in an economy in transition. Um certainly anybody who felt really safe with their fossil costs uh six weeks ago, two days ago, God knows what's going to happen tonight. So we know that for security, we need to be getting off fossil fuels. We need we need it for safety. We need it for cost. We need it for the lives of our children and grandchildren. And so um thank you for coming. We will keep asking these questions. It's really important that you come every year. The money is important, but it's not the only thing that matters. Um, so thank you. Thank you, councelor. I think deputy mayor, go ahead. Thanks, Madam Chair. Um, my colleague, councelor Saxs, I think, said it incredibly well, and I couldn't agree more with all of the pieces that she she shared, but I just wanted to thank you all for the work that you're doing on our behalf and on behalf of the public. um but also for joining us at this committee and really keeping us um in the loop on the important progress that you're making. The trends are all going in the right direction and that's what we love to see and I appreciate the opportunity to um have this dialogue to be on the public forum so folks that I know are listening very closely and taking the time to monitor this and keep using their voices um to ensure that we not only have safe, secure and livable pensions but that we have a safe, secure and livable world to enjoy them. um and always remembering that we have this beautiful planet on loan from the next generation and we have big responsibilities in terms of what we what choices we make to leave it in a good shape for them. So, thank you very much for making good choices um and for investing in in good ways and understanding uh the important responsibilities that you have. Thank you. That's all for me. Thank you. And I'll just say thank you for being here and uh take great pleasure in hearing councelor Sax say you're making progress because I know that she started you coming to this committee so we could overview and oversee all the environmental initiatives that will be supported by I will say creating wealth is definitely something for pensions but we're in a very uncertain world somebody said tonight tomorrow we're not sure what's going to happen so it's a very dicey time I know I've given you a hard time on Temp's water, but I really strictly believe that many of the money, a lot of the money going in your pension fund is coming from city workers who deliver water services. So, I think we need to be very careful and I'm sure you're sending that message back after a significant loss of a billion dollars. So, thanks very much everybody for that. And I think we have your your presentation is online, Matthew. Is it uh it's posted on our website so people will get to see that. So thanks so much and see you next year at this committee again or no sorry I see you in June because you report directly to government management on various financial aspects. Right. Yes. Thank you. Thanks. Do we need to move receipt on this? Pardon me. I'm happy to move receipt of the item. Yep. Uh deputy mayor's moving receipt. All in favor? Opposed. And that's carried. Thank you. Well, now we have two more since we've dealt with that. We have three more four more. Uh we're waiting for deputy mayor Cole. We're going to just move to EV charging now. And we have How many deputants do we have there, Matthew? One, two, one. One. Oh yes. Uh item 28.3 approach to public electric vehicle charging three-year plan. Uh and that is Hamish Wilson, one speaker. Thank you. Uh thank you. I'll try and be brief. As good as electric vehicles are and as cars are, uh, an electric vehicle is still a car. I'm sorry. So, wait till he gets his presentation up. You have your presentation here. Uh, not too much of one. Uh, there's that. Um, about a half a million pounds of raw materials have to be mined and processed to make a battery for an electric car. That's a lot. So, when we're thinking that green cars are electric cars, I'm sorry, I don't think there's such a thing. A half million pounds, this is a book by uh uh um Daniel Jurgen. Uh he's quite a a good expert. He's reputable. But a half million pounds and it's not here and it's probably not renewably done. It's probably with that tonnage, it's probably using fossil fuels. Um so um we shouldn't be thinking that uh uh uh cars are the electric cars are quite so green. The other thing is on equity transport equity uh cars tend to be subsidized anyway in my view. Uh this being an old stat uh from 1996 uh from Vancouver they figured out that the public subsidy enjoyed by the private automobile amounts to 2700 per automobile per year or about seven times the amount we subsidize public transit. So pardon me but uh maybe we subsidize cars enough already. Perhaps we should be thinking of uh setting up uh electric bike charging depots and storage depots overnight in various locations as a gift to the food couriers maybe. So they don't and that might free up the transit a little bit as well. Uh although bikes are bulky, but that might be a better way if you're going to give um things away. Uh may I suggest? But yes, cars, you know, electric cars, they are better. uh they still contribute with tire dust. So if you're concerned about microplastics, tire dust is one of the major contributors, unfortunately. So you'll probably go ahead and do this because yes, electric cars in an urban environment do tend to be smoother and quieter and cleaner, uh but they're still a car. Thank you. Thank you very much. Okay. Now, we're going to bring this into committee for I can't get having trouble running this. It's not stopping. Matthew told you nothing works in here now. Okay, this timer is Oh, now it's gone to zero. Great. All right, there's probably some interest in the EV charging. Do you questions of staff now on to that? No. Yes. Anybody else on EV charging? I will. I have questions, counselor. I'll start. Oh, I can't take it. This thing isn't working. Thank you. Um, there's a number of charts here which are great. that come from earlier TPA information, but uh they don't match. So, your green pea lots doesn't have the same kind of information that the street parking has. Are you able to bring to council something that would indicate the revenues from both the charging and green peas and the revenues for charging on street and the cost to put in the on street chargers? Yes, chair. We can update in advance of council to include all of that information. We're way over there. Okay. Thank you. And it does appear to me from attachment image three that there are some sections of the city, one of them might be your ward counselor pastor neck that has um a lot of registrations because you TPA on the advice of former board was sent to look at who's purchased them. So this is registered EV vehicles in the city of Toronto. Correct. That's correct. And so Tobico North and either Willowdale or your ward councelor Pastnac has quite a swath basically 1300 to 2,000 registrations in those sections of that ward which is quite high. And then councelor Mley you've got quite a bit in Tobico and out in Melvin and Scarro and all along the Dawn Valley and in some sections. Would you be able to opine that those are areas that have garages where somebody who buys an electric vehicle has an easy place to charge that? I would agree that that definitely is a factor. Ease of charging is one of the main elements. So these are the built form is one of uh built form definitely has an impact on ability to adopt EVs and so the numbers uh if you don't have a place to charge it you're probably not going to you're going to be a little more careful about buying your EV. That's correct. that is that is something we hear and is well known um as impacts on people's ability to adopt or interest in adopting and market surveys what market surveys were done because we have as you can see from the charts the uh some of the EV charging in the green pea lots while taking up quite a bit of parking also has maybe 4% 3% 5% utilization it's quite shocking actually so What work was done prior to with the installation because it's a uh 9 million I forget how many million what was the cost of all that installation in the green pe uh I believe to date investments are around $20 million in capital $20 million so market market survey would have been clear before you basically took spots away from regular parking that you had an ability to have a lot of people use Is that done? I don't believe market survey was done. We did a the city through my division uh did a market survey in October of or the fall of 2024. Uh and we're also planning now to do additional ward specific surveys to add to the data, but I don't believe there were specific market surveys done in advance of the work uh that my division's undertaken. $20 million was spent by the parking authority and then with a utilization rate quite low for I forget how many spots and then for the on street whether I just come on street green peer permit they're very high the uh sometimes 20 30% utilization much higher than than in the lots would you agree with that yes that's what the data shows but there is not in those areas with permit parking there are not very many street permits. Do you have a way of looking at where those are needed? Because that as part of our plan, we will be looking at all sites. So we'll be looking at all potential opportunities. So this will go uh really beyond what has been done in the past and we'll take in a lot more dynamic information as well as as per our proposal uh working with a proponent who has expertise specifically in this area. um to look at charging. So you're under you you also know that in the budget in I think 2023 that the cost of a permit was increased in order to be able to help fund EVs and permit parking areas which uh I'm not sure what how much that was or what the amounts are. So, will you be able to tell us by council the amount of uh money that comes in from permit parking areas including fines? Yes, we can. Correct. And there's only five stations that are suggested permit parking stations between in this plan uh in 2026 to 2030. And I would like to know how we're going to increase that because that uh I couldn't believe it when I read that. So those stations were previously identified stations. Under this new plan, we'll be doing uh reviewing all of the work that we're doing and reviewing existing locations um and existing deployment to look at the optimal uh mix of of parking. So we will be that is kind of what had been identified previously. We will be redoing the work and looking at uh how to grow that in all those areas. And how much will you be doing and how much would the provider be doing? Ivy. So the governance would have us working jointly together. uh we would bring all of our information, all the considerations from council, everything we're hearing from the board and then they would bring their basically building by building technical modeling that they do to bring that all together to identify sites and we would be able to have a subcommittee should we want on EVs at this committee from of this committee. Correct, clerk? Yes. I'm so sorry. We could have a subcommittee on electric vehicles uh from the infrastructure and environment committee if we so wished. Yeah. establish. Thank you, Councelor Saxs. Thank you very much. Um, yes, thank you, Mr. Nolan, for this report. Um, first of all, as you and I discussed over the weekend, uh, you could put together a supplementary report before council that puts in one place the goals and objectives of the public EV charging strategy. Yes, absolutely. Realize it's not very clear. It's contained in a lot of different reports, documents, council adopted direction. We can pull that together into one report which is yes, absolutely. Um, secondly, one of the potential roles of EV charging in the city of Toronto is to use birectional charging to support the grid at peak hours. Um are you agreeable to and in your annual report give us an update on the technology and the ability to start using this uh this approach? Yes. Uh we can do that. That that uh that's not an issue for us at all and gives us an opportunity to look at ways to to further benefit from uh the EV charging network in the agreement that you're proposing to sign. uh you you've specified that uh you'll prevent dynamic charging to basically gouge consumers. Um but is it open in this agreement to use pricing to encourage charging at off peak hours? Uh we've talked in the electrification report next about the need to shift load to off- peak hours. Is the does this will this agreement include the the capacity to use pricing for that purpose? uh to the chair, yes, it would we would we would work with uh the uh the proponent and through the governance table determined to ensure again that it's uh not something that has kind of a negative impact on consumers but really is around increasing charging meeting city goals across the board. Uh, one of the things that you and I have discussed uh, repeatedly over the last few years is alternative approaches to providing the power for EV charging such as the approach used by its electric in the United States where they u get their power from a from an a budding building. Have you considered that and how is it incorporated in this report? So this report focuses on that uh that agreement with uh with a proponent for kind of the broader scale. We continue to look at at other opportunities. I will say one of the aspects that's included in this report are things like incorporation of battery storage systems with charging that enables uh a reduction in in kind of the need for electricity upgrades. You're able to take less from the grid but store it but still provide fast charging. So this looks at all different ways to actually deploy EV charging in a in a way that's beneficial, right? But but as I understand it, this is for standalone charging with direct connections to the grid. Will this agreement also allow the it's electric type of approach where a building provides the feed? Yeah, it there's no limitations around that. Um, we would just work through what that what what that might look like, but the the the uh agreement doesn't limit us looking into those opportunities. Do you need direction from council in order to continue to investigate that opportunity? Preliminary US experience suggests that it can be a less expensive way of providing charging. I I don't think so. I think I've got a few different directions from council in this regard and it is part of the work that we're doing. Okay. So, you don't need further direction. Um then in terms of sighting, you you had a number of questions from from my colleague about sighting. Certainly my experience in my ward is that my advice on locations was ignored and the result has been terrible. Um what is the process that you you propose to have to allow counselor input, community input on sighting and to relocate the badly cited uh chargers that are getting almost no use. So I would say that the broadly the process is outlined in attachment two. Um but part of the process will be kind of that early engagement with counselors, with residents and others, establishing dedicated ways for people to communicate their charging needs with us. That will go into the identification of all potential sites and then you know some sites will fall off because of constraints. We will then go back out in advance of any approval to uh reconnect with counselors on what sites we are looking at. So there'll be multiple opportunities for those discussions. And again we are looking at um uh all potential opport locations. So we're taking a broader view potentially than has been in the past through my group. Let me get one more question in. Can you will you have a process for the public to nominate locations? We will we'll have both direct ability to nominate them to us and go into that information we bring forward as well as we'll be doing kind of more ward specific surveys. So actually going out to the public to ask questions in addition to having them come to us. Thank you. It's now 12:30, so I think uh we'll break and then come back for our Oh, sorry. Two Well, if I can just extend for two minutes to do two quick items. Councelor Pastnac, we'll do our speaking and motions on the EVs when we get back right away and then go to the next item. So, councelor Pastnack, did you wish to release? Yes, I do have two quick releases. These are both sort of in infrastructure logistical issues. in my ward. Uh we word smmith with staff to make sure uh that uh that they could be easily uh fulfilled. So I'm going to be deleting uh so on item number 13, deleting my original recommendation and replacing it with uh compromise wording. uh it is on the screen and this is uh making sure uh that the Wilson Village BIA and that area is restored to its to its previous construction condition in a timely manner. Uh there's Okay, we're good. Everybody good with that? All right. So, we have to do we have to approve his deletion uh replacement and then the item. So, okay. Okay. So, approving your amendment to your motion and then you're going to move that motion. I'll move the amended motion and on number 14 similar as amended. Sorry. Item is amended. Okay. Item is amended. Thank you. All in favor. That's good. It's passed. And just very quickly, this also was an infrastructure issue which needs some modification. Uh the original motion I had had some word smithing. Thank you to staff for helping out on this. I think the uh our vendor will be happy too. Um, so I'm uh I'm moving the deletion of my original motion and the and then secondly the adoption of of the amended motion. You had some help and once you put them in I can see that. So you're moving the uh deletion all in favor of deletion replacement. Thank you. And then motion as amended. All in favor? That carries. Thank you very much. So we will adjourn until 12:30. Thanks every much everybody. Oh, sorry. 1:30. Till 1:30. Let's do that instead. Okay. Thank you. Pardon me. One minute lunch. No, we're going longer. Oh, yeah. Okay. And we have one more needed. Is online. Fantastic. Do we have the other quorum? Nope. We have two. The deputy mayor is online. Thank you so much. Now we have quorum and we're going to move to speakers on the EV. And I think councelor Sachs, she wanted to speak. Thank you. Yes, I have a motion. Um, it's coming. It's in due course. Um, the report and again, thank you to staff for all the work to get us to this point. Uh, the report includes a number of references to the goals and objectives of the strategy without ever saying what the goals and objectives of the of the program are. Um I think we should have a supplementary report specifying what the goals and objectives are. So then when we get the annual report we'll be able to measure them against the goals and objectives. Very uh lawyerly of me. What can I tell you? Um the second thing is that we should be keeping a close eye on the opportunity for birectional charging. Again, the clean air alliance has done an enormous amount of work for the last number of years pointing out that as battery deployment explodes and a lot of those in cars. Um it gives us an opportunity to reduce the cost of the electricity system because so much of the cost of the electricity system comes in a fairly small number of peak hours. And yes, I know the general adjustment is negative at the moment, but we still have very large peak costs. So, this is an important opportunity and it's something that we need to keep on top of. Um, in addition, I'm going to bring another motion at council. It's not ready yet. Um, which is in response to um issues raised by Taff. the atmospheric fund um did an excellent report last year on obstacles that the city creates to uh installation of EV charging infrastructure primarily by the private sector. Uh so what we're talking about today is public charging that the city is going to support on public land but the objective is for this to provide 10 to 15% of our charging. So the other 85% has to come from somewhere else. And we're and that's on top of whatever home charging people have. So we do want to encourage property owners to be able to host EV charging on their property and um so the TAF has indicated a large number of issues that get in the way of that many of which we could change. So um I will be I've uh working with Mr. Nolan and his team to develop wording for that motion but it's not ready today. So I'll be bringing it for council. Uh other than that absolutely I agree with Hamish uh that a car is a car no matter what its motor is and cars take up an awful lot of space and have many other problems. Um having people go back to our congestion management plan. Walking, transit, cycling has to come first before any kind of vehicle. Um and as we can see in our streets, all kinds of things can be done with two wheels. you don't need to have four or eight or 10. But for those vehicles that are needed, uh electric vehicles uh do help us go a long way in terms of reducing air pollution, climate pollution, noise, and we need to support that by making the charging possible. Um my ward is one of the ones with the highest number of garage orphans. So, a lot of people who would like to who have currently have a fossil fueled vehicle would rather have an electric vehicle have nowhere to charge. And we're not going to solve that problem um since we don't allow parking pads. The only way we can solve that problem is by providing more public charging. And that has to get better. So, thank you for the report. I'm supporting the report. I have my two amendments. I will have the one additional one at council but uh slow progress. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you counselor. Is there anybody else who wishes to speak on EV charging? Deputy. No, neither deputy. Welcome Deputy Mayor Cole. Nice to see you. We held your item for you today. Thank you for holding. Um, I'm just going to speak for a minute because I have a whole number of motions that uh have been on this road for a while having been on the former board of the parking authority and uh have some motions here I'd like to have displayed. Anthony, did you want to speak on this item? I just see you up now. No, no, no. I'm I'm not. All right. Just wanted to check. Um, are they up the motions? Anyway, there's charts there that show the utilization rate, the costs for green pea lots and then there's ones that show for street parking. That's Greenpe Street and Greenpe permit parking and um councelor Saxs, you mentioned of course you have a lot of green pee uh street parking, permit parking, which I do as well. So I'd like to see those those charts match looking at revenues looking at the same type of information. Uh there is a says market surveys support the demonstrated EV uptake as well as the results. So I'd like to actually hear more about that when we get to council because I think this is pretty pretty foundational what's going to happen here. The documentation regarding access because not everybody has access. We showed that map earlier. That's one of the appendices in the report and going great in Malvin and Rexdale and other places with garages. It's far more difficult if you don't have access. How about the low utilization rates at the at the green pea lots? And I think now that TPA is um its board is is city staff that that's something that really needs to be looked at because they may be taking revenue from other parking spots such as the one on Arendelle which definitely does its very low utilization. I'd like to know what were the factors that led to install only 109 street ports. That's all there are compared to a thousand or so of the green pea lots. Low utilization. Street ports have very high utilization as was mentioned earlier. And then the level of oversight by the funer on the implementation of the TPA EV plan and advice to the former TPA board on its role because of the number of low utilization stations that are there, including the fact that they've now been eclipsed by faster charging stations. Looking at including between 100 and 200 new street installations and permanent parking areas and councelor Sachs, you may increase that at council. And then all the annual revenues from permit parking areas including sale of permits and fines. The amounts been raised for installation by the uh decimated increase. No dedicated wasn't desiccated. It's it's dedicated increase that we put on all permits in order to be able to fund more EVs. So that's quite comprehensive just because I've been watching this for quite a while and I see that the ID group is actually OPG and Hydro1. So that's those are stable long-term nonprofit customers so far and um or drivers or entities of the provincial government. So, that's very helpful and I believe they're going to take on a lot of the risk, but we really do have to drive these. There are so many things that are still missing in a it's a fabric, but there's a lot of holes and I'm looking forward to these being filled fairly quickly as part of this contract or of the tender that in particular the low utilization rate at Greenpe lots is very concerning. The fact that they aren't fast chargers mean that they'll probably remain low. So, how many spots are actually sterilized that could be used for revenue generation? And then the fact that there's so few so few chargers on I'll call them internal streets. It's one thing to have them on arterios like Jones, but it's another on Little Cadam. they have a very high high utilization rate about 30%. And Jones which is you have to go out you're out in the traffic has about 10. So neighborhood charging seems to be what people like. Um it's not easy to do and I understand that Toronto Hydro has a difficulty with that. So, I would just tell our DCM that I'm looking forward to hearing more about that at council that what are the obstacles to that besides cost because really what we're trying to do is have people convert to EVs for all kinds of reasons. So, it has to be simple. They have to have access and let's see what some of this data brings us later. Thank you. Those are my motions. Okay. Bringing it into committee. Uh, councelor Pastnik, are you okay? I'm just a little overwhelmed by your motion. Um, questions for Could I ask questions for the mover? Sure. Have Have you discussed this with our with our staff that this is a reic objectives? Many times when I was on the board of TPA and after many many times. Yeah. So, this what you're asking for is realistic. Yes. I don't know if you scroll down further, but is there a report back date to council? Just prepare these materials. I think that there's between now and council. Yeah. Okay. All right. No, I used to say that I'm on so many working groups uh that I can't get any work done. Uh and I know that if we keep asking staff for more reports, the same quagmire will occur. Just thank you for your observation. The data that I'm asking for should be already in the report, counselor. Okay. That's uh that's it's deficient from what came from uh I believe from the TPA. All right. Well, that's reassuring. Good. Happy to reassure you. Okay. You can vote against it. I don't hold it against you. No problem. Okay. We're going to bring this in for a vote. Uh Councelor Saxs, you have your motions. There we go. Everybody sees those and they were tabled already. All in favor? Opposed? Carried. And then you have my motions for council with more information that should be easily easily available. And uh we've discussed these many times. Correct. Many. All right. Thank you. All right. All in favor? Opposed. And that's carried. So, the item as amended. All in favor? Opposed? That's carried. Thank you. That's it. We're going to do now that you're here, uh, Deputy Mayor Cole, I said we'd hold 28.2 until you arrived because it is redesigned the study of the intersection of Edgington Avenue West and Allen Road. And I know that you put this on the agenda a while ago. And we have two speakers, Adam Rogers and Michael Longfield. Is Adam here? Oh, Adam's online. All right, Adam, you have three. I'm online. Okay, great. Thank you for joining us. You have three minutes. Perfect. Thank you. All right. So, um I'll keep this short because I know there's a lot to come on after me. So, uh first I attended the most recent session on this online and I I do commend this the uh city staff and the local counselors for the amount of work they put into this. This is a tricky file and fundamentally as pretty much everyone agrees the fundamental problem is having a highway and uh right at a uh a like a local collector street or whatever you want to call it major street uh funneling all that traffic has caused a lot of problems and unfortunately our enlightened thinkers many years ago didn't get realize we should stop the Spadina Expressway early enough so we have this um end result. Uh so what I just wanted to speak to was what I thought wasn't really addressed uh so far in this report. Um and what it what I found was a little lacking also in the the session I saw was it the the concerns for those folks outside of a car. I I do appreciate we have to work on improving traffic flows, reduce uh infiltration within the local streets, and that's all great, but for those pedestrians and cyclists outside of the cars, I feel like the report doesn't really speak to their situation on the on the ground. And particularly what I wanted to highlight is that during the report uh it's it's mentioned that um so as we know uh there's the uh Egladen for Eg was approved two almost two years ago this May. Uh it's still supposedly going to be installed. I I'll address that later. But we found out during this report that uh according to city staff uh there is about a uh what was it 650 meter portion of the bike lane will not be installed until after this project. That's the portion between Egun between Baurst and Allen Road approximately and and as I think anyone who's ever biked in the area would say that's probably one of the most dangerous portions of the whole Egllington for for cycling. So what I would want to hope is I I appreciate you know you don't want to make too many radical changes to the road while you're studying this but is there any intram measure we can to le at least make a little bit more safe in the short term while we pause it even if even is as simple as lines on the road uh to demarcate the uh the cyclist from the rest of the traffic. Um I will also mention that um uh to to continue on the the Egllington uh bike lane. Uh so I I and I I've spoken to this but of other people who use the this uh portion of Eg and I think we all agreed it's understandable that we delayed installing the Egllington bike lane across uh this area until after the um the opening of the Egllington LRT. Well, the Egun LRT is open and we still don't have any updates. I think it's about time that the city gives us a clear uh timeline of when this is going to be installed. And if we have to delay a portion of the bike lane until after, let's get that all out in writing. Let's get this done. We we already we already have Can you wind up please? Oh, so sorry. Sorry. Yeah. Anyway, and one other thing I want to say, uh, thank you for the hard work and, uh, hopefully we can speak to Agington bike lane being installed. Sorry, I don't have the timer in front of me. My apologies. No, that's okay. No problem. Thank you very much. Any questions here? the deputent. No, thank you for joining us today and being patient. Appreciate it. And then we're coming up to our next deputent who is Hang on. I've got you right here. Michael. Michael Longfield. Michael, did you go online or are you still here? No, maybe he's gone. Calling once. Michael, twice, Michael. Yeah, we don't see three times. Michael, you're not online or in the room. So, thank you for making the attempt. Uh, and then I'm going to bring this into committee. So, are there questions of staff on this? Deputy mayor, do you have some questions for the staff? Yes. Um, first of all, um, in terms of uh at what point are we in this study now? And when are we going to reach uh sort of another milestone in this study that we can share with the public? Thank you for the question counselor through the chair. Uh the study has launched a consultant is on board. There was a initial session with the community including in your award and hills or matlo's award updating on recent traffic condition changes in the area. We we presented the status of the study at that and over 400 people attended that online meeting. And this spring uh there will be a meeting to further uh define the long list of options that will be studied through this process that the community will be invited to attend as well. To comment on the draft evaluation criteria will also take place at that meeting. uh is u the bus uh usage and um the TDC deploying of buses after the opening of the LRT are they the number of buses uh they're using on that Eglon 32 is that the same or diminished? It's significantly diminished. Um there were dozens of buses an hour in the in the previous time before. What was that? Sorry. There were dozens of buses an hour in the previous time before the cross town opened and now there's only a couple. Okay. Uh have there been any um traffic counts after the long uh awaited opening of the cross town? Uh we do have some initial data that I expect will be presenting at the next public meeting when as we talk about the status of the study. Uh it does show that conditions for traffic flow along Egun um are improving from when the cross town prior to it opened. So in other words, there's less automobile traffic uh on Eglinton near the Allen I guess east west since the cross town opened. Certainly. And sorry, I'll just correct the number. I said dozens. It was actually 19 buses per hour previously and it's down to three. Um so def certainly a significant reduction. Traffic flow is better but at the Allen there's no question that improvements are going to be needed to um because of how much traffic is coming off of the Allen into the community. And so that's why the study is underway to improve the impact of that uh interchange on the community traffic flow. Uh the uh former Green Peing lot that was used as a staging site for the tunneling uh it is now back operational, is it not? At the north uh east corner of the Allen and uh Egleton, I'm not certain if that is operational. I'm just checking if my team can provide that, but I I do know that it's subject to future redevelopment. Uh I think it is operational and I think I'll trust your judgment on that then counselor. Thank you. And it is not uh subject to future development proposal was there was sheld. So anyways, um because I'm just wondering uh the the use of that parking lot, how it's going to impact uh the uh turning uh on and off the Allen Road there at Eglinton and whether or not that u piece of property there could be better used to some relieve some of the traffic congestion issues. So So I'll follow up with that later. Okay, that's that's all. Thank you. Thank you counselor. Are there any other questions staff on the item? No. In this case, we'll bring it in for speakers. Did you have a motion or you wish to speak? No, no, I don't have a motion, but um uh I just want to thank uh first of all all the uh community members that have taken an active part in uh dealing with uh probably one of the most uh contentious uh traffic areas uh in the city um where you have a um a highway uh dead ending in a residential area as I think the speaker said. Um, Adam, I think he said that um they didn't stop the Spadina soon enough. In other words, they let it go down all the way to Egun and assume the cars were going to disappear at Egun, but they have not disappeared. So, we can't rewrite that history, but um that is uh what we're faced with. Uh so the uh anyways the community u in councelor Matlo's area my area have really been involved as councelor Matlo staff my staff especially uh Andy uh and my staff has really um spent uh a lifetime uh working on this time uh but uh anyways there there's been great patience involvement by the community on both sides of uh the Allen on this and both sides, excuse me, of Eglinton to North and South. It is a perplexing challenge and I know every time a new traffic engineer moves into the community, they phone me up and they say, "Oh, I've got the solution. Why don't you make this turn a little shorter and why don't you allow the road to be widened here?" I think I've gotten about 500 of these recommendations over the years about how to solve the problem. And it's great to see people are interested with these solutions. But when you have essentially 100,000 cars dumped into a residential neighborhood, as councelor Pastor Knack and his mother and his father know, uh this is a real challenge. Anyways, I just want to thank the uh uh deputies, thank the community and staff for this very, very daunting task. Thank you. Thanks. And with that, uh, you're moving the recommend receipt. Yes. Uh, just very briefly. Yes. I'm I am quite I'm sorry. Yes. Your mother representing your family. Okay. Just I just thought I' I'd clarify. Full disclosure, my parents vigorously fought the Allen Expressway. Um, but at the time I was 10, so I don't know how much impact I had. Now, cancelling the expressway uh was a good thing. Figuring out what to do uh with the cars as they hit Egun was never really come to a logical conclusion and that's why you have the chaos there. So, everyone's trying to get off of Eg. They cut through the neighborhoods and there's enough signage there uh to only the truly experienced can get through the neighborhood and back onto Egun. Full disclosure, I have used that very secret route uh to get back onto Egun to try and get back on Allen North. Um I I wish the local counselors good luck uh with this because as they do acknowledge, there's been so many ideas over the years and you're in a very confined space to to create uh good traffic flow in that area. you've just got too much funneling north and south trying to get on the Allen trying to get off the Allen and in a very constrained way. There's um there's a police station there, there's a synagogue there, there's the Green Peak parking lot and then there's low-rise uh residential uh to the west. So you've got very little movement for for grand ideas, but hopefully capable staff can work in a micro environment and come up with solutions that move people and cars uh in and out of that area. Thanks. Thank you. Um if we could if you could post all your secret routes, I think that would be very popular. Um because we all have them. We know our areas very well. Thank you very much. I think that's it. So, councelor, deputy mayor Cole, you're moving the recommendations there. Yes. Okay. All in favor? Opposed? And that's carried. And uh Deputy Mayor Morley isn't 100%. So, if you fade out, we understand completely. We'll manage without you somehow, but we will. Thank you. Okay. Now, we're going to move on to IE 28.4, 4 the electrification advantage and um just before we don't have a presentation but there are two things that I'm going to make sure happen one is that everybody knows and this wasn't posted until uh the weekend that this report also addresses the recommendations from 26.14 which many people are familiar with which was December 5th which got referred the council about the IRP being compatible and whether or not Toronto High could undertake its own energy plan. So that answer is right up top. And before we start, I know there's a campaign about peak park peak perks and wind and a few other things and I thought it would be very helpful just to make sure that everybody is using their time very wisely if Mr. Nolan could just address those elements as to how much control we have as a committee or a city over any of those items. Can we dedicate require peak perks? Can we now do wind studies? What what can we or can't we do based on that campaign? Because I think we're going to have a lot of speakers and the letters address that. So, thank you. Before we start, just so the deputants understand what the parameters are that we have here at this committee and at this city. Thank you, Madam Chair. It's Peruta. My signal is a little weak, so I'm going to shut off my camera, but I'm here. You need to be performed. Just just shut out. Your sound is fantastic right now. Whatever you did to it over the lunch break. It really worked. Okay, we know you're there. I just cleared it up, Madam Chair. Okay, that's great. Thank you. We know you're there. We have quorum. Okay, Mr. Nolan, thank you. Oh, thank you, Chair. Um I'm happy to provide some upfront context on the work to develop the electrification advantage report by my de my division Toronto Hydro and the Atmospheric Fund uh who I'm joined uh by today as well. Um and also some city staff perspectives on some of the requests that council will have seen related to future work. So, as a reminder, the report responds to various directions, I think, as you noted from December. Um, and really is a report back on actions to support electrification and to meet council's adopted position on the need to phase out the Portland's energy center, which has impacts on air quality, greenhouse gas emissions, and also impacts the potential heightened density of development in areas near that facility. Uh so as such the report focuses on the suite of actions to support these goals and future work as outlined in the recommendations including regular reporting uh will identify further date details on implementation of these actions including more modeling related to uh targets uh for actions as it relates to uh the kind of three specific requests. Did want to provide a little bit of of context. Um so as relates to peak perks so the peaks peak perks program uh and additional support such as rebates for smart thermostats are administered by the province uh through the independent electricity system operators save on energy program and are based on voluntary uptake. Um in the report we do talk about identifying opportunities to support increased uptake in the program uh through promotion and also by connecting that promotion to our existing programs. Um and so while we can support uptake uh to meet a target uh I would note that it is a provincial program and therefore the overall success will depend on the administration by the province of the program and the financial supports uh they have in place as it relates to solar. Um as I mentioned earlier this report uh given the timing that we had to get it in does not include specific modeling uh related to achieving targets uh by 2030. Um and uh that is something that we will be undertaking especially as we develop our report backs. Uh we will not just be looking at solar though we'll be looking at uh all distributed energy resources that supports electrification batteries demand response and how they work together. And finally as it relates to offshore wind just wanted to note that a provincial moratorium on offshore wind has been in place since 2011. Um we have no indication the moratorum is being reconsidered during the integrated regional resource plan process. We did request that the ISO uh look at offshore wind as a potential source um but it was not uh included given uh that the moratorium was in place. I'd also note uh the beds of the great lakes are provincial public lands managed by the ministry of natural resources. So even if the moratorum was lifted, it would be the province who determines the approach uh for the use and for any applications to use that land uh for renewable energy um and uh the previous approach that was in place by the province was first come first served. So there was no prioritization for for any entities, municipalities or others. And lastly, as it relates to offshore wind, the other note I would have is that the province does not have any technical sighting criteria um that would support analysis of locations. So any any work that could be done at this time would likely be high level uh and subject to any future technical requirements um that would be identified. Thank you for that opportunity, chair. Thank you very much. And now we'll move to deputations. I am going to shift this a tiny bit and call Richard Vanderott. He is looking after his mother at home and needs to know when he's speaking. So, we're going to help him out. Uh, and he's online right now. Is he there? Is he on camera or simply on phone? He's calling in. All right. Is he there yet? He needs to unmute. Richard, could you please unmute? Okay, Richard is not unmuting. So, um, we'll just move to the top of the list then and ask Jack Gibbons from Ontario Clean Alliance, Clean Air Alliance. Thank you. Go ahead. Put on your microphone, Jack. Green button. Is it on? It was on. It's very, very sensitive. Okay. Perfect. So, thank you very much for the opportunity to talk with you this afternoon about Mr. Nolan's report. As his report notes, there are multiple benefits from reducing gas burning at Portlands by investing in energy efficiency and local renewables. The benefits include first reduce smog and and climate pollution. Uh second, reduced outflow of Toronto dollars to the USA to to purchase fossil gas. Third, uh increased energy security. Uh fourth, more good jobs in Toronto. And fifth, uh lower electricity bills. And as you may know, Ontario Power Generation is seeking permission from the Ontario Energy Board to increase its price of nuclear energy by more than 70% next year. On the other hand, we can lower the energy bills of Toronto's electricity consumers by investing in much lower cost energy efficiency and local renewables. In fact, by investing in energy efficiency in wind and solar power, we can lower the energy bills of all Ontario electricity consumers by avoiding the need for much higher cost uh nuclear power. Now, the good news is that Mr. Nolan's report has uh identified numerous cost-effective actions that the city can take to promote energy efficiency and renewables. Unfortunately, his report does not include timelines and targets and and that's a problem because we need ambitious targets and timelines to make electricity as affordable as possible as soon as possible for Toronto's uh families and businesses. So, I'm here today to ask you to supplement Mr. Nolan's report with the following uh three targets and timelines. First, uh, please ask staff to develop a plan to increase the participation rate of the peaks per program to 90% by January 2030. Second, please ask staff to develop a plan to increase local solar generation uh to two by 2.8 billion kilowatt hours per year by January 2030. And please ask third, please ask staff to do a preliminary feasibility study about potential locations and the costs and benefits of an Lake Ontario offshore wind farm. I think my time's up. Thank you. Are there questions for Mr. Gibbons? Go ahead, Diane. Yes, Jack. Uh, I know we cut you down to three minutes. Was there something else you wanted to tell us? Well, well, just a bit about the the offshore wind farm. Uh, as we know, uh, some people don't like looking at wind turbines, but if they're located 10 to 15 kilometers offshore, they'll be virtually invisible from the from the land. And therefore it's imposs it's important to look at multiple locations and uh and the costs and benefits of multiple locations to determine if this is a feasible option and a pragmatic option that city could advocate to the province to lift the moratorum in order that we could all benefit from the lower electricity rates that could be uh provided by offshore wind. Do you have some statistics? You know, it'd be very hard to build offshore wind in deep water. Uh, and Lake Ontario gets quite rough. Do you have any statistics on what the cost would be as compared to the cost of the nuclear the province is building? Well, we do have statistics. We did a report about uh offshore wind and it's it's about half the cost of new nuclear according to our report. And in terms if it's in deep water, it would would have to be a floating turbines uh floating wind turbines. And again, that's what we need is the feasibility study to look at the different locations far offshore or close to shore and and look at the benefits and the costs of these different options so we can make the city can make an evidence-based decision about whether it should advocate to the province to lift the moratorum. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. questions. Pardon me. No, I have a few questions. Um, there was uh the last meeting and I know that you were concerned that we didn't approve that motion 26.14 and staff have now answered that that the IRP is not incompatible with the cities. Are you did you were you able to read that section of the new report, Mr. Given? Sorry, councelor Fletcher. I did read the report, but I'm don't quite understand your question. Well, my question is that one of the things in this report is a clarification of the referral motion for which I and four other members were uh chastised for sending that referral, but there's answers there. Have you read the answers? Yes, I've read the answers, and I don't think there's anything in Mr. Nolan's report I disagree with. Uh my understand he answered the referral which was that the IRP was not compatible with the city's climate change plan and Mr. Nolan has said clearly that it's not incompatible with the city's climate change plan. Did I this was posted late so I need to make sure you've been able to see that and everybody else who's making a deputation today. Well, I I don't uh the the in my opinion, the ISO's plan uh was not responsive to the city's request. The city requested a plan to to phase out Portland's by 2035 and they didn't come forward with such a plan. And so that's why we're here today advocating for this the city to do more. Yes. But I'm just asking should did you read that part of the report that indicate was part of the referral councelor Sax's motion that I know people were unhappy we referred that that it's explained here. That's the city staff's position about whether Toronto Hydro can do its own energy plan, things of that nature. Were you able to read that? Well, yes, Councelor Fletcher, I totally agree that uh Toronto Hydro uh can't control uh provincial policy and it's the province that makes the decision about whether or not Portland's um operates. I I totally understand that and it the Clean Air Alliance has has never suggested something to the contrary. Right. Okay. So your flyer that said meet the Toronto councilors who voted for more pollution. Did you want to correct that today? Sorry, what was the quote? The flyer that you sent out or your posting of myself and councelor Chernos Lynn and councelor Pastor Knack and Deputy Mayor Cole that we voted for more pollution in December. Did you want to correct the record or not today? I I think our post the point was that uh you referred um councelor Sax's motion to Mr. Nolan just for consideration. You didn't at that time uh request a report back with an alternative plan and and but now he has done that and and and you voted for that alternative plan and we were very glad that you did. So that didn't answer that question but thank you. I get it. Maybe somebody else will ask that. Thank you. Yes. I'd like to ask Jack, how could you have put that out that uh we voted for more pollution by referring a motion back to Mr. Nolan for more information? How could you put that in a flyer and distribute it all over the city, country, province? All over the province. Well, well, our concern was that you you you just sent it to Mr. Nolan for consideration. There was no request or for him to report back with a plan. So, that's us voting for more pollution by basically referring that for more information. Mr. Nolan has uh given us Yeah. Well, Mr. Nolan has now given a a a report and that's great but that was in response not to the your committee's recommendation but to a subsequent um resolution passed by Toronto City Council. So how could you you know put out this general blast across the province saying that we voted for more pollution on that? I mean, did councelor Saxs vote for more pollution or she is against pollution? Not personalizing it here, council, deputy mayor. Just the position of the council, position of the committee. Just to clarify again in this report that you like, Mr. Nolan has clarified the referral motion and addressed all the issues in the referral motion. But councelor Pastor Knack, you wanted to speak. I think I think my my questions uh have sort of been asked in maybe um a different way, but do you think smear campaigns help the environmental cause? Well, no, but I and I'm I'm sorry, but what we were trying to get across is that we didn't think you were taking enough action uh to promote the phase out of of Portlands. But do you think that approach of of trying to mislead people to think that we supported pollution, do you think that's helpful? Well, what the the the message we were trying to deliver and maybe we didn't deliver it properly was that we didn't think you were taking necessary action to deal with the problem. Uh the ISO had come forward with a report that that that didn't address the request of of the city council to phase out Portlands by 2035. and and and your committee um in our opinion wasn't taking a uh a stand to solve that problem. So, how do you feel about uh issuing an apology for uh your messaging uh without repeating it the the wording and saying that you're satisfied with the work of this committee? Well, we'll see what what the committee does today. I mean, we're still Mr. Nolan's uh presented a report. We don't know whether you're going to approve it. We don't know whether you're going to approve it with the amendments that that that we've recommended. Uh uh but certainly if you did approve it with the amendments that we've recommended, we would certainly praise you. No, I mean apologizing for the email you sent out. Well, I can uh relook at the email, but uh I think and I don't recall it exactly, but I think the big picture of the email was accurate that the the committee um wasn't taking the action that we thought was necessary to actually um reduce pollution from Portlands. I mean, the province's plan is to increase pollution from Portland's and we very strongly believe that there's need for the city to provide leadership to start phasing it out. I mean, you know, when we had the um the plan from the the the Mike Harris government to to sell the Lake View Koulard station in Missaga, which could potentially lead to its pollution being ramped up by a factor of four, uh Mayor Hazel Mallen, uh she fought that very strongly and thanks to her strong leadership, one year later, the Mike Harris government issued a legally binding regulation requiring the FA the the shutdown of that that Kofar generating station. All right. Well, we'll leave it at that, but I look forward to your apology. Thank you, sir. That's your time. I'll just direct you again that those were answered and the requests were considered unfeasible. So, go ahead. Next deputant is Emily Hunter, Environmental Defense Canada. Thank you. And after Emily, it's Melanie Ducket Wilson. Is Emily here or online? Okay, great. That's okay. Hi. Our turn, Emily. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, chair and members of the committee. My name is Emily Hunter, senior program manager for Ontario climate and environmental defense, a national environmental charity headquartered here in Toronto. To us, the electrification advantage report represents important progress by the city, Toronto Hydro, and the Toronto Atmospheric Fund. It recognizes the urgency of electrifying transportation and buildings and the role of distributed energy resources in Toronto's net zero future. That said, we want to support um in full the motion that'll be presented by SAC councelor Diane Saxs. And we also have two additional recommendations we want to present. The first is to develop a redevelopment plan for the Portland Energy Center PEC. While council has committed to phasing out PEC or PEC, provincial policy presents significant challenges that we do fully acknowledge or continue to be a strain and and difficulty in decarbonizing. While Ontario is seeing also a continued resurgence of gas provinially and last fall over 1,800 megawatts of new and expanded gas projects received municipal support resolutions under long-term procurement signal signaling a broader shift towards recarbonizing our gr our grid rather than decarbonizing our grid. Ontario's clean electricity share has already dropped from mid9 90% range to roughly 80 82% range in 2025 largely due to increased gas generation in Toronto. PC or PE also constrains waterfront revival revitalization development. Its emissions limit building heights, delay projects like 115 Salter Street and restrict housing density and economic potential. At the same time, nearby communities face ongoing air quality and health impacts. Not to forget there's rising emissions. Now, PC contracts its contract is coming up for renewal in April 2034. And while the ISOs controls that decision, we understand that the city has clear authority over land use. As the landlord, Toronto has the both the standing and responsibility to plan for the site's future. Thus, we're calling on the city to begin planning now for full redevelopment of the PEC site, enabling a phase out and replacement aligned with climate goals, housing needs, and waterfront revitalization. Second, we can scale distributed energy resources to gigawatt levels. Distributed energy resources or deers offer a critical means as Toronto's ability to generate clean power locally. But this report lacks clear targets. The ISO's local achievable potential study identified over 1,000 megawatts of achievable peak demand savings by 2045. Our analysis shows rooftop solars can generate 4.9 terowatts per hour annually by 2035. You're going to have to wind up. Yeah, that's more than double PC's output. Thus, we recommend that city staff in Toronto Toronto Hydro co-develop a DER strategy with targets of at least 700 to 900 megawws by 2034 scaling to gigawatt level deployment by 2045. Thank you, El. Maybe there's some questions for you. Go ahead, Diane. Uh Emily, I mean, thank you for your passion and your work on this. given the regulatory constraints created by the province and the straight jacket that Toronto Hydro is in with the Interior Energy Board and the Securities Commission uh and the city's you know the city's financial street. So we can't just hand out money to people. So what exactly do you think are the tools that the city is failing to use that would create this flowering of solar flowering solar? Uh well, what we're trying to understand also is that we see a tremendous amount of achievable. No, I'm not asking about achievable potential. We all understand that. The question is what is it that you saying the city is not doing? If people aren't building solar now, it's usually because it doesn't make money under the provincial regulation. We don't we can't hand out money. So what do you think we should be doing that we're not already doing that we have the power to do? Sure. So there are tools as far as we understand there there is funding streams. Um don't talk about money. We don't have money. What else? Okay. But there's funding streams outside of the Toronto that I was going to allude to that we're already asking for. But what are you asking us to do that we're not already doing that we could be doing? Okay. Redevelopment of the PEC site specifically. They don't own it. It's not ours. Okay. Um, the deployment of more DERS would also help to lower the need for PEC and make it no longer a viable economically. Yes. But how what exactly are you asking us to do that would create more distributed energy resources given that we can't hand out money and we can't change the province's regulation electricity rates? So, what is it you're asking us to do? Okay. As far as I understand, Toronto Hydro can and is pursuing becoming a DSO. And under a DSO, we could aggregate more of the DER to a a capacity level that actually is within our reach, would help actually make this technically feasible, politically feasible, and would have helped to scale up renewables in a way that we aren't seeing right now. Okay. It's again something we have to ask the province for, but we don't have now. Okay. If you have other ideas, Emily, please send them to me. Thank you. Great. Thank you. Anybody else? I do have some questions. Um, you said the city has clear authority over land use. I'm sure you've heard of the Ontario Land Tribunal, have you not? Yes. Who has clear authority over land use in the province of Ontario? The provincial government. Am I correct? The end of the day, at the end of the day, it's the provincial government, is it not? I can answer the question. Yes. Feels leading but I can answer it. The Portland's planning. It's leading. It's my question. Yeah. It's not. It's about who has the authority over land use in the province of Ontario for redevelopment of a site. The city or the province the end of the day that's a pretty simple question. Okay. I understand. So the Toronto Portland's company, City of Toronto Corporation is the largest land owner in Portland's by 160 hectares and the PEC operates under a lease under the TP TLC managed land. Oh, I'm sorry. That's incorrect. Okay. Do you not know that's incorrect? You're environmental defense. You're pretty big organization. Who owns the Portland's energy center lands? So a tour is the company that operates it but I had understood that yes there is the provincial jurisdiction but there was also tools those lands. So as I understand it proincially correct but that there was tools that the city could use as well to I'm trying to answer that question. Um, so under I understood the Portland's planning framework adopted by the city of Toronto city council in 2017 and upheld through the Ontarand tribunal decisions gives the city formal planning authority over the Portland's area including the pec site vicinity for zoning. Yeah. So could it not be reszoned? It reszoning who by the owner. The city doesn't reszone lands we don't own. Are you aware of that? Okay. Yes, we can't resone where you live. We can't reszone that with You'd have to reszone that wherever you live. Can I ask a question? No, this is our chance to question you because you've made a number of statements here today. So, just making sure that we're on side and that you understand completely who does what around PE and their lands. So I did and I just understood there was additional tools that the city could use to also ensure that we meet our waterfront revitalization targets and the people living there will not be polluted living in emissions filled atmosphere. That's what I understood. Very good. So are you aware in 2005 the city fought very hard against the Portland's energy center? Yes. And are you aware that the Ontario Clean Air Alliance promoted the the Portland's Energy Center and asked for natural gas at that site? Are you aware of that? I'm not. I'm in a different organization. I'm just asking if you're aware of that. You don't have to. Maybe you're not aware. I'm environmental defense. I'm not them. But yeah. Okay. No, I'm just asking if you happen to be aware because I'll ask other deputants if they're aware. You're not aware? I'm not aware. Okay. Thank you very much. Okay. Thank you so much. Uh Melanie Ducket Wilson. Next. you have your three minutes. Thank you through you, chair. Thanks for this opportunity. I'm going to throw my what I had planned to say out the window a little bit based on the dialogue so far. Um, and I do believe that Toronto City Council and this committee are allies uh to the uh bigger issue at stake here, which is climate change and trying to make a difference. Uh so what I wanted to start with basically is again scientifically reminding us that we are now beyond seven of the nine um planetary uh boundary markers that make it safe for us to survive. We've surpassed the safe zone from seven out of nine and we need to get creative. Um and we I understand that there are definitely parameters uh that this council and this committee need to work with as with Ontario Hydro, as with ISO. um and a lot of it stems from the province. However, I would wager that the influence of Toronto City Council is quite significant when it wants to put its weight behind things even though in the past it might not have been successful with that leverage. Um I think of things right now as far as uh as the Toronto Island piece, the convention center. Uh so we're going to use tons and tons of uh aggregate um soil. Maybe it's going to be from the tunnel to fill in the lake, whatever. But the point is there's considerable influence on in this committee and on this council and expertise and leverage that could be used to try and be more creative and change some of the circumstances. Um, particularly I I throwing out there um I don't have all the answers either. Um, but I'm also a climate advocate and I care for the health across the province. And I speak today from outside of the city, though I am a lover of the city. Uh, from and I speak with the endorsement of climate action New Market Aurora and a Livable Alliance for Ontario York Region. Um, I think about micro grids and I think about the changes that and the perseverance and the challenges that uh, First Nations communities have overcome to get some jurisdiction on their control and self-governance. And so I plead with this council as I do with my own up in New Market and Aurora for us to try and extend the thinking and think of ways like micro grids through solar uh photo uh photovalic u paneling uh like uh potentially again influencing the province to lifting the the moratorium on the uh offshore wind. uh but also looking at things that Toronto is already currently doing extremely well with geothermal and uh these are the sorts of things that we just need to get a little bit more creative in instead of saying and I appreciate what you're saying what we can't do but let's look and talk a bit more about what we can do and uh so I again I appreciate the expertise and the efforts made by this council Toronto I see as a as a frontr runner in this country um and uh with climate activism and I just want to do one last thing. My time is up, but I just want to quote one last thing of what's possible. Um, just let me scroll down to where I had it. Um, there's hope because I read a report recently, a document about the near Bodis Park after digging out meters of highly contaminated soils and waste from the lands of the mouth of the Dawn River. Almost miraculously, the embedded seeds that were weighed down in the ancient soils after the the contamination soil was removed, those seeds have began begun to grow again to create wetland plants um with the longer exposure. And that's absolutely fantastic. And I'm saying we can change things back. We just need to get more creative. Thank you. Thank you. Uh councelor Saxs. Yes. Melanie, I'm going to send extend you the same invitation everyone else. Yeah. If you have specific suggestions for things the city can actually do, please send them to me. Okay. Because that's what I'm always looking for. I mean, we all know what we would like to have happen, but so many of those tools are not within our control. So, if you have specific ideas of things that we could be doing that you think we're not doing, um, Mr. Nolan will tell you I'm always pushing him looking for this. So, but specific things the city can do, send them to me. Thank you. Absolutely. We'll do that. Thank you. Thank Oh, sorry. I have a question for you, Melanie. Sorry. What uh what specifically from your climate change plan in New Market Aurora would you like us to take up here? Suggestions that we're not doing. I would love to see uh solar paneling over parking lots. And I would like Do you have a new market? We're working on that. Yes. It's part of the um the uh official plan um that's moving forward and then in for the green standards. Yeah. And one one other thing as well that uh moving forward is also uh again within the tighter parameters that the provincial government has just laid out particularly with bill 98 coming up um and previously bill 17 but is also looking at where we can implement the mandatory use of EV chargers and or installation of EV chargers and um u potentially solar paneling um in some situations uh for new builds and particularly for government buildings. Thank you. And you do realize that it sounded like you didn't think that our climate change plan was very aggressive. Some people didn't think it was. No, that you don't think it is. Oh, no. I I No, no, that's not true. I I think the report we have in front of us is quite comprehensive to for next step. Right. So, so these are comprehensive components that are Toronto is already advocating for and doing advocating fantastic or doing as well or just advocating. Right. That's excellent. No, I'm asking. Are we installing or are we just advocating? For me to have the information right in front of me, I don't have that information, but I'm glad to hear that it's possibly at the installation stage. Yes. Yes, you'll see. Excellent. Great. I think it's in the report and good luck in Aurora, New Market Aurora. Keep us posted. Thank you. Thank you. Uh Gail Fairley. Gail online or in person? Do we happen to have Richard yet off mute? No, Miss Richard didn't make it. It doesn't seem like Gail is here today. We'll come back to her if she's here. How about Millie Roy, Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment Ontario Regional Committee. And I think Millie is online. Yeah, she's Hi, I'm here. Um, okay. And yes, hello. Go ahead. Okay. Yes. Thank you. So, I'm I'm Dr. Dr. Millie Roy, a physician and Ontario co-chair of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment and the Ontario Climate Emergency Campaign. I thank you for the excellent staff report on the electrification advantage and for today's opportunity to speak. Now, to achieve clean electricity goals, we ask council to boost the peak perks program to 90% market share, expand solar installations on city rooftops, parking, and balconies to generate a target of 2.8 8 billion kilowatt hours annually by 2030 and request Toronto Hydro to do a study on the huge potential of Lake Ontario offshore wind energy. Um, last December I told you why this clean energy transition while phasing out the Portland Energy Center is critical for public health. Portland is Toronto's largest poller driving air pollution in the climate crisis. I noted in December that the climate crisis is the greatest health crisis we face and that air pollution kills over 8 million people annually worldwide, including over 15,000 Canadians. I outlined the massive health risks of fossil fuels, ranging from extreme heat and food and housing insecurity to environmental cancers, birth defects, and still births. and I discussed the risks of asthma and heart attacks, dementia, strokes, and crippling mental health impacts such as depression and suicide. So today, I want to tell you instead how fossil fuels impact one of my many patients with complex autoimmune disorders every day. Climate change and air pollution increase the risk of my patient having an autoimmune disorder in the first place. To avoid blindness, lung and brain damage, she needs immunosuppressive and chemotherapy. But these leave her vulnerable to infection. And meanwhile, climate change is escalating both antibiotic resistance and the majority of infectious diseases, further endangering her health. And today, as a war is literally raging over fossil fuels and spiking the cost of living everywhere, my patient, a newcomer with limited income, is struggling with energy poverty, skyrocketing transportation and grocery bills, all competing with her expensive medicines. She may be one of many patients who deliberately but quietly underdose their drugs, skipping doses to save money at the expense of her own health. Every day she fights not only her complex disease but the added uh health and economic burden of fossil fuels. And every day Portland keeps firing the cost and harms of fossil fuels keep mounting. And every day that this current oildriven war is is rages on is an opportunity and incentive to phase out fossil fuels. And here in Toronto that does start with city staff's excellent report as the blueprint for phasing out Portland. while accelerating renewables that are critical to human health. We thank council and and IEC for all you've done already. Now your votes can secure the renewable energy solutions that will make or break the children the world that our children inherit and future generations will not have that choice. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Any questions for Dr. Roy? Councelor Saxs. Yes, Dr. Roy. Thank you for making time in the middle of what's already, I'm sure, a very busy day for you. You may not have heard me asking everyone else. The we know what we'd like to achieve. What's much less obvious is what the city can do given that we can't hand out money. Um and the regulatory barriers aren't gener. So not this second, but if you have specific ideas for something that you think the city could be doing that would change these results, please email me. I'll be happy to do so. Thank you for being open to that, Councelor Saxs. Thank you. I I'm not sure if you were here to uh hear that. I don't know if you've been listening because you're in your office somewhere quite busy that the city does not own the Portland's energy center lands. That seems to be a confusing point for people nor can we plan those lands that we don't own. So I just wanted to make sure that you understood that around the phase out. it would be replacing the megawatts that are from there which at peak is 500 um rather than us taking charge of the Portland's energy center just yes and and I right and and I think you know what what we're hoping for from CAPE is is to utilize the the very strong public health rationale to advocate to to phase it out um to work with with Toronto Public Health and also in the face of of the fact that the population density in that immediate area is slated for a huge increase so that more people are going to be exposed to these these health harms of fossil fuels. Yes. Apparently, it's going to be phased out with nuclear power uh and all the development that is slated there will be able to go back on track. That's my understanding. Well, we certainly understand that that the timeline and the expense of nuclear is not going to be able to come online. And then of course the you know the the safety and security considerations of of storing nuclear waste and transporting. Um that again there is a strong public health case there to um you know to to take that funding and put it into renewables to energy conservation to our our modern uh energy storage systems and and really you know see that take off and also you know to consider in the face of if we literally look at you know today the the US is threatening to bomb you know power plants in in their so-called uh sort of enemy territory the fact that switching to uh renewable energy systems improves our resilience, our security, our safety and that has huge benefit for human health and well-being as well. I just want to make sure that you understand that the money you're speaking about, the city does not have that money. Those are provincial dollars at the provincial plant that they own that they operate on the land they operate. So even if I'm sure we'd love to have that money and take it, but that's not in our wheelhouse. We we cannot do that. We're looking for other funds we don't fund in that way. So, just to make sure that we're all on the same page when we leave this time because I don't think we were last time. Okay. Thank you so much for being here today and taking time out of your very busy schedule. Thank you. Thank you. Next up, Kate Mills for Our Kids Toronto. Kate, are you here? Online. She's online. Thank you, Kate. Um, one second. Online phone or online camera? Uh, hello. I'm here. Okay. We can't see you. So, you're just on You're here. You're online, right? I'm online. Can you see me now? No, we can't. We can only see all the zeros, which isn't you. We know that. We can't see you, Kate. There you go. Okay, now we can. Very good. Thank you. You know, we're down to 3 minutes for deputation, so please start now. If you can, that's great. Welcome. Welcome. I am so grateful to be here today. I want to thank my W14 counselor Fletcher and counselor Saxs for their leadership on getting the electrification advantage report written and on their opposition to the pollution caused by the Portland Energy Center. As a parent who worries about my kids' future and as the volunteer co-leader of for our kids Toronto, a volunteer parents climate group, I was excited to learn about Peak Perks thanks to the electrification advantage report as an easy way to adjust my future thermostat and save money, plus get rewarded $75 for signing up and $20 every year with the program when I stay in it. I am a set it and forget it environmentalist and I love learning about and implementing actions that I can set up once and I can feel good about as they work in the background of my life. We've changed to an electric car recently and moved to a credit union at our bank are are two examples. My family lives in a condo and currently do not have the necessary thermostat. But this has inspired me to investigate this program on behalf of my entire condo building and present the option to the board. My condo building has shared utilities and it would be awesome if we could lower our monthly energy bills to let others in my community know about Perks. I'm hoping that the city of Toronto will promote the program aggressively. Toronto City Council and Mayor Chow now have so many more good ideas to make green energy changes thanks to the electrification advantage report and with some targets and timelines. These are set it and forget it ways to save money with a little bit of spend that I know many people in Toronto like me will be grateful for. I want these actions for my kids future environment livability and my pocketbook. Thank you. Thank you so much. Any questions for Kate? Thank you and thank you for your great work uh for our kids Toronto. Much appreciated. I think maybe one of your family members is coming up after. Uh Hamish Wilson, did you stay? Hish, there you are. I'm going to do that and then I'm going to put that on. I'm going to ask you, Mike. Councelor Cole, could you come up and take the chair, please? Do you have anything to uh post, Hamish? Yes, please. Okay, we're going to give you a minute to get organized there. No, you don't have to. I don't together. Here we go. All right. Yep. Uh, so this I was very lucky to find an old There you go. Oh, okay. I'll be closer to my very lucky to find an old cartoon um that uh emerged uh from the last time that the there was a a significant oil crisis. And uh yes, it's very appropriate that the much of what we have in our lives is based upon the the the cheap oil. Uh and that's Mr. Carter and M. Thatcher. And I don't know if we really realize just the gap between what our lives are and everything versus what sustainability is. It's really quite a significant gap. Uh, one of the things that we really have to uh wrestle with though is the status of cities and thus of Toronto Hydro and many other things. This was a good globe cartoon after the uh the bad judgment by the Supreme Court. Uh we have to get a different status for cities. We can no longer be creatures of the province somehow. And there's a new book out uh that would be uh good to get into the library systems about all that. Um so that should be an issue for bi-elections. It should be an issue for all the uh the federal politicians uh right now. Uh and what a difference it would make uh to have uh something built in to our uh uh uh well BNA I guess it would be. Um this is from Germany. Uh mindful also of its responsibility towards future generations. the state shall protect the natural foundations of life because basically in the province now, the province of Ontario, we are uh where we're climate criminals and it's it's bad. Uh just as an interesting little thing too as well in terms of trying to have the courage to work sideways and maybe ask the uh the AMO and the FCM what can possibly be done to uh to help uh help us navigate these tricky waters of energy policy when Mr. forward and his his crowd are really trying to smash things up and forwards this backwards. This is now King Charles. This is a call to revolution. The earth is under threat. It cannot cope with all that we demand of it. It is losing its balance and we humans are causing this to happen. So, uh take heart, please try and find some courage to work on these solutions. Uh uh and um we wouldn't it be nice to have made in Canada solar panels. What a concept. Um I strongly support doing different things with with parking lots. Uh but I think what we need to be doing is covering them with solar panels and housing or housing first and make sure that the the panels are or the housing is covered with the uh um solar panels. Um and there's an awful lot of good work to be done that is being done and proposed uh by this uh this electrification and it would be really good for load balancing. Maybe we should also try and somehow work on seeing who is using electric heat in their places because it is cutting butter with a chainsaw to use an Aryovvens. Uh get people off electric heat. Okay. U Thank you very much uh Hamish as always. Appreciate your visual present. I thought you would have me in one of them as usual, but you don't. Okay. Excuse me. We're going to try Richard Vanderat uh on video again. Richard could ask him to unmute his mic. Could you unmute yourself, Richard, please? Star, can you hear me now? Oh, yes, we can. Richard, great. Perfect. Thank you. Okay. Uh, listen, I I really apologize that it's been so difficult to be in touch. I'm actually here at the dentist office, my 103-year-old mother, but um I wanted really to have take this opportunity to speak with you. Um, I'm actually an adjunct professor of medicine in Hamilton, sorry, in Ottawa. and I've been part of a national steering committee for uh planetary change and envir and I've studied for a long time between link the links between adverse environmental exposures and disease and I'm part of a steering committee to develop a national institute for planetary health and a well-being society. I echo what what much of my many colleagues or many people who are like mine who have spoken before me. The global climate is warming due to CO2 levels being at record levels. Indeed, the last 10 years were the 10 warmest years on record. With 2025 being the warmest of all, Canada is warming faster than almost anywhere else on Earth. Although the rest of the Earth continues to warm, the climate crisis is no longer a distant threat. It is accelerating, becoming hotter and more unpredictable, faster than scientists anticipated. Climate warming resulting from the burning of fossil fuels is also causing more frequent and intense heat waves globally. These heat waves threaten the safety, well-being, and prosperity of Canadians, even in cities like Toronto. Globally, the same holds true. The World Health Organization has long ago recognized that climate change is the number one public health threat affecting the the health of many many millions across the world and certainly in Toronto. Air pollution increases respiratory disease and m much of what I'm going to say is in the deposition that you have. So I won't read it all out to you, but I will tell you that many of these impacts are magnified in lower income communities. some of which are in the Toronto district district. Their rising temperatures are also contributing to obstructive sleep apnnea now affecting approximately 15 to 32% of the populace and it often leads to premature deaths. A global study of over 116,000 adults across 41 countries found that extreme heat um increase the odds of obstructive street sleep apnea by 45% on any given night. This translates to nearly 800,000 healthy life years lost and an estimated 32 billion US dollars in lost workplace productivity. Air pollution also impairs brain development in children and it will be the third biggest biggest killer worldwide by 2040. Even unborn children are affected. Toronto tends to have cardio higher cardioabolic diseases than many other places. Massive wildfire fires as you know cause exposures that irritate the lungs, increase asthma, increase lung cancer and very alarming rent rate. Richard, could you wrap up please? So adop yep adoption of solar and heat pumps and wind wind energy would be very good for the community and for public health. The committee should opt to electrify the TTC and it would make a huge dent on fossil fuel emissions. a recent uh there you will see there the recent just past survey of the um Canadian Medical Association, but you can save a hell of a lot of money by keeping people out of the hospital by electrifying the city. Okay. Thank you. That's what I'm going to say. Thank you very much and good luck with uh your dentist. Uh Richard, thank you. Do you have any question? Oh, Richard, I just wanted to say you're aware that the the two new lines in the TDC are totally electric. The Finch line, the Eglund cross town line, Richard. No, back to the dentist. Okay. Is another uh warrior uh Lynn Adamson. Lynn, how are you? Are you here, Lynn? I am here. Oh, you're here in person. Good to see you and Amish back in action. I usually see you on the St. Clair street car stop. Oh, yes. And uh I'm glad to see the cross town and I'm I'm looking forward to the bike lanes along Edington, too, because that right I live right up there in that corner of the city, that part of the city. So, um I sent in my submission in writing. So because um we're short on time and because uh many of the points have been made, I'm just going to be a little ad hoc here in what I speak to. I'm definitely in support of the electrification advantage report. Big thank you to the staff and Toronto Hydro uh for putting that together and a thanks to councilors Saxs and uh Fletcher for asking for it and supporting the asking for it because I know we're all affected by the province's chill on anything that we want to do to make our transform to report actually happen. And uh I did want to let you know that our groups like Climate Fast and Ontario Climate Emergency Campaign are very well aware of that and we're doing a lobby day with MPPPS on the 22nd of the month. We know we have to pressure at other levels of government that we're thrilled if Toronto will do everything that we can to actually bring about some of these changes we need because I'm with Melanie who talked about planetary boundaries. What I read about is the um have read recently is just about the acceleration of temperature rise. We are quickly having an unlivable world. So it's really upon us as the largest city in Canada to do everything we can uh to move it forward and so working around the province to do um the things that we can uh is so important. So, I wanted to say a thank you to I understand you'll have uh from Diane Saxs a motion about um Dalcon Solar and another one about peak perks and I would support those. Uh we need to be ambitious. Um, I would ask to if you would consider giving staff more time or direction to write a report that does have targets that um can move us forward and look at how much we can actually reduce our reliance on the Portlands um balcony solar solar roofs peak perks and if you could ask hydro to do a feasibility study on wind power in the lake I think the province has got to be challenged about that moratorum and that would be a very good way to challenge challenge them would be to produce a study that says hey it's feasible because it needs to be um an issue that is publicly addressed and challenged I think because obviously we don't have the money to do that uh without support of the province to actually do it but if we can do a feasibility study that would be quite um quite helpful um and I do believe that there may be a TTC garage that could have a solar we need pilot projects right with the solar roofs and we have the help program which gives lowcost loans so people can retrofit their uh buildings, their houses. And if we could do something similar for the solar panels um and publicize it, our climate communication could be better from the city to let people know what is possible to do um how people can uh reduce emissions and support more of the community projects um such as the Harvard Village Residence Association and the pocket who do a lot to organize in neighborhoods because that's very powerful. And I know that I'm out of time, but I simply wanted to say that I'm excited. Bill McKibben has a book, Here Comes the Sun, Solar Revolution. It's exciting. It's for our kids. I care about this because I'm a grandparent of three and we need to be good ancestors for our children and grandchildren, taking all the action we can. So, thank you. That's my message. Oh, thank you, Alen. And by the way, is there a Minister of the Environment at Queens Park? Yes, there is. Who is it? Yes, I have it in my um not at the tip of my tongue, but in my in my email because his office responded to April 22nd. If you ever find out who it is, please let let us know. Okay, thank you. I'll look it up for you right now. But I don't want to take time sitting in front of you. So, we used to have even we used to have an environmental commissioner there, too, didn't we? We did. And what happened to the environment commissioner? They they have done so much, you know, to make it almost impossible to do anything good at the city level, taking all the power away from municipalities. It is really not good. And and and asking their the entire climate plan, there's no climate plan or target at provincial level. They haven't put in 1 kilowatt of renewable energy. This is what I'm told since 2018 and they took out 758 projects that time. They're enemies of climate action. So we we have to try and get around them as a city, but we also need to challenge organize them and challenge them at at the provincial level as well. So we are, as I said, going to go to do a lobby day and a press conference on the 22nd of April, Earth Day, to exactly call on the province to change their approach and uh with enough public pressure that they they will have to. So anyways, thank you so much for being so brave to do that up the up the street. continue your advocacy, Lynn. Yeah. Thank you. Next uh is Diane Mills. Okay. Can you hear me and see me? Hi. Hello. Hello. Okay. You're Kate or are you Diane? I am Diana. Okay, Diana. Welcome. Okay, I can I'm going to do this. You can start, Diana. Go ahead. Okay. Thank you. Thank you so much for letting me debute today. Also, thank you to my W 14 counselor Fletcher and councelor Saxs for championing the electrification report and being vocal against Port the Portland Energy Center pollution and expansion. I am currently a 13-year-old homeschool student and Friday for future member. I am worried about my future because of climate change. About a week ago, my family was returning from a car trip to visit my grandpa in Hamilton Hospital. As we drove along the gardener, my 9-year-old sister proudly declared she had flipped the bird to the Portland's energy center. Everyone in my family applauded her action. I understand why she did this. We live in a condo that faces the shore of Lake Ontario and watch every day as pollution spews out of the stacks of the Portland Energy Center. There is no safe level of nitrous oxide which causes asthma and kids like me and many other health health problems. After my sister's outburst, I told my parents and sister how I were in charge and could I would blanket Toronto with solar panels. It would be cool to see Toronto with every rooftop and parking lot and maybe a few streets too covered in solar panels. I'm hoping that the city of Toronto follows the recommendations put forward by the electrification report because then I'll have future with cleaner air and less pollution for the Portland's energy center. In summary, I would much rather hear my sister talk about all the solar panels and wind turbines she sees rather than flipping the bird to Toronto's biggest air poll. The electrification advantage report has a solid has a solid plan, excuse me. The electrification advantage report could have a solid plan or targets. Uh, no, I'm sorry. This is very The electrification advantage report has a solid plan could I'm sorry, this must be a typo. Could have a solid plan would I would like it to have a solid plan or target, but if the committee institutes targets and plans for the area city Toronto, it would be less polluted in my adult. Thank you so much for this matter. Sorry for the typo. Oh, thank you. Any questions of Diana Mills? Get back to your books there, Diana. Okay, thank you. Okay, stop. Next is uh Kate Banks. I was going to ask Diana. She belongs to a group called Fridays for Future. I'm not sure what that is. Very intrigued by that. No, no, it's okay. Councelor Sachs, it's okay. Okay. Kate Banks. Are you online, Kate? She's not online. Maybe she'll come back later. Okay. Sheila Adamson. Hi. Oh, Sheila's in the Are you related to I knew you were going to ask that. No, we're not related. Oh, is this your same name? Good friends. Okay, Sheila, go ahead there when you start. Okay. Uh, good afternoon chair and counselors. My name is Sheila Adamson and uh I'm part of the uh Toronto St. Paul's ward 12 uh wards team and I wanted to start today by just uh picking up on councelor Sax's comment earlier um reminding us reminding us all of the Hoden tradition that the decisions we make now uh the the that sorry that the decisions we make now be done with the next seven generations in mind. So it's an age-old reminder for stewardship and sustainability. I'm also here to thank the city staff for their excellent uh March 23rd report, the electrification advantage, following up councelor Fletcher and uh councelor Sax's requests. It's a timely and urgent report. Uh and I'm asking that the city take this report and build on it as we need your strong continued generation defining leadership. I was here disputing in December asking for the inclusion of BAPS into transform to and in order for BEAPS to even be considered we have to have an improved electrical grid one that has diverse energy sources can be put into place in the near future is affordable and is a much greener solution than the existing Portland's gas plant. Uh small-cale solar is half the cost of nuclear and has a much shorter uh scale up time versus the 10 to 15 years for nuclear. Um and as an example for the need for urgency on March 28th we had 75 citizens show up to a climate roundt hosted by our counselor Josh Matlo uh many demonstrated a strong interest in having both heat pumps and solar panels in their homes uh and and in order to do so uh they require a strong and reliable grid so that they have incentives uh to invest in these green technologies in the near term. Um I my three asks are similar to the ones presented by Jack Gibbons including uh peak perks uh solar gener more solar generation uh and a feasibility study and I recognize that the challenges uh put out by the province around these issues. Um but I also re I reiterate what Lynn had said around getting more solar panels on parking lots, city buildings, uh and balcony solar. So, I'll leave you with this quote from June 1988 when the late Steven Lewis chaired the International Toronto Conference on the Changing atmosphere where I learned that he w uh secured the world's first greenhouse gas reduction target. And in his final speech, he said, and I quote, "The best predictions available indicate potentially severe economic and social dislocation for present and future generations, which will worsen international tensions and increased uh risk of conflicts among and within nations. it is imperative to act now." End of quote. That was almost 40 years ago and we need to keep moving forward uh for a fossil free fossil-free future. Uh and so thank you all for the work that you do and for your time today. And thank you uh so much. Appreciate it. Any questions? Being none. Thank you. Next is an Kiri and Anne is here. Welcome an so thank you chair and members of this committee for the opportunity to speak. My name is Anne Kerry and I'm a member of the parent climate advocy advocacy group for our kids. I would like to begin by thanking staff for all their work on the electrification advantage report and council here for requesting this report. I fully support the report's arguments for the advantages of electrification. The energy security advantage more evident by the day now in the face of the oildriven war in Iran. The economic growth advantage. Local solutions support the local economy, not the immensely profitable fossil fuel industry. The affordability advantage. renewables and energy efficiency, reduce utility bills, and of course the climate advantage. Electrification is key to achieving our transform to goals and doing our part to address the climate crisis. To these, I would add the public health advantage. According to Toronto Public Health, air pollution, largely from the burning of fossil fuels currently contributes to,300 premature deaths a year and 3,550 hospitalizations. Getting off fossil fuels will save lives and reduce health costs. I also support all the solutions referenced in this report. This is a comprehensive report, but it is not yet an ambitious report. As a parent, I'm acutely aware that we are in a climate emergency and we are running out of time. So, here's what I'm not seeing in this report and what I would like to see in the next one. First, clear targets and timelines. And I'm glad to hear, if I understand correctly, that we can expect these going forward because certainly if we are to meet our transform to goals of reducing emissions by 65% by 2030 and getting to net zero by 2040, we need targets for the electrification initiatives outlined here. So I add my voice to those asking councilors to direct staff to develop and implement a plan to increase participation in the peaks perks program to 90% by 2030 and develop and implement a plan to increase solar generation by 2.8 billion kilowatt hours annually by 2030. We need to be scaling up solar on parking lots and rooftops and taking advantage of federal and provincial funding opportunities to do so. I would add explore the potential for balcony solar and work with the Toronto District School Board to get all of its schools solarized, not just the 350 currently solarized. Second, to achieve these goals, we need a communications and engagement strategy and a plan for assessing that strategy. I fully understand that the city does not have Enbridgeg's communication budget, but the city does have its own communication infrastructure, libraries, community centers, health centers. We need to get offline and into communities. And this is for council of sex. Lawn signs. You're all elected officials approaching an election. You know the value of lawn signs in relation to climate. Visible signs in communities encourage neighbors to adopt similar sustainability initiatives. Neighbor-to- neighbor nudges are more effective often than just conveying information. Third, and last, I add my voice to those asking that Toronto Hydro undertake a preliminary feasibility study of an offshore wind farm in Lake Ontario. Let's show the province what is possible. I will be there on Earth Day in Queens Park lobbying for you. Thank you. And thank you all. Thank you. Questions? No question. We'll do. Thank you, Councelor Sanks. I do have a question. Um, is it possible to put 2400 megawws currently into the Toronto's grid? Are you aware if it's possible or not possible? because that's your ask for us today to I'm asking you to how much is it 8 billion how much is it kilowatt hours I can't I would ask you to explore that possibility and and ask Toronto Hydro to come back with a report on what is fully possible well would you not have looked at what's possible in making an ask of that kind whether it's possible to actually physically put that in I am not an expert on this but I would ask you to refer to the atmospheric fund question is you're telling us do X and I would always want to know that it's possible before we look like we're saying no to X. So I expect kind of due diligence as well on behalf of people coming to this committee so that okay thank you. Thank you, Linda Nicholson. Get ready for that question if you're asking us to do peak and megawatts. Who's Linda is online? Perfect. Thank you. Is she online? Hello. Linda, are you setting up for camera or just phone? Uh, I think I'm setting up for both. Okay, we're going to give you a second. so we can see you. Okay. Okay. I started the video yet. I can't see me either. Uh maybe I'll just be speaking. You want to just do that then? Okay. Uh sure. All right. I'll start your I'll start your threem minute time. Thank you. Thank you. So my name is Linda Nicholson. I'm a concerned Toronto citizen living in Ward 19. I'm also a member of the grassroots climate action group called Climate FastT. Thank you to the committee for allowing me time to speak to you today. I'd also like to thank the city staff who drafted the report. We know the history of how we got to this point. So, let me just say this is a positive report that shows people were listening late last year when dozens of passionate citizens spoke to council. They shared their heartfelt concerns about the city not reaching its greenhouse gas emissions goals. goals that we know are critical to our having a livable city for ourselves and future generations. So, the electrification advantage includes numerous cost-effective actions that the city can take to reduce gas burning at the Portland's Energy Center. And we know how important it is to do this. Uh, as others have said, including uh Dr. Roy, the Portland's Energy Center is Toronto's number one smog and climate poller, spewing out noxious gases around the clock. So, it's hard to put up with this poisoning of our environment when there are so many clean and cheaper ways to provide energy. Solar, onshore, and offshore wind, I know we've talked about that. Geothermal combined with battery storage of energy and energy efficiency measures are all so much more affordable than fossil fuels and nuclear and faster to get up and running. One of the biggest problems with this report, the electrification advantage, is that there are no targets or timelines. And others have said this as well, but we all know what happens when you have no timelines or targets. Things often don't get done. And I'm saying that for my own personal self as well. Knowing this, I would ask uh I've honed in on one of the three asks that people have been talking about. I would ask that you direct city staff to develop and implement a plan to increase solar power generation uh by 2.8 billion mega kilowatts annually by 2030. This could be done by installing more solar panels on city-owned buildings and parking lots, which was a suggestion that I made in deputing to council regarding the 2026 budget and encouraging residents, big box stores, and other commercial industrial businesses to install solar panels on their rooftops. This is a target and a timeline we could work toward. As it says on page nine of the electrification advantage, a clean energy, a clean electricity system is the cornerstone of Canada's climate strategy, enabling reductions in greenhouse gas emissions across every part of the economy. Through targeted investment in the grid, Toronto Hydro is creating the infrastructure that allows customers to decarbonize their homes, vehicles, and businesses while ensuring that distributed renewables like rooftop solar and battery storage can be efficiently integrated into the system. Let's make sure we're doing everything we can do as a city to support and work with Toronto Hydro on what is decidedly a shared vision of a decarbonized and electrified future. Thank you. Thank you so much. questions. Diane, do you have your regular question? Um, yes. Thank you. My regular question is if you have specific suggestions for things that the city can do, I'd like to know what they are. Uh, because you know, we share your objectives as to what the result should be, but we don't control the tools to, for example, we can't force the province to allow virtual net metering. We can't force the province to bring back um any kind of fixed offer pricing for solar. We can't force the province to do any of the things that would give people a financial incentive to do what you're suggesting. Um and we're very cash trapped with only 9 cents of every tax dollar. So when people say make it happen, my question always is how? What are you asking us to do that we're not already doing? So please think about that. And if you have a specific suggestion, let me know. Thank you. Thank you for that question. And I and I I'm going to look at David Miller, uh, former mayor of Toronto, who is very involved with cities all over the world. He truly believes that the cities are the places to make things happen. And I believe him and agree with him. So I will definitely look at some of his resources and let you know. And uh, Linda, thank you very much. I also look to David Miller. I really wish you were around when we originally fought the Portland's energy center. We'd have better luck at that point because you're very passionate and know a lot about it. I just want to be clear as well that you saw in the electrification advantage in the report that came out. I believe it was on April 2nd that addressing not only what we'd asked for at the last committee meeting which was to come back with this plan and thank you for your support for that plan but also the two questions that were in councelor Sax's motion that Toronto Hydro develop its separate electricity plan for the city of Toronto. Were you able to read that Toronto Hydro cannot develop a separate electricity plan that that's not within their mandate or scope? I don't know if you've had a chance to see that or not. I haven't I haven't been through in detail, I'm afraid. No, it's right in top the summary. First page says it right away. They can't do that. And second was that you wanted the committee to support us asking Toronto Hydro to do that and they've come back to say they're not allowed. And then second was to look at the um IRP and say it was no good and tell the province it's incompatible. staff have said it's it's not that it's incompatible, but we can go further, which is would you agree two separate things? Yes, I guess back to the drawing board. Well, not back to the drawing board, but there's a baseline and then we can go beyond the baseline, but it's not that it's an incompatible plan because we were part of developing it. So, I just wanted you to appreciate those finer points because I see you're right into this in a big way. and that's on page one of the summary of the report. So I just draw your attention to that. Thank you. Thank you so much. Okay, our next deputant is Karen Templin and Karen, you're online apparently. Yes, she's here. Oh, sorry. It says video conference, but you are right in front of us. Perfect. Thank you. Green button. to see when it goes green. But it's very sensitive. It goes back and forth quite a bit. Do you want to test and see? Just test it. Tap it gently. Not hard. There it is. Okay, great. Okay, great. I'm here to thank the city staff today for this excellent report, the electrification advantage, and also the city council for providing I'm sorry, the city committee for providing me a resident of Ward 15 to speak in support of it. pleased to read positive report asserts possible for Toronto to have sufficient power in their electrical system without the need for the very polluting Portland's energy plant and the way forward generation of renewables increased battery storage but of course energy conservation too and hopefully from what I've heard maybe some targets and timelines are coming soonish. It seems to me it is possible for the city to commit to this plan. I hope with these soonish timelines and um first energy conservation has a place. Apparently Canadians have a huge appetite for electricity. We rank first among large economies and per capita use of electricity. Four times global average. So we do need to do something about this because our governments are generating more electricity for the grid with polluting fossil fuels. So yes, please increase peak perks market share to 90% by 2030 if this is possible. And it's an idea that I think local environment groups, wards groups, city councilors could all get behind and encourage their neighborhoods to take it up if it is possible. And lots of people are concerned about climate change. Here's something they could do and think they were making a difference. Well, yes, increased solar generation, but to all this, I might add. I've heard about the small but mighty tulip wind turbines sit beautifully on flat roofs. Ideal companions for solar panels to generate energy electricity for batteries and or the grid people's chargers. Today would be a perfect working day for them. Full disclosure, I live out young and home of the city's most powerful wind tunnel and hosting an abundance of very tall buildings with flat roofs. Okay. Just personally I I would like to focus Oh, if I have any time on Dr. Royy's research recording well polluting effects of burning fossil fuels. Um I am a senior and this stuff apparently can get into our brains precipitate among other things. Dementia, Parkinson's, other things like that. I attended a wellness session at my local library. Memory and aging. What's normal? What's not? What can you do about it? filled capacity by seniors who want to stave off their memory loss and dementia. Dr. Anderson from Bayest very supportive. Lot you can do cut dementia in half. Group is excited. But there's one factor beyond their control and that was of course air pollution. Hello Dr. Roy. Individual living in this city lacks control to change this air con air pollution factor. But maybe our leaders, our citizens can actually do something. Do we have the ability to do something collectively? Can you wind up please? Yep. They are in the staff report. I just must add, I was in Quebec not so long ago breathing some fresh air. Exhilarating. Can we actually wait for until 2050 for clean air to breathe? Well, my demographic, it might be a too late, but let's go. So much out of our control. Maybe this is something we can and thank you everybody for this opportunity. Don't go anywhere. There might be some questions for you. All right, Diane Sachs Council. Pardon? Oh, well, thank you. I think I Okay, I'm just going to make sure that for the peak perk. Sorry. Sorry, Karen. Sorry. Not finished yet. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you so much. Yes. Oh, okay. No, no, I'm not. Yes. I have a question. Yes. Yes. Um just for I think you were getting clear there for peak perks and other thing. The city cannot require or force anybody to do that. That's not within our jurisdiction. Perhaps the province could because they do control energy. I just want to make sure we're on the same page there. Yeah. And I know we all want it for Yes, I know we all want that. But it really has to do with what we can tell somebody to do or ask somebody to do. So many of the things today are we're supposed to tell them and require them to do it. I need to make sure that we're on the same page. That's not a requirement the city can make. I know. But the design Okay, that's fine. You understand? I appreciate it. Thank you so much. Um, next up, Brian Mlan. Was Brian here earlier? Yes, there he is now. Did you you missed a Were you here earlier for a deputation, Brian, or did we I was on the list, but uh line line two uh subway line was uh disrupted with uh shuttle buses and so forth. So, I'm sorry. I was delayed. Okay. Thank you very much for making the time to get here now. Sure. Go ahead. Thank you. Thank you for this report. Um I I love the title electricity advantage and uh as people in advertising know you you if you want to reinforce a message you have to repeat it over and over again and to repeat the message that electricity is advantageous for consumers and businesses um is something that I I hope we we keep finding ways to repeat and demonstrate. Um, I want to thank uh the um the atmospheric fund who today uh launched a um home solar accelerator program. Um, it sounds like it's somewhat similar to uh Toronto Hydro's free energy coaching offer. So, it it's free advice to people who don't know how to get started investigating and costing out um the potential for solar energy on their rooftops. So that that's um a great thing. Um and it it brings to mind to me what um what another electricity advantage is is what Jane Jacobs called uh import replacement. Now we're importing um natural gas from the United States. We're importing uh en we will we are or will be importing enriched uranium for this new nuclear energy. But uh renewables are are made here wherever we install the um the infrastructure for it. And uh I want to give an example. I attended a a wonderful event at Humber Poly Techchnic. Uh I live in Tobico in War II and they hosted a a wonderful building green symposium and I took a tour of their facilities and they are just revolutionizing the way they are powering both campuses. The one in North Atobbico where this event took place and the one in itico lakes shore. So they've already reduced energy per square foot by 30% and they expect to reduce it by 50% uh by 2034. So they they are operating with goals and um they I think they told me that they have uh have a return on investment of 7.7% so far on what they've invested. So they've uh their overall energy use is is the same as it was 10 years ago but they've included their floor space by 30%. So they've really pulled off a lot. They've reduced they're reducing their greenhouse gas emissions. They've reduced their water use by 20% so far. Expect we'll get to 50% by 2034. So, um there's a wonderful example of a of a a community that has taken on change and been able to implement it and made made it um financially rewarding. So, it's an example, a role model that other um businesses and organ and and organizations can follow and I hope the city of Toronto is watching it closely. Um I discovered recently that your economic I'll give you a minute because you missed because you're online. Okay, go ahead. the your economic development uh division has uh I think one person working on the green industries sector and I was shocked to learn that there are 1500 manufacturers and service providers in this sector in in 2018 they contributed $6.5 billion dollars to Toronto's economy so there's a lot of expertise there's there's a company in Missaga that manufactures solar panels there are companies in in inobico that manufacture other kinds of solar energy. So these possibilities exist. I just hope that we can encourage them and find and and um yeah just uh tap into the expertise that we have to increase our our sustainability. Um someone mentioned um solar panels over parking lots and so forth. There's there's a posting today that South Korea is installing um solar noise barriers along highways like 401. So those barriers that we see on 401 and 427 that stop noise. Great. Are are now in include solar panels. Thank you. So there's a tremendous uh room for creativity. About to wind up now. There may be some questions for you. Sure. Go ahead. Any questions? Well, thank you, Brian. Um, you know, you're always full of data and I appreciate it. Um, is there anything specific within the city's power that you think we should be doing that we're not doing? Um, I think I think just uh showcasing and celebrating and just publicizing uh success stories more than than we're doing. I just stumbled across this new rental development at Young and Young and Eglinton um that that uh is going to use um geothermal energy using using uh the ground underneath the building as a as a battery for storing energy and retrieving it. So this incredible cleverness is is at work in little spots across the city uh including six points theico civic center development going on now. So these things are happening, but the average person has no idea that that these possibilities exist. And if we can find a way to amplify these success stories and excite people, electrify Torononians about the electricity advantage, um, that would be, I think, a great thing that would help snowball progress. I love the idea. Think hard about what the specifics would be and let me know. Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much, Brian. And I love the slogan. This is an electrifying report. You've now named a new report. That's great. Uh, next one up is Laura Lindberg. Laura, thank you. And after Laura is Carol Essex. Welcome. And thank you. You have three minutes. Excellent. Thank you so much for the opportunity to be here. My name is Laura Lindberg. I live in Ward 2. Uh, sending health wishes to you, Deputy uh, Mley. Um, and thank you to councelor Saxs. Thank you to Chair Fletcher for your leadership on this. Um, and the first thing I wanted to do is to thank the uh the city staff, to you and all of your staff that worked on this report. Thank you. I'm sure that was lots of long hours, but everyone's giving you kudos, so um you should feel good about that. Um, so the report emphasizes that we can meet the needs of Toronto, um, including getting buildings off gas with sufficient energy without the Portland's energy center. So that was good news, but emphasized that we need renewables. So we need solar, we need wind, we need increased battery storage, we need increased efficiency. And the main points about renewables were that it provides energy security, economic growth, support for affordability, and climate mitigation and resilience, which I wholeheartedly agree with. So, I want to hone in on just one of those and that is affordability because I think that's top of mind for a lot of folks right now and that's really the the entry point in for renewables which are good for all sorts of other reasons but for affordability I think that takes it to top of mind for everyone and within that of the asks for today I'd like to focus on the solar panels and here's why I feel like we have the opportunity perhaps on I feel I can't can't see you, Councelor Saxs. Um, on on city properties of any kind, on parking lots, on buildings, etc. It feels like we have the opportunity to do that. And it doesn't have to be every property. It doesn't have to be every large property. To me, I feel like a lot of people have alluded to this. There needs to be communication. So, even if it's on this small property or this small parking lot, you put it on and you advertise it and wow and we're saving this much and look how much cooler it is and hey, you can charge your EV for free or whatever it is. Let's advertise it and it's going to be FOMO. Well, they got one down there. Oh, maybe we could do that over here. And you have one success story begets another success story. I know that you don't have, you know, jurisdiction over private companies, but imagine if every single grocery store A put solar panels on. How long would it take before every single grocery store B would also put them on? Because you kind of have to. They're they're showing leadership. We have to show leadership. So, let's just get moving on this. Put as many solar panels as we can on as many places as we are able to. And then showcase it. Explain. It was easy. Workers are available. it saves money, etc., and just keep it going. But, you know, we are leaders in the climate space. We got to keep it up. This is Toronto. Everything that every single one of you does is important and matters. Matters to me, matters to my kids, matters to your kids, and all living things. So, let's keep it going and thank you for your time. Thank you very much. Uh, any questions? Over to the I'll follow up after, Laura. Thanks. Thank you, Councelor Sax. I just want to ask because the solar panels and I see there's a campaign to install 2.8 billion kilowatt hours or 2400 megawws and I'm going to make sure that the grid can take that because that's a very big ask for the grid for for Toronto. So, Toronto Hydro's here and on your behalf and everybody who's who's uh made that ask of our committee today, I'll I'll have them let you know if that's even a possibility. Amping it up might be, but I'm not sure that the actual request is doable. So, I'm sure you'll be happy to find that out from staff. Well, I leave it in your leadership to uh to make that happen. Thank you so much for being here and waiting for the day. Appreciate it very much. Thank you. Now, Carol, you're up next. Can you hear me? We'll press the button gently so the green light comes. It's already green. Oh, it's great. Then move closer a tiny bit. Okay. Okay, great. Thank you. You can start. Okay. So, um, good afternoon, chair and counselors. My name is Carol Essex. I am a resident of Ward 2. Um, and thank you for the electrification advantage report, which I haven't had time to really delve into, but I wanted to speak anyway. Toronto is a vibrant and growing city, one of the great multicultural cities of the world, and it follows that Toronto can and must be a true energy leader in the world. The street of Hormuz's debacle and the new severe global contraction in the supply of fossil fuels including oil and LG gas are pushing the price of gas and oil higher and higher. And even if this war ends tomorrow, which is hugely doubtful, prices will remain high for a long time in the aftermath. Europe has been making a shift away from fossil fuels since the onset of the war in Ukraine. China, Pakistan, and even Texas are ramping up renewable energy. And why? Renewable energy is right here, right now can be rolled out in a matter of months, not years, and provide green jobs and providing the cheapest form of energy with no threat of a distant blockade. It's really a no-brainer. Doug Ford is pushing new nuclear. Yet, nuclear power is by far the most expensive and hazardous power on the planet. It takes 10 years or more to build out new nuclear plants. In a world increasingly ravaged by war, nuclear is also a hazard, possibly even a target. How can we justify to our grandchildren and to future generations creating a nuclear plant which we will use for a few decades that will somehow have to have a force of militarystyle babysitters overseeing it for at least a 100,000 years. And these things will be perched right on the largest source of fresh water in the world, the Great Lakes. and the huge increased cost of electricity will be paid by our kids and grandchildren and generations after. So my ask is simple. Let Toronto lead the way in renewable energy and storage. Phase out the Portland's energy center, also known as Portland's gas plant. Now it is Toronto's highest emitter and highest air poller. And costs for gas are much, much higher than for renewables. rapidly increase renewable energy generation and battery storage, providing good jobs for our people, and advocate to the provincial representatives against nuclear power and its corrosive costs and 100,000year toxic tale. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak to this these important issues. Thank you very much for being here. Uh are there any questions for Carol? No, thank you very much. Appreciate your time today and being here. Last deputent I have is Joyce Hall from the Ontario Climate Emergency Campaign. I think Joyce might Oh, you're here. It says video conference request, but you're here. That's fantastic. Wonderful. Thank you. Um it's it's interesting to come at the end because everything I said has been said or combed or whatever. But anyway, thanks. Um, I'll add my thanks to the thanks of others for the work of the committee and for the producers of the uh of the excellent report. My name is Joyce Hall and I live in Ward 10. Um, I have um my first point is to point out as others have that the report is lacking timelines and the urgency has been said over and over again. We're on our way to four degrees apparently. That's the that's that's the uh the direction we're going and um that's not supportable. Um the um the three asks that other people have been repeating are mine as well, but I've had time to think about them a little more as I've been listening to people. Um regarding increasing the peak perks market share um to 90% the city can promote and market that program and encourage it. Um, as for the um, as for how you get the solar and how you pay for the solar, I thank you um, Diane Saxs for just insisting that we come up with ideas for how you actually do it. Um, I'm wondering, I don't know enough about the ins and outs, but through taxation and permitting, I know that taxation is the way to get people to do things or stop doing things. um use taxation and permitting to encourage people to um to put solar on um on their parking lots. Okay. I mean, I think of and now you've got me thinking, how do I get my supermarket in Grey Highlands where my family has a home? How do I get that that we've got way too much parking space there? It's never full. I mean, that should be covered with solar. How do I get them to do that? How can we incentivize um food land to do that? I mean, what a what a waste of space that parking lot is. It's ugly and and useless. So, I really appreciate you making me think more about that. Um, councelor Sachs, I will be looking for um ways to uh to look to look for incentives for ways to get those spaces used properly. Um uh in my neighborhood up there, Two Chapman is building a new ice cream plant. How do we get them to put solar on the roof or at least build a roof that can support solar? How can we encourage that? um how can we incentivize that through our through our municipality? Um I wanted to add to um I'm part of the uh lobby day campaign and on April 22nd we're meeting with MPPPS and we've invited MPPPS from all parties and we have had quite a few um acceptances. We're hoping to have a good turnout. Um Lynn asked me to um to remind um the committee that all uh all parties have been invited. Todd McCarthy, the minister of energy has been invited and the secretary has put the day in his calendar and the message to MPPPS on that day which is also being um supported um through OCE by Lynn and and um other speakers here an and Millie um is that Ontario needs a climate plan. Um because not having a climate plan is um is just not on these days. At the same time I Oh, I'm over I'm over time. Um um one other thing um yes, the big ask that I see coming out today seems to be Toronto promote and celebrate energy innovation. Put it in the air. Celebrate um like Brian was telling us about that the Humber thing, have it in the have it in the in the in the subways. um you know I don't know give prizes um just create the snowball the snowball effect very much maybe there's some questions sorry Diane sorry councelor Sax has a question for you yes u so my my question is is this when you are planning your lobby day at Queens Park are you going to include in that um well I should back up a step are Are you aware that the provincial government is has introduced legislation to take away our Toronto green standards which are absolutely critical to climate action? So are you planning when you lobby the province to ask them not to exercise that power? Let us keep our green standards. They're the most powerful single tool we've got. Thank you. Yes, for for sure. Thank you. We will we will make sure that that is one of our primary messages. um having a climate plan um will will include of course um promoting climate plans at at the other levels of government as well and and get and backing what's already been done or at least not breaking it. Thank you. Exactly. Thank you. Thanks. No, a question for you. Sorry, Joyce. Um, I just wondered if you might not been aware that peak perks actually is provincial program. So, we can't require anybody to undertake that. We don't have that ability to underquire require anybody to put anything on their roof, do anything legislatively. But that that program actually started at Toronto Hydro as Peak Savers, then Peak Shavers. That's an old city of Toronto Toronto hydro plan in its early days that got taken over by the provincial government. I'm not sure that you knew that or anybody knew that. I was I wasn't aware of it until it started came it came up in the context of of this particular day and the electrification advantage report. Um so I need to get more education on I've learned a lot today and thank you for that. If there's any way that you can promote people uptaking I I really love you can always promote that but we can't require that. So the campaign has asked us to make people get to 90%, you have to get to 90%. We don't have that authority and I think today did you learn that we don't have planning authority that the provincial government has a tremendous amount of power that they like to use over the city very regularly actually which you may have noticed. Well that's why we work at the provincial level councelor send send some of our ideas up there when you go. Thank you so much. Thank you. I think that's it for the speakers. Uh do we have some questions of staff now? Yes. Councelor Saxs. Sure. Thank you. Um so u Mr. Nolan, I mean you've I know that you share the sense of urgency over climate breakdown. I don't think we can hear you too well. All right. How's that? I know that you share the sense of climate urgency that I have and that we've heard from so many deputants today. Um in that circumstance, can you explain why there are no targets and timelines in your report? Uh thank you and to the chair. Um we know that this report was requested to come in kind of as soon as possible in this year. So we focused on the actions in the report looking at all the things we could do to promote that as part of kind of as we move into implementation reporting. We do plan to do more work on on developing uh specific targets so we can then measure and and adjust as we go along but we didn't want to take you know 6 8 months to develop this and have a kind of a perfect report of targets. So we want to make sure we have that suite of actions, the support for those actions, and then we can build on that uh going forward. So what I think you're saying is it's going to take modeling um and at least 6 to 8 months to have a grounded set of targets and timelines, but in the meantime, you've got work happening. That's right. Right. And um you and I have agreed that you're going to help me prepare a motion for counsel that you will proceed with timelines and targets, right? Yes, we can help you prepare that because that is our intention. Okay. Now, we had uh a lot of comments about we should make the province do or we should influence the province or we should shame the province or something. Um, from your many years experience both at the province and here, what is the most effective thing we can do to influence the provincial government to be slightly less to be less destructive and more constructive in the things we're trying to do? I would say the best thing we can do is to demonstrate that these projects, these activities, whatever it is work um and they can meet more than maybe the specific goals that we have outlined on climate but also have affordability goals uh support the grid. So I think by the demonstrating the benefit through actual projects uh we can we can get uptake and and we've seen that in the past uh for example in working with the ISO. So, we have lots of projects. I mean, to respond, one of the comments we heard again over and over again is why don't people know um the the work of the TTC, the work of Toronto Hydro, the work of the Toronto Community Housing, all the solar on the TCHC buildings, the electric buses. I mean, there's so much that the city is doing. And it's remarkable how few people, even people passionate about this, don't know. What can we do? What can you do? What you can you help us do to get that story out and to you to build on the passion and knowledge of all these folks? So, I think we're focused and and committed to doing that. And we're actually working this spring with the the communications division to try a new approach to tell stories, to highlight projects, to make it more accessible. I think sometimes maybe we communicate in a lot of volume and detail. We have very long reports that maybe don't capture um kind of the exciting things that we do in a way that people can digest easily and then maybe pick interest to delve into a 130 page report. I wrote 300page ones so I don't know. Um but have you considered um basically crowd crowdsourcing some ideas inviting all of these groups to give you specific suggestions? I I would say that is something we're looking at and we're actually starting with our climate advisory group who've been providing us with a lot of different thoughts around how we can we can approach this. They have a subcommittee that's been focused on communications. So we're gonna I know that's pretty heratic roll that out. That's hermetically sealed. Nobody knows what's going on there, including me, and I keep asking. Um, uh, you've helped me prepare some motions. Yes. All right. And do you support, um, going ahead to try to encourage 90% sign up for peak perks of people who have the thermostats? Yes. Obviously, if people have thermostats, it's a lot easier. And I think all three organizations are committed to really promoting that program. Um, and those are the easiest people to uh to to target. Right. And in terms of balcony solar, you agree it would be useful to tell the electrical safety authority that if they get an application, this is something that we would value, assuming it's properly certified. Yes. And I think we'll do a little more work as we we note in the the motion we suggested to make sure anything that does get approved is safely installed and it's done in a way that's good from a property standards perspective, but from a broad sense, we've seen in other parts of the world that it works well. Anything else we can do to encourage local solar storage? Last question. I think the really promoting some of our programs that that connect renewable energy and retrofits um for reducing uh greenhouse gas emissions. So adoption of heat pumps, uh electric vehicles, etc. When those things are paired together, the business case for for local storage and for individuals really improves. Thank you. Other speakers, other questions? Councelor Trernosyn, go ahead. Thank you. Um, so forgive me if I don't have um sort of the recent facts on this, but I do recall that when I was campaigning um in the bi-election about a year and a half ago, I I ran into residents who wanted to install solar so that they could tap into the grid, give back, but they were told it's full and they weren't taking new customers. Is that still happening? And and I if staff doesn't have the answer to that, I don't know if I'm asking. I think Toronto Hydro is going to respond to that. And sorry, just clarify. You asking about uh solar and distributed energy resource. I am. Yes. Thanks. Yes. Sorry, I didn't realize you were here. Yes. No. Um we've been working on alleviating those constraints that to the extent that they do exist for over the last few years through capital investment and working with Hydro1. So I think even just recently we were able to announce that we've alleviated some constraints from a number of different stations and we're down to just a small handful of areas that are constrained. So as those customers who've been turned away before uh as that capacity opens up we're reaching back out to those those customers. Maybe I can just add counselor one of the stations is Leside. Okay. Thank you so much. And how are we communicating that to residents? Because this is this is exactly the area where I've heard about this before I have to take that away. Uh we have certainly had communications planned around alleviating those constraints. I'm just not sure what specifically is has gone out. Um and I do know as well that we've been reaching directly back out to customers who uh were previously rejected on the basis of those constraints. So the the customers who we know for a fact uh were interested and were turned away are are uh we're doing our best to to reach back out and re-engage them. Okay. Thank you. And um would we consider uh would Toronto Hydro consider doing broader outreach around that just given that um I think word of mouth like people might not be necessarily investigating looking at this if they've heard say from their neighbors that this wasn't available. Yes counselor. So we are actively discussing solar with customers on many levels. One of the uh programs that we have is a clean tech network and so they are well aware of what's possible and what's not and they're another mechanism for communicating with customers. Okay. Thank you. Um and I'm I am really excited about that clean tech network. Um with respect to the solar panels, um is staff familiar with sort of have have you guys looked at and I guess this is for Toronto Hydro too, but it can be whoever responds. Um I guess communicate well I have two questions. One is um have you seen the it's almost like a sheet that goes on a balcony as opposed to sort of like formal panels is I'm not sure maybe that is what councelor Sax has been talking about but there are I would say a plethora of like Tik Tok style videos um about these sheets that are being used in Germany and other places. Yeah. Is is that what staff is referring to? That is uh what uh what what is referred to in in councelor Sax's motion. It is not currently approved uh by the electrical safety authority for use um uh in in our jurisdiction. So people couldn't do that and they could but you know we wouldn't be able to ensure that there was that was kind of safe from that perspective. So I think that is one of the kind of the first steps. The other things we note that we would be looking at, we want to ensure that if people are putting anything on their balconies that it's done in a safe manner um that you know there's not a there's not a risk of something becoming detached, falling off obviously. Um so it's we've seen it work in other jurisdictions. I think what we'll be looking at is one ensuring that if it is done here that it's safe from an electricity perspective, but also it's safe from a property perspective as well. Fair enough. Thank you. Anybody else? No, I'll just ask a couple of questions then. I just want to clarify with you, Mr. Nolan, because I've asked deputants if they've had a chance to read that. And I appreciate uh Brian calling it an electrifying report. I think that's the new name for it. It's a good one. And that uh within that report, you've also covered off the referral motion which was asking the city council to number one have hydro develop its separate electricity plan and that we we referred that to you and then we also referred to you the IRP and whether or not that was completely incompatible with Toronto's transform to net net zero plan. So you've clear stated here clearly that that IRP plan is not incompatible. We can do more, but it's not incompatible. So you'd suggest that we don't make that uh that we tell the province that we don't tell the province it's incompatible. I'm reading that between the lines. Correct. That that's correct. And as you noted earlier, the report establishes a baseline that we can build on and do more and then that we're not ascending to council that Toronto Hydro develop a separate electricity plan because they're not allowed to do that. Is that correct? So we're establishing that that would have been a problem to have advanced that. That's correct. Again, these actions will build and support the existing plan by doing more. Thank you. And just to clarify some of the ask today and I urge everybody to read that section of the report that we're being asked in a campaign to add 24 megawws of power through solar and I'd just like to be clear from Toronto Hydro if that's actually feasible to go into the grid if we're ready to take 2400 megawws from solar at this point or within the next couple of years. I would say the short answer is not not today. Um and not over sort of a rapid period of time. That's a goal then. So establishing that as a target of a a target rather than something that's possible if everybody did that today. That wouldn't be possible to do. Correct. We wouldn't have the capabilities today to to to absorb that amount of solar all at once on the grid. That's why we do have a DSO road map and a technology roadmap to build those capabilities over the next 5 years. So as a longer term goal, it's certainly um within the realm of the achievable but not immediately. Yes. Important for everybody to understand that that is not the capacity of the grid couldn't take that now. And just for the wind the moratorium I don't know who wants to answer that. Uh I think we'll be asked to just go and study that. Is some do you have you have a lot to do apparently? Yes, you've got a lot of work to do. Is that something where you want to think that you should be spending your time at the moment or you'd advise us because there's a moratorum let's not spend time staff valuable staff time there we'll do other things such as solar promotion and peak I would as I stated at the outset again and agree we do have a lot to do there is a moratorum it is not city land it is uh provincial public land so we don't know what their decisions would be on how they plan to even make that available And again, there is no technical requirements for us to even look at locations. The province hasn't established I guess I'm asking if that's how you want to spend your staff time. No, we would focus on the other distributed energy resources. And then uh the other one is hydro. You send out bills to everybody across the city. Do you think that you promote all of the renewables in a way that has a big uptake? because getting getting everybody on solar or getting people to take uh their thermostats into your control. How how successful are you? Could you do more? Can you do that? First of all, can you just blatantly advocate? We can definitely do more. uh we should do more and we're working on doing more to communicate with customers through a number of channels and I think uh you'll have seen and and the counselors who are board members are seeing very closely that uh we've we're taking a much more active approach to engaging the community right and do you do that in consultation with our uh energy and climate office extensively extensively okay I want to hear that and the other one is I think that you know pocket change as a pretty incredible local neighborhood environmental approach. Is that something that you could or that could be developed and extended in other neighborhoods that many people here come from neighborhoods and that's something that they could learn how to do and organize themselves like that? I can I can confirm councelor we are working directly with pocket change to do that very thing to extend it to other neighborhoods given the uh the model they have has worked so effectively. Great. Thank you so much to move to speakers councelor Saxs. Surprisingly I have a motion. I am very surprised. I'm sorry you're letting me down. Oh you have a motion. I say you didn't have a motion. Oh, no. I do have a motion, but my other motion's not ready yet because we're going to uh work on it before council. But this is my motion that's I worked on with um Mr. Nolan over the weekend. Um so, three things. First of all, to uh in response to the the deputants that we've heard from today, the um as Mr. Nolan said people who already have the eligible thermostats have a very um it's very easy for them to sign up for peak perks. All it does is save them money. And so targeting a 90% um sign up by people who have the thermostats by 2030 u we've agreed is reasonable. And meanwhile to try to increase general public awareness pays. It's not that we can make people do it. We know we can't make people do it. But at least we can have a plan to increase awareness and to encourage people because it helps the system and it saves people money. Um the second thing is to be we know that there are no plug in balcony panels available yet in Ontario. Uh they are increasingly popular in the United States and in Europe. So the purpose of this letter is basically to tell the uh electrical safety authority that it would be really valuable for us to have these available. They could it's a very cheap way for people to save money on their electricity costs. Um and also to make sure that if at the same time the city should be sure that our own rules are ready if and when so somebody has to apply for certification and the electrical safety authority has to do it. Um the third thing is uh we've asked uh for zoning obstacles that get in the way of renewable energy and energy conservation um to be reviewed and we have a report coming I think um in the next month or two from environment climate and forestry together with planning on the first short list uh we got from the Toronto atmospheric from the atmospheric fund a list of really um lowhanging fruit of things that the city should be doing. And so the first few of those are coming. The point of my last piece is that there's more than that. There's a lot of different ways in which and we spent a lot of time talking about how the province is bad and gets in our way and all of that is true. Um but the atmospheric fund has also done a tremendous amount of work on the things that the city does which unintentionally get in our own way. And so the third motion is just to ask staff to keep working on that and report back appropriately next year. Um, other than that, this is uh, you know, I the same thing that I always say on a climate report. This is good progress. I I wish we could do more. I wish we could do it faster. Everything that everybody said today about the health impacts of climate breakdown and the financial impacts of climate breakdown, I mean, we know that. How much time have we spent sitting in this room talking about the cost and the disruption of the 90 cm of snow we had in 10 days in January? Um, you know, basically completely unprecedented, something we might have expected in a thousand years and we're going to get more and more often. Climate breakdown costs the city a lot of money gets in people's way. So, we should be doing everything that we can and uh I'm grateful to see that. And that means hydro and that means the city. Uh it means environment, climate, forestry, it means planning, it means all the different parts of the city organization need to be working together. Um there aren't a lot of specifics in here, but at least there is some. This is mostly a catalog of the things that are already being done. Um and not so much as to what we're going to do next. But even the things that are already being done, the very productive work with Toronto Hydro, this is so much better than things were three years ago. so much better. The fact that Toronto Hydro has a policy and a strategy and a board and senior staff all committed to electrification. We never had that before. So, we've put a lot of the pieces in place. Now, everyone here and me wants to see this turned into action and then to tell people about it. So, we do and this is one of the things the city is um famously bad at. We do a lot of good work. We do a terrible job letting people know about it, letting people celebrate it, letting people learn from it, letting people celebrate it, letting people share in the ownership of that. And those are things we need to get better at. And I hope uh uh James that you will be reaching out to the public and making them our partners in this. Let them take the lead. They've got the passion, they've got the local knowledge, and we need their help. Thank you. Thank you, Councelor Saxs. Any other speak? Where did our deputy go? Oh, he's right there. Are you speaking? Uh, I want to speak, councelor Chernoslin. No, you do wish to speak. Okay, you certainly do. Okay, we are waiting for you, my friend. Whenever you're ready. Yeah. You know what I find really ironic is as we're sitting here talking about all these motions and everything, the province is pushing through Bill 98. I don't know if you're aware what's in Bill 98, but they're basically stripping all the green standards unilaterally. All these things that you're asking us to advocate for, well, the province is basically stripping them all out. And I don't see anybody at the province, anybody complaining about that yet. They complain. They come here and then uh they put out publication uh smearing the members of this committee telling us polluters when we are trying to work with city staff with advocacy groups to put in green standards so who gets attacked we get attacked as polluters. I find this really maddening, you know, especially in light of, you know, uh, councelor Fletcher, uh, maybe one of these groups or, uh, one of these, uh, uh, presenters today could have mentioned the fact that she has accomplished an incredible thing and that is, uh, revitalizing, renaturalizing with the work of city staff, parks, and in uh, renaturalizing the mouth of the Dawn River. Has anybody ever said to councelor Fletcher, "Thank you for spearheading that and the creating of a new 50 acre park be park." No, instead they call counselor Fletcher a poller. Maybe they should take a walk down to the mouth of the dawn and see what's there. Maybe they should take a walk up to Queens Park and say, "What are you doing?" And then I hear we're we're supposed to advocate the Queens Park to uh put in wind farm on Lake Ontario. Well, wake up folks. They just expropriated they're just expropriating the island airport. They're going to put jets there. They're going to put a floating convention center on the lake and we are going to go tell them we want now a wind farm. You know what they're going to say? Huh? I can just imagine what they're going to say. they won't even talk to us about that. So, you know, it's really disheartening to see the city which has been always a leader ahead of provincial governments, federal government and advocating for green standards for uh climate change policies that protect the city against climate. We get called polluters. This isn't the way to uh go forward and protect the environment of this city or lead other jurisdictions to do it because the city and city staff especially are punching way above their weight. And and not that the members of this committee or city councilors are perfect, but I'll tell you generally speaking, this council going back to days of Richard Gilbert and Dale Martin and you know, there was incredible advocacy done by the city. Now, all these measures that the city has adopted are being destroyed, ripped apart, and we're being told, "Oh, the Portland's energy center, you've got to stop that. We don't control it. you don't own it, but you're the polluters because you won't stop the province from doing that. So, unless there's a rethinking of uh where we're going to go in terms of defending our green achievements, we are going to be losing all these as we are right now. Bill 98, just look at it. It is devastating of what they're tearing apart. And not a word in the media about it. Not a word from the deputants today. 98 is just ripping everything apart and we're told we're the polluters. Well, that's all I'm going to say. Thank you. No. Not speaking. No. All right. Thank you. Uh okay. I am going to speak. Uh councelor Saxs, I want to amend your motion very simply. uh implement a plan to increase public awareness of peak perks with the goal of increasing peak perks participation. We cannot require peaks perk participation. We cannot uh say that that we failed our goal. So that's my amendment because I wanted to be clear that we're working on that goal but it's not something under our control. So I hope that's all right with you. The other thing I just want to show everybody today because I have been on the Portland's energy center as I mentioned this was from 2007. I've been fighting the Portland's energy center for how many years is that? Uh 19 years. 19 years. And it was forced on our waterfront by the McGinty government and TransCanada pipeline. and many environmental groups supported it because it was natural gas. David Miller, city council, and others from the community had a campaign called breathe much. In other words, we can't breathe with that air. It was a peaker plant at the time, Jack, as you'll remember. There was to be only in the cold weather and only in the warm weather. 500 megawws, that was it. It's now running 247 a day. Yes, it has no place on the waterfront. Close it down. Been in favor of that all along. And seemingly that I'm in favor of pollution. No, I'm not. And I've been there since day one. Welcome to the fight. All of you who weren't in it at the beginning. That's the first thing I want to say. Second, I want to say this is great, but I really think that the requests need to be based on uh I'm going to say something reasonable. Tell people to put in peak peak perks that we have to demand that they do that. We can't do that. We do not have that ability to do that. Please tell your friends and neighbors we don't have that ability. Yes, we can promote that. Every time you get a hydro bill, it's telling you to do that, asking you to do that, promoting it. But when we get asked and to do that and say require people to do this, put in this much solar or else you failed or else you failed because people like to come here and tell us that we have failed. I'm going to address the issue of 26.14. Your motion, councelor Sachs, at the last meeting in December, that was referred. And for that referral, a bunch of us got our picture across the entire province of Ontario saying we were polluters. Referred that to say, can Toronto Hydro build its own energy plan outside of all of the other regulators in the city of Toronto? The motion said, hydro, go and do that. The staff have come back to say, you know what, Toronto Hydro can't do that on their own. They're under they're a regulated industry, a regulated power authority. And the other was simply the ISO is terrible and the IRP bad. Tell them that it's incompatible. Well, Toronto Hydro worked on that. Our staff worked on that. Is it perfect? Is that what we would have had on our own plan? Probably not. But are we telling them it's incompatible? No. Is it a baseline to grow from? Yes, let's work together instead of at cross purposes. Please stop coming here and telling us we're not doing anything. They are working day and night within their framework, within their framework, which as we've learned today is very limited. We don't own the Portland's energy center. We don't own the land. We don't own any of that. we can't make planning decisions because at the end of the day, no matter what we'd like to do, it can be overturned at the Ontario Land Tribunal. So, I think that everybody here, I appreciate your passion. I appreciate your drive. I appreciate the fact that you think we have an electrifying report here because we do. It's great. Let's work together to implement this instead of always being lectured and our staff being lectured that they either don't know what they're doing or they're not doing enough. I'm done with that. I'm glad you're in the fight for the Portland Energy Center. We got to work together. go to the province, Godspeed, and tell them all the things that they're not doing and the green standards that they want to take away and all the cuts to all the environmental programs that were started under David Miller, the most environmentally conscious mayor this city has ever had and we still have to pay tribute to him, head of the C40. That's all I want to say today. Thank you for your time and energy. Let's focus that energy in a different way from now on. That's my request. Thank you. We're going to vote on that. Pardon? Oh, my motion is to amend that. So, we're not telling the staff, but we have a goal. I'd like vote on that, please. All those in favor? Opposed? That's carried on the main motion. Councelor Sachs number one, two, and three. Your motion as amended. Councelor Sachs. All in favor? Thank you very much. That's done. Thanks so much, everybody. Oh, the item as amended. Thank you. Yes. Yes. Clerk says item as amended. All in favor? Did you want a recorded vote on that? Yes. Have that. Okay. Recorded vote. Deputy Mayor Cole, Councelor Chernosyn, Councelor Saxs, Councelor Fletcher. Thank you. And we have a limited quorum. I think if we're in trouble, then uh Deputy Mayor Mley will come back with us. If not, we'll move on to our next item. Are we ready for that? I can uh let that other one go. I have pictures which I'm going to post, but I will. What number is it? 12. Number 11. Yes, I have a motion for number 11. I'm going to drive you crazy, Councelor Sachs. the consideration of the item be referred to June 10th, 2026, that's IE2811, meeting of IEC, and request the general manager transportation services to establish a standard and a timeline for accumulated road cuts to be completely repaired. I don't want to show you all the pictures because I don't want to take all the time, but I'll pass it around for you. This is only 200 meters of road. Thank you. I'll move that. All in favor? Opposed? and then we're done with item 11. So, we only have one item left and that's number eight. That's equip. Thank you very much Toronto Hydro and all our staff for being here today. Look forward to continuing work together. Okay. One more item and that is equip that is the um so I guess how would you like to deal with that? I don't think we have a we'll just let everybody get settled here and out. Where is our staff over here? So um I don't think we want a presentation. I think we'll just go straight into questions of staff. Okay. Is that all right with everybody? Hello everybody. Yes. Nodding. Thank you. I got the nod. How about questions now on equip? Mhm. Are there any questions? Okay, I have a few questions. Um, tell this came in through the partnership office. What's the standard process for something to come in through a partnership office at in in parks, the business unit? chair um over here responding to the question from the city manager's office strategic partnerships. Sorry, I just you're all over the place. Yeah, I just came in so I'm waving to you. Okay. So the best practice and according to the policy is that u divisions or the strategic partnerships office may receive proposals for uh sponsorships and partnerships uh from outside agencies and organizations at which time they would assess those opportunities against the policy. They would do that in partnership with the partnership office to start and then once that assessment was determined to meet the requirements of that policy, then the division would go forward to conduct its due diligence accordingly. And would that include just walking that on to city council at any point? There's a whole host of of activities that would be uh recommended and are required as part of the policy in order to assess the uh proposed partnership or sponsorship or donation. Correct. So at what point would that be brought forward for consideration of city council to approve or not approve? So according to the policy, division heads have delegated authority to enter into agreements outside of council process unless it's over a particular value within within one year. So over $500,000 in value within one year would require the division head to go forward. What if it's free? Pardon me. What if it's free? So chair if if the partnership for sponsorship does not have a material cost or um value to the city then that would need to be determined by the division. Again there is no requirement to go forward to council with those proposals as per the delegated authority of the um of the sponsorship policy in particular. Okay. So, I'll just ask the uh parks department on what steps these are the steps basically for sponsorship. I'm sure that your division follows those. And how many of those boxes were ticked in bringing forward this plan? Uh councelor, I can tell you that the proposal came in from Canadian Tor Jumpstart to the city staff in parks. I can tell you that parks reviewed and did a level of due diligence on the request. I know that they undertook outreach to counselors at that point to solicit feedback, interest, etc. Um, and then it was brought forward through a member's motion. In terms of the number of boxes, um, that information is difficult to determine because the people on the project team at the time are no longer with us. So I have some limited um information. Yes. But you could look at those boxes and tell us that. And how was that outreach to counselors conducted through discussions? What kind of discussions? Phone calls, emails, visits, one-on-one meetings, counselor. one-on-one meetings with every counselor or was on what basis were those meetings with the members of this committee? It was just with the counselors at the time where uh we were investigating whether those boxes would be eligible to go into those wards. I'm sorry, which ws were those? Only the impacted counselors at the time there were about I believe 11 counselors. Which wards? They were mostly in Toronto, East York. So, which wards were those? I don't have the exact list. We'll have that for council then. You'll have those wards about putting that in Toronto, East York. So, the sponsor only wanted to be downtown. Correct. That was the the sponsor's initial proposal to the city. that was their initial proposal up till when? Um I can tell you that um my work with the project team started in November and from that point we've been discussing uh we've been discussing a variety of options that extend beyond um the limited geography of the initial proposal. And um what date did that come in from equip jump start? Q1 2025. I can get the exact date the date. You have the date? I don't I don't have the date but I can see if we can recover that. All right. And this is predicted to be a pilot project. Correct. That's correct, counselor. One year. And with all pilot projects in the city of Toronto in parks, counselors can say, "I'm in or I'm out." Correct. Correct. So, uh, based on what happens at council, counselors will be able to let you know that they're not in or then they're not interested. Correct. Being in? Yeah. And are all wards included at the moment? I don't believe so. Yes, counselor. each uh the the the current proposal from the sponsor represents um an installation in every ward and an additional so that's 25 obviously and then an additional 25 in the located somewhere in the geography of roughly the Toronto East York region. So this is a project that was targeting the Toronto East York region for whatever reason. Correct. Yes, councelor. I think not targeting um Toronto East York specifically, but high density areas, hightraic areas. Correct. Uh hightraic area parks. And really, uh aren't there hightraic area parks in in Scar Bro? Council, you're correct. Um let me be more specific. They're they're targeting highdensity parks in a concentration for operational expediency. And that came in as the original plan. The original plan cited um or suggested their opening conversation with us was all 50 in um in Yeah. roughly the Toronto East York Europe geography. I heard in 11 wards. All 50 in 11 wards. Correct. That was where they started. Okay. And we'll just come back to that. Okay. Um, and did all 11 wards say they wanted that pilot? Not all 11 ward counselors were interested in the program at the time. How many? There was uh there was one in particular who was not interested in the program. one not interested or expressed concern I should say about the program and then everybody else you heard yes or no everybody all the other counselors that we had talked to at the time from what I from what I'm told were supportive of oh you didn't do that somebody else did it not do that I was never supportive of that was never you should know you should know exactly who you spoke to so you don't have those records then do you have records of who's spoken to. I have records. What I what I what I've been told what I was aware of is the counselors who expressed concern or the one particular counselor who concerned about the program. I'm asking what your records show about you speaking to counselors about that project and I'm sure by council you will have everything all the records that you have will be brought forward. Correct. And if you don't have any records, would you not assume that that's a problem? Counselor, we'll see what we can do to retrieve those records. Asking this question too. If you don't have records, are you would you call that a problem? Counselor, it would be our intent to collect records um certainly with in the way that we would want to run the program. Yes. And if you don't have those, then would you consider that a serious reach. I would say I would say that because virtually all of the project team is no longer with the organization or with parks and wreck. Um it is I would say it's not an ideal situation to be trying to recover uh records. You're right that it is unusual not to have records if I'll just ask the deputy city manager. You don't have records of every staff's emails uh and conversations when they leave. I know the counselors do. So email records are retained for a period of seven years. So you'd have all those records then? We would. For every staff that is no longer with the city. Yes. Everything would be available. Perhaps you're not aware of that. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Speakers. Councelor Saxs, did you have a motion? I'm Yes. Sorry. I was supposed to do a motion saying we should go ahead with this, but I didn't draft it yet. I don't think there is one in the report. But yes, let's just send it without you want a motion to I I want a motion that we should go ahead with the program as support the pilot a one-year pilot. Yes, please. The motion is for a one-year pilot project. Yes. Okay. Clerks are writing that. Thank you. Appreciate it. I thought I had done all the motions. It's not like you not to have your motion ready, counselor. motion machine. She's a motion machine. Yes, councelor. Well, perhaps while that motion's being prepared, I I would just speak in support of going forward with this program uh for a one-year pilot. I think it's been uh I know we there hasn't been a long time with it in other cities, but it um I'd be interested to know how it's going. I don't know if that's a consideration in the motion at all, but um it would be good for staff to report back on on what they're seeing with other cities. I think it was in um Ottawa and Vancouver. Uh I am one of the counselors that had a meeting about this. it was presented as a possibility particularly um in we talked about having it in Thorncliffe Park uh and the idea of having access to sporting goods supplies in a park there uh I think is a great idea. We want kids to be outside um and teenagers to be outside playing sports. That's a great thing off from my perspective off uh technology. I know they need technology to access it, but then they're playing, you know, soccer or football or whatever they can borrow. Uh, and I think that's a good thing. And I also understand there's a workaround that they can in some places where there's a community center. So, I like that staff have thought about these pieces. Um, and I'm looking forward to seeing how this develops and um, want to thank staff for working on this. Thank you. Is that motion prepared then? I think I think Matthew's got that for you, Councelor Sachs. There it is. There was very simple. That's very simple. Okay. Are you moving that? Yes, that's moved. Okay. Thank you. Um, I also have some motions here. I'd asked that the uh original proposal for the 50 spots in Toronto and East York and York be attached. So, I'd like that done because it wasn't done here. like the map of the original sorry award-based chart of proposed parks with installations because somehow I have four some of them quite small the process used by city staff to approve each location and the proposed equipment at each location process by which partnerships get vetted and then are brought to councilors and council for approval because we have had some interesting procurement over the last couple of years. a list of all partnership proposals currently being discussed at the city and ward levels and a list of all current partnership projects underway at the city and in ward process for city staff that will ensure that ward counselors can opt into the pilot if there are no park locations proposed in their wards. So we'll just clarify that there everybody has one and a confirmation that any city council can opt out of the pilot if they choose to do so. So I don't think I need G because the general manager has indicated that that is how we will do that. So there may be some counselors dropping out of certain parks. I know I'll take a few off of my list and some of the equipment. Um and that is proposed. So we're waiting now. Yep. I'm taking G out because the general managers indicated that you can opt out. Yeah. Which is a timehonored tradition. Everybody remembers alcohol in parks. You either went in or you went out and uh not many people went in and then it got to the rest of the of the city. And this is the same. It's a pilot project in the parks. We'll opt in or opt out. So that's the first motion. City Council approval of one-year community sports equipment sponsorship pilot program. All in favor? Opposed? That's carried. And then there's a list of requests to come to council, which should be fairly easy to do. We've discussed many of them there. That's my motion. Attach them. Attach the original list, how they got vetted, how the parks got chosen for different equipment, and how to opt in. Maybe if you want more or opt out. We already know we can opt out. So there's those. Okay. All in favor? Opposed? That's carried. An item as amended. I think that's our last item. All in favor? Opposed? And that's carried. So thank you very much everybody. Thank you to members of the committee. Thank you very much to our clerks for great service today. to our I forgot to I forgot to say you are our acting DCM here. You're coming over from your corporate services for the foreseeable future for infrastructure and environment. Welcome David Jollymore. I'm sorry I didn't do that at the beginning. Thank you. Thank you. Very good. The fun committee. You like it? I do. I do.

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