Transcript - Recycling Crisis and Tree Protections - Infrastructure and Environment Committee

Recycling Crisis and Tree Protections - Infrastructure and Environment Committee - February 25, 2026

somewhere. Yep. Yep. Mike's here, too. I mean, you meant in person. Okay. Uh, is councelor Pastron online yet? No, you have. Okay. Yes, she's late as I mentioned just two minutes ago, but we're waiting. Councelor Pastor Mack wanted to move his item up. Well, let's move it up for him. I got some news yesterday. I did get news last night that former counselor Georgio Mamaliti is quite ill. I don't know if anybody else has heard. No, just tracking that this morning. Have you heard Anthony Pruce would know? Oh, he's not here. Do we know if he's here today? We're expecting him. Councelor Chernos Lynn is a bit late. Deputy mayor online. Deputy mayor here. Councelor here. We can start and start our run through and away we go. Good morning everyone. I'm city councelor Paula Fletcher. I chair the infrastructure environment committee. We have quorum. So, I'm going to call meeting 27 in order. Uh, today's meeting is being held by video conference and in person at city hall and city council chambers. The meetings also be live is being livereamed online. Although we're meeting in different places today, the infrastructure and environment committee would like to acknowledge that the land we're meeting on is the traditional territory of many nations. Missagas of the credit, the Anishnipek, the Chipoa, the Hudneson, and the Wendat peoples. and is now home to many diverse nations, Inuit and Matei people. We also acknowledge that treaty 13 covers Toronto with the Miss Office of the Credit. If you are registered to speak today, please listen to me call your name. I'll call the speakers in order. The list of speakers can be viewed by visiting the IEC committee link at toronto.ca councsil and then check the speakers box. Members, the city clerks provided all of the agenda materials on toronto.ca CA council and you also have it on your CMP clerk's meeting portal. I also want to remind you to submit and approve your motions by email. Staff are available at IEC at Toronto CA to help with motions. Members are meeting uh we're not meeting in the council chamber. We're back in this lovely room. Are there any declarations of interest here? Welcome. This morning, sorry, members, could you please take your seats? We're doing declarations of interest. Do you have any declarations of interest? I know you're interested, but the other kind, the legal kind. No. Um, thank you. Seeing none, we'll proceed. Could I have a motion to confirm the minutes of December 5th, uh, 2025, Deputy Mayor Mley? All in favor? Thank you very much. Uh, we have 13 items on the agenda and four items of new business which will require a motion to introduce. I also have to start off a couple of things because we are down a number of people today, some illnesses and councelor Pastor Knack won't be here. The uh that we two motions that I'd like to put Mr. Clerk please who have not pre-register be allowed to register until 10:00 after which no further registration that the length of public presentations be limited to 3 minutes. And I'm sorry that we didn't get that that at 12:15 we break for lunch at 12:15. Do you need a motion for that or we you'll just do that at 12:15 and that councelor Chernos Lynn has an an important thing to do and then we come back at 1:15. Yes. No. 1:30. What would you like? After so 1:30. Okay. So we'll go from uh our uh 12:15 to 1:30. That will be our lunch. Yeah, we need a few minutes just to get back if that's okay. 13:40. Okay. Well, once we're call at 1:30, then we have a few minutes in order to be with it. It's no problem. It's just the regular time. We'll just go early. All right, that sounds great. Okay, let's start our run through. We've done that. We have speakers on a number of issues and the agenda rundown. I think that you've seen uh item number one. Hang on one second, please. There's no there's no item number one, which is response to council directions on sidewalk clearing requirements in the status of modernizing to. There is a letter that I had put in because actually it did snow last night and it's just continuing to snow that this would be great if this could wrap up in the um report that will be made to council and I think councelor Sachs you know that so that's the motion to move there refer it to be put in that larger winter maintenance report. Okay, that's the motion and there won't be any speakers on this. Yes. Oh, I was just going to move to receive it. Okay. Well, we're moving to refer it or to refer it, sorry, to that bigger report. Okay. Thank you. All in favor? Opposed? That's carried. Thank you. Uh correspondence on automated vehicle pilot. We have two speakers. So, we'll hold that. Number three, utility construction photo documentation. Going to refer that to the next committee. Number three, construction. Why are we referring it? Cuz I'm asking you to. It's my all my issues. I'm going to meet with the general manager. Do you have a problem with that? Not really. Great. Thank you. So, we'll refer that. Thank you. All in favor? Opposed? That's carried. supplementary report. And on number four, we have the um feasibility of limiting the number of automated speed enforcement infractions an individual vehicle owner can receive. Uh I think that is a moot point. Is it not? Can we have the clerk uh advise us? that that is that's what's in there. The supplementary report states that because they've been eliminated, we really can't weigh in on that. So, Madam Chair, I'm happy to move to receive the report, which essentially alludes to exactly that and as well that we're very unhappy that we have to move to receive that report. I know how unhappy you are. Thank you. And then five, transition of the Sorry. Yep. Maybe just a vote on to receive. Oh, a vote on to receive. All in favor? Opposed? And that's carried. Thank you. Thank you, Deputy Mayor. 27.5 Transition to the Blue Box program to extend producer responsibility preliminary post transition implementation date. I think we're holding that for questions. And I don't know if councelor Matt Lo is here, but I'm expecting where Oh. Oh, there he is. There. Okay. thought you might be here for that item. So, we'll hold that. Okay. And then that's also 5A, request for solid waste management services update related to delivery of recycling. That's being held. And then number six, Ontario's transition to extended producer responsibility. We did ask for a presentation by circular materials. So, we'll hold that. Thank you. Um item seven, ravine strategy implementation. We have speakers and we also have a quick presentation because we've been waiting a long time for good news on ravines. Thank you. Number eight, the tree bylaw also has some speakers and we'll hold that and there's also a presentation because I know people have been working for a long time on trees. Um in item nine there is a speaker on vision updates on vision zero road safety initials follows up from June missing sidewalk and road safety improvements. So that's item nine. I'd also like to add item uh councelor Burnside has item 10 here a tinder crescent and that we would hear nine and 10 together at the same time. So is that um they'll both be held for that. Thank you. And then we have uh you don't have to vote. James Pastron. Councelor Pastronac has one here. A councelor Sachs. I'm sorry I'm out of order. My apologies. Finch West. Yeah, the Finch West just receive. Do you want to move? Has a series of recommendations. There are a series of recommendations to approve. Thank you. All in favor? Opposed? That's carried. And then number 12, which was seeking clarity on the city of Toronto's application to the community sports and recreation infrastructure fund, is councelor pastornack and he is not going to be joining us and asks us to defer to the next meeting. Can you move that on his behalf, please? Deputy mayor. Thank you. Moved by Deputy Mayor Mley to the next meeting. Item 13, uh, United Nations Environment Program travel report where we were aly ay represented by councelor Sachs and she's put a great report in. Would you like to move to receive that? I'd like to hold that. Going to hold that question. Okay. Um item 14, authority to enter into agreements with board of management of the blur annex improvement area for improvements to Satan Park. That is that a new one? Yeah, that's a new one. So we have to move to introduce that. Move to introduce that here. Yep. All in favor? Opposed? That's carried. That's now on the agenda. Item 14. Item 15, options for winter access to laneway homes and garages. Councelor Sachs, uh, you're introducing that. Yes, please. All right. All in favor? Opposed? That's carried item. Sorry, 16, balancing conflicts over use of accessible parking permits. You're introducing that today, councelor Saxs. All in favor? So I'm item 17, Lennox Street, two-way markham to Palmerston. Introducing that. All in favor? And there we go. That's the agenda today. All righty. Um, we've dealt with number one. Sorry, Mr. Kahun. We look forward to hearing what you have to say when the big report comes back because you've always got something good to say. Can we move on then to uh item 27.2 correspondence update on the automated vehicle pilot program. And we do have four speakers, Casier Han, Adam Moto Ako, and Adam Roy. Are they all online or is somebody here? all online. Thank you. So, Mr. Hen, you can start with your five minutes. Hello. Please start. Thank you. Hello, uh, counselors, committee members, um, and chair, councelor Flesher. Uh, my name is Caseen. I'm a resident of University Rosedale. I'm a software developer. Uh I just wanted to thank uh the counselors and committee members for taking action on this important issue. Um Magna was a very interesting case where they managed to get approval through the provincial government um and bypassed the city's pro uh processes. Um and this bypass is not to be confused with the 401. Um, and there were other issues of uh, you know, labor, traffic, privacy. Um, back last year, a few of us spoke up about the privacy issues um, where they were recording everyone's uh, faces. Um, and um, yeah, I just wanted to thank uh, counselors and um, this uh, this committee for for raising those issues. Um we raised the issues uh privately with Magna ourselves. Um and uh they wanted us to sign NDAs. Um we we raised issues about storing personal images indefinitely as long as necessary whatever that means. atordio cardio outrageous no uh you know there was no indication of protecting anyone's privacy um beyond for whatever reason uh uh protecting license plates u and you know deciding that people's faces didn't didn't matter in terms of privacy um my my colleague Adam who will be speaking next will go into some other details um and yeah uh we we understand that um The city of Toronto doesn't really regulate the privacy practices of private companies which operate here. Um, but I want to plant the seed of the idea of, you know, imagine if the city began regulating privacy of companies that operate here, just like how Airbnb is regulated here, right? Um, so, you know, landlords have to register um and need city approval and pay an additional tax. Um Uber for example in other cities they have to pay an additional search charge uh to reduce congestion uh which they do introduce uh like in in New York City you know imagine if companies that want to record mass amounts of videos of the public or images of the public reminding we're three minutes or want to do facial recognition on on uh on public have to apply with the city to do so and do a privacy impact assessment. Um so yeah um thank you again counselors for for allowing us the chance to speak. Thank you very much and thank you for your interest in this thorny issue. Any questions of this deput? Yes councelor Saxs. Yes uh Cassie thank you for your deputation and for the work of your organization. Um, for clarification, uh, your group's not opposed to the use of automated vehicles in Toronto, as I understand it, as long as there are proper precautions for safety, congestion, and privacy. Is that right? Um, we don't take a stance on whether they should be in Toronto or not, but we do really um take a stance on the privacy and the ethical concerns um as well as the the traffic concerns and um you know, we raised these issues with the company um and they were unable to answer them or unwilling to answer them. And so our stance is really they should have clear answers for these um which they don't. Uh they just sort of want to come in, break things, and then fix them later. And it's up to the city to fix them, right? And that's not that's not really the way things should work. Well, I certainly agree with you and had the same experience with Magna, but in terms of the things within the city's power, what what in particular are you asking us to do? um perhaps looking into um so some of the examples I mentioned right Airbnb for example is regulated here right and it's sort of taken um under the category of housing um where they need city approval they need to pay additional tax right uh so there are um what's the word but there are like examples of like uh these forms of regulation that exists uh already in Toronto and Then in other cities where like Uber for example is is regulated and needs to pay an additional tax, right? And so what if companies like these need to pay an additional tax which would then um pre prevent them from uh you know doing business here um and exploiting everyone's uh you know everyone here. Um, and if they do, then they're paying into um some sort of uh fund which would maybe offset that by doing uh advocacy or some other um uh work. Okay, thank you. Thank you very much. Any further question? Thank you very much to the deputent and calling Adam Moto AIL. Adam, are you here? Yes, I'm here. three minutes. Thank you. Uh sorry, one one moment. I'm just There we go. Perfect. Um yeah. Um members of the IC, city councilors, distinguished guests and speakers, thank you for providing us with the platform to voice our concerns regarding Magnus self-driving pilot. My name is Adam Motoakil. I'm a software developer residents of the Spadina for York ward. Um I am along with uh Casier part of technologist for democracy a group uh that advocates for ethical uses of technology and also democratic uses. We followed this issue since last May and we've deputed in front of the IEC today and the and last May as well. We were pleased to hear that the city council took the privacy concerns seriously and brought them up with the privacy commissioners. Uh we're appreciative of the clarity that the IPC and the office of the privacy commissioner uh the federal office provided. Uh we would like to highlight one item on the record from the IPC stating stating that privacy regulations municipally and provisionally should be created uh clearer with a stronger vetting system to ensure that public companies or private companies as well are complying with complying with uh with orders and privacy regulations. Um, we believe that there is a privacy regulation asymmetry and that whatever regulations are used for public systems, the same should apply to private systems with the same rigor. Um, not only was Magna's privacy concern uh troubling, but has come out of uh but it has come out that Magnus self-driving delivery was a danger to Toronto's roads. Uh, we highlight two companies who suffer from the same problems although at different scales. Uh, Whimo and Ser Robotics, both of which have registered lobbyists in the in the city. The technology behind self-driving vehicles is complex, takes a massive amount of data, and is unsustainably expensive. To make these cars work in one city takes a lot of work and a lot of resources. To make it work in another city would mean having to redo a lot of the work. And still issues persist such as vehicles stalling, getting confused, and as admitted by a Whimo executive in a recent uh US Senate testimony, I think last February, uh self-driving cars are not fully automated as overseas contractors are used to redirect them to make them work properly. So they're really just taking the labor of people who are already working in Toronto or in Canada and then offsetting them so somewhere else that we don't know about. These cars are also equipped with sensors and cameras whose data is difficult to regulate and companies can freely use the data to sell to third parties and have little control over Canadia uh Canadian data being served to US servers. We put too much trust in a company to do the right thing with our data. And we also put too much trust that our private engineering team does not beholden to the neighborhood's demands will com will continue to do the right thing to make these cars safe. We have to stop letting these this technology be imposed on us. As a matter of fact, Torononians must have a say in how self-driving companies use our data and our roads. It's not right for us to be a product. It's to be Thank you. uh up to up to the whims of a product manager in California and they get to decide how Toronto's datas and roads uh are used. Thank you very much for for giving. Thank you very much. Are there any questions? Nope. Thank you very much for being here. And uh next deputent is Adam Roy Cahoun. I think you're here, Adam. Oh yes, you're online, right? There we go. Starting your time. Three minutes. Thank you. Hello. Um, thank you. on on this item. I wanted to say that my biggest fear is more those tiny little mobile vehicles that could be starting to take up real estate on the sidewalk. When do we start down the road of those um of the big mobile of the big automated vehicles? that little those little pink robots that tried to work in the city when they but they were shocked and horrified when they learned that disabled people had the had the same wages as normal people. They first thought they were going to hire disabled people in Canada that um had wheelchairs and drive those um vehicles virtually. So the the main real estate that those vehicles do have is what is troubling me with it. And also the city also has to realize that these automated vehicles, partly the tiny ride, are only easily controllable when everybody understands what the sidewalk layout is fully like with bumps and smoothness. with the city sidewalks becoming so uneven with the new climate change that is becoming very dangerous and that is what I want to say on that and quickly in regards to deferring that first item. I do understand and recognize. I just want it to be made a proper plan of actually dealing with this item rather than leaving it to a sweltering day in July when snow clearing is the last thing on anybody's mind and everybody just gets a rubber stamp card. I thank you for your time this morning for both these items. We and we thank you for being with us here this morning as well. Are there any questions to Mr. Gahun on this item? If not, thank you as always for your insights. We appreciate it. Uh bringing this into committee. Any questions of staff on this one? No. Any speakers? speakers on this. No, sorry. I have a move receipt. Sorry, I I wanted I had a question for staff. This is mute, isn't it? They're not doing it. So, what are we talking about? No, no, hang on. She has a We've had deputations. There's a question for staff. We'll just but if we can keep this one quick because actually they pulled it back. But you've led on this. Councelor Saxs, please go ahead. Question of staff. Yes, thank you. So, um we heard the uh the deputent from technologist for democracy recommending that the city take some action on the privacy and traffic impacts of automated vehicles. U my question for legal, have we reviewed uh the city's authority to take action on either of those items? And if not, um, how long would it take to do so? Uh, through the chair, legal has not been asked to look at that specifically and would probably need a few months to do so. Thank you. Uh, follow-up question. Do you need direction from this committee to do that review or will a simple request suffice? Uh, we would need direction, but I think it would probably be best that it be directed to staff along with legal and not legal alone. Okay. Um, can you assist me in drafting the recommendation you'd like to see to have that review done? Uh, through the chair. Yes. Okay. Can we stand you down until it's down while you get that and then it'll be a quick move, right, council? Yeah. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Coming back around the clock to that. Um, we have we don't have uh I don't know, Mr. Keller, is circular materials here with us or are they online? Pardon? Here in the audience. Yes. Okay, great. So, uh moving then to moving to item number five, which is the transition of the blue box program to extend producer responsibility preliminary post transition implementation update. And perhaps you'd like to come out of the gallery. Join us here. There is a presentation. Members, you're getting that here. I don't know if 311 is here to answer any questions. Matt, pardon me. Daniel is here. So, why don't we have you on deck? Please everybody ready? Okay, go ahead. Thank you. Uh good morning uh committee. Um just going to give a quick presentation this morning on the transition to extended producer responsibility. just a preliminary update uh of the roll out that took place in January. So just as a quick uh background, the city has been preparing for extended producer responsibility since uh 2019. We have a dedicated staff group that has been working very closely with uh circular materials uh to ensure uh that the the transition was done uh as smoothly as possible uh for the residents of of Toronto. And to that end, some of the uh areas that we've worked very closely with circular materials on over those years has been to transition our blue bins uh to circular materials so that the residents kept their bin and continued to use their bin versus the bins being swapped out. Uh circular materials has also continued with our side door program for residents uh who are uh disabled or are elderly and um have continued the overflow collection of materials and have also maintained the same collection day uh which again reduced a lot of potential confusion out there for the residents. One of the the changes with extended producer responsibility was uh in districts two and districts three where uh we were required to augment and and and change our collection routing uh due to the fact that we had uh a number of additional trucks uh that were in the system because we uh were no longer uh collecting recycling. We had to adjust those days to to balance out our our staff and equipment throughout the system. And we were looking at around 130 140,000 households in districts 2 and districts 3 that had their collection week changed, but the day stayed the same. So, for example, if your collection day was a Tuesday, it's still a Tuesday, but the uh if your if your first collection of January was recycling, it was swapped out for for garbage and vice versa in order to to help both organizations balance uh staffing and equipment. We used uh um a lot of very successful tactics uh through our communications department to get that message out to the residents and and also work very closely with circular materials on that transition. the observations from the field. Um, as could be expected um in districts two and three because of that uh change there, this these two districts had the most miscolction calls. Around 80% of the calls that 311 received were uh for districts 2 and districts 3. Um when we look at the uh other two districts, districts one and districts 4, uh the service disruptions were were fairly minimal and on a citywide basis, the overflow collection was collected for most residents. Now, that being said, there definitely were some challenges with miscolction. This was or is uh the the largest transition uh of a recycling program in the country. Uh and January did have some uh exciting weather. Uh so, you know, Circular Materials uh did their best. Um the city did their best. Um but as with any transition, there's always some hiccups in the beginning and we're starting to see after those first couple weeks, the the program really smooth out and be in a place that I think both groups are um you know, happy with, but again, there's still some some room for improvement for everybody. When we look at our 311 metrics uh in the the month of January, there around 9,000 calls that came in that were automatically transferred through 311 uh the system to circular materials or GFL and around 1,200 calls that our call center agents live transferred over. What these numbers really show us um is that the city's communication efforts uh were was a success. um the residents were calling the uh were calling circular materials or GFL um and not calling 311. And again, there was a lot of um a lot of really good work done by our communications team to to get that message out and in coordination with uh the division and and circular materials. There was a a slight hiccup on the circular materials uh collection app where there um the the dates of collection for certain areas wasn't correct. But my understanding is those have been uh subsequently corrected and with the apps for both organizations circular materials and the city. Uh we are mirroring the uh recyclable materials and what goes where with circular materials to make it easier for our residents and and for the residents who are non-eligible. Um but again one of the other pieces that uh was missing was the uh collection date for recycling on our app and we have worked very closely with circular materials to have the collection date added to our app again just to make it a little bit easier for the the residents of the city and uh it says here that it's going to be completed by Q1. Um my understanding is that it'll be done by the end of the week. So that's uh been fasttracked through the the hard work of of both groups. On the communication side, um I'm I'm sure everybody has heard or seen, you know, some of the social media challenges out there. Uh and the confusion was really around uh missed recycling, but again, back to the city's communication strategy and and the tactics. The the overall sentiment was was directed not really to the city, but to the province on this change and circular materials. So, the city's message that the city is no longer responsible for recycling uh was uh was well received and and again based on the numbers that we've seen through 311 was was well understood uh by residents. When we look at litter, um we have not seen a a marked increase in our service requests with regards to to litter. That being said, it was it's been one month. It's been just for January. And again, we've had a lot of snow. So, this is something that the division will be looking at over the next number of months, and we'll continue to report on this. Uh, and if there are some challenges that we see, uh, we will be reaching out to Circular Materials and their operator, GFL, to determine, you know, potentially uh, different uh, different avenues to to address that issue if it does become an issue. What we've seen in in our transfer stations in the first week of January is a slight increase in the amount of recyclables that ended up in the garbage stream. Uh this could be due to a couple of factors. One, just the seasonality of the materials coming in after Christmas and and residents uh putting them in the the garbage uh potentially by mistake. or on the flip side with missed recycling uh residents uh putting it into the garbage because the garbage was being uh collected a little bit more uh frequently than than the recycling was. But what we've seen now is that those numbers have stabilized back to historic trends. And again, this is something that we will continue to monitor uh over the next months and years to to determine what the trends are and ways that we can work with circular materials through education to make sure that the recycling goes into the blue bin stream and the the garbage goes into uh the city's garbage stream. The next steps for staff is is we'll be reporting back to committee in Q2 uh with a strategy to reduce some of the risk around the two items I just spoke about with regards to materials going to landfill and materials becoming litter. So we'll have a more robust report after we get some additional data points over the next few months. And uh next year in 2027, we plan to return to committee again with our general observations that we've seen over the past year of of recycling being uh collected and um you know any frequency or challenges that circular materials has had over the past year and report that to committee as well as looking at the the number of tons of recycling that uh makes its way into our stream. again through our our um periodic audits of that material and again any information from the the oversight body for recycling in the province the resource productivity and recovery agency and their annual report. So we we do plan to uh return uh quite frequently over the next number of years and uh update council and receive direction um as required. Thank you. Thank you. There's probably going to be some questions for you, Councelor Matlo. Welcome. Am I up? Yep. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Um so uh thank you for your your presentation and uh also I I like I see in your report that you've adopted uh the the preponderance of the of the recommendations that I made in the letter to committee which I'm grateful for with respect to the oversight and monitoring that uh you are doing your best effort to given the the restraints on your ability to kind of demand versus request uh information. Um I see on the city's uh the city's website along with the um the app um recycling has uh uh essentially disappeared. So I see the on the calendar if you put in your address if you're a resident you'll see uh you know garbage bin green bin and then on recycling days there's just green bin as though recycling doesn't exist. Um what is the thinking uh there given that for a lot of people they still will go to us to get just basic information about calendars and also information about what they can and cannot put into the bins uh through through the chair. Um you know and one of the challenges with including a lot of that information uh in the app it you know it's it's it's a 50/50. um it it's we're no longer in the recycling business. So, there's a challenge of including that information because it's it's really no longer our information. But then on the flip side of that, um it's great to have one source of information for the residents to go in and get that um that I would submit that it's confusing to people. Has has there been any effort to work uh in cooperation with circular materials to have just one-stop shop where where residents can just go to an app, find out what their calendar is, what services provided, what they're allowed to put into what bin, uh rather than have such separate silos in a way that nobody knows where to go and and and and frankly get basic relevant information that they need to rely on every week. So all that information will be updated by the end of this week in the app. So, it will be a one-stop shop for residents. It will be updated that will have um so right now we do have the kind of what goes where function in the app, but we don't have the collection date in the app. That's going to be updated within the next week. Okay. So, okay. So, so it so you are in conversation with circular materials and you are working together. Absolutely. Yeah. Good. And it'll be up in next week. That's the plan. Good. Uh thank you for doing that. Um, in your report you uh you and your staff suggest that uh that aside from some miscolction uh to quote you uh uh and your team uh it was that the transition was relatively uneventful. Um I I had I had trouble processing that that that line uh and that narrative uh given the what a colossal failure frankly the transition was for most people. Uh there were days if not weeks, many weeks where entire entire streets and neighborhoods in Toronto and elsewhere uh didn't have collection when they were promised that there would be a makeup effort to to pick up the bins. Uh it wasn't done for many weeks. Uh raccoons and rats were having fun, but residents were not. Uh sidewalks were impeded for many weeks because the bins remain there. Um I can you explain why why why why you and your team wrote uh that things were were relatively uneventful? So councelor like we're we're well aware that there were some some big challenges in certain areas around the city with regards to recycling collection. Um but as I touched on just at the beginning of the the presentation there, uh it it could have been um a lot worse if the partnership with circular materials in the city and the direction that staff received from council on maintaining the same bins, having side door collection, having overflow collection um and keeping the same collection day uh was not maintained. So yes, there there definitely were some challenges. Um there's there's no way two ways around that. There were for sure challenges. Uh but when we look at the overall um landscape and looking at some other communities, uh we on the whole uh did did much better. I I I I grant you that. I would just respectfully submit that suggesting that the transition was relatively uneventful did not match the lived experience of many residents in our city. Um, and then lastly, and I'll ask the same of Mr. Langden, have you been informed about exactly what went wrong given that there was such runway to the transition? Why were the the the why were so many pickups missed over New Year's? So, I'd have to defer that to to circular materials, but my understanding, we knew that there were some operational challenges with number one, the weather, uh, and number two, sta um getting enough uh resources, staff, and equipment for the augmented collection in districts 2 and districts 3. And again, with any transa transition, whether it's um of this scale or to a new contractor, there's there's going to be some bumps in the road and and we know that. Um but uh on the whole uh you know there were some were some challenges but now the I think we're in a in a good steady state. Thank you. Thank you. I gave you some extra time there. Appreciate that. Any other questions? Councelor Saxs, Councelor Moore, Liberty Mayor, everybody everybody has questions. You're very popular this morning. Okay, councelor Saxs. But thank you. I have I have no questions. I I want to build on the comments of my colleague. I mean, it it may have been fairly uneventful in the suburbs, but I can assure you it was not uneventful in my ward. Um, and again, I I I echo councelor Matt Low's real concern that the way this has been framed is, oh, don't worry, it's fine. It has not been fine. It has not been fine for individual homeowners. It has not been fine for multi-unit buildings. It has not been fine in terms of litter. We're not getting litter reports because it's under the snow, but we we will have litter reports once we can see what's happening on the ground. Um, and so I uh you know, when you say 311, it wasn't too bad. I mean, we we had certainly our office, we had hundreds of complaints, and we know that 311 had more than that. So the All right. Well, let me try this way. We had a promise from Circular Materials in the fall, first of all, that they would do a pickup the first week of January. That didn't happen, did it? So, it it did in many areas. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Well, it didn't in my ward. And they promised that when miscollections occurred, they would pick them up the next day. And they didn't do that either, did they? There were a number of instances where that didn't happen. You're correct. Yeah. Hundreds. Correct. Now, do you have any evidence that that problem has been fixed? When will we start seeing first of all the number of miscolctions come down and secondly miscolctions being corrected within 24 hours? When is that going to happen? So, councelor, that's a question for circular materials. Of course, I'm going to ask them, but have you looked into this, made any inquiries, got any evidence to believe that this problem is coming under control? So, councelor, based on the feedback that we've received uh through circular materials and and the general public and our 311 data that we're collecting, we're we're seeing the the number of miscolctions uh drop quite substantially. Uh but again, um we're not privy to all of the information uh on recycling collection anymore. So, um I think Allan and his team are are best positioned to give you a little bit more data on that. Absolutely. I will ask him. I'm asking you, have you made any inquiries to satisfy the people of this city and particularly downtown that this problem is coming under control? Yes. Like me and my team are in consultation with circular materials almost daily uh on operations. So when are we going to see miscolctions be picked up? Within 24 hours. So that again, councelor, we're not in control of that. um we can only be reactive with the information we get from circular materials and proactive in telling them you know continue to do a better job but I I can't give any timelines or deadlines when circular materials are going to perform as per um their commitments. Uh, point of order, Madam Chair. Point of order. Yes. I think uh, councelor Saxs need to apologize the staff for her tone. Uh, the province has taken over recycling and to basically admonish our staff for something the province has control over, I think is really unfair. Okay. And inappropriate. Thank you. Councelor, could you please take that under? Councelor Saxs. Could you please take that under advisement and understanding that our staff have no control over the pickup? I am understand that I am was asking staff about the comments they've made in their report and I'm asking what inquiries they've made of the company that they're in daily contact with. That's what I'm asking. Thank you. And Mr. Killer will ask answer that. Uh so chair I've addressed that that that we are in contact consistently with circular materials and uh we do inform them of the observations that we continue to see uh on the road and continue to uh push them to uh deliver the service that they've been uh tasked to deliver. But I can't get I I can't tell you when that their service request numbers are going to get to a certain level. I can't uh advise on that because I I don't have that information. But um uh Allan will be here and hopefully he can share some of his uh team's successes over the past number of weeks and uh getting those miscolction numbers down. All right. Will you make sure that he understands how unhappy Sorry. You're going to be able to tell him that yourself, counselor. I would like Miss Will she stopped? That is inappropriate. I've stopped that. Thank you, counselor. Deputy mayor, I've asked counselor Sachs to direct those. We're getting a chance to tell uh circular materials our feelings and not ask our general manager to have to relay them all. Thank you. Who has appeared in many different places. Uh uh Mr. Circular Materials. He's been to Peele. He's been everywhere and he can take the questions. So I think he knows what they're going to be. Did you want to follow up? Councelor Saxs, was that your last question? I'm done. Thanks. Thank you. Okay. It's councelor uh sorry deputy mayor Morino. Thanks madam chair through you. I just have a couple of quick ones and I know you mentioned some more um reporting is going to come to us once we have some time to actually analyze some data have a bit more time with this transition to understand its impact on litter specifically. So thank you for highlighting that in the report. My question just for clarification, my own understanding and for my residents, what is um ser solid waste management's services scope of service related to litter pickup or cleanup generally? So we're generally tasked with um cleaning up downtown uh main roads. We're not in the res the residential uh areas of the city uh collecting litter, but we do uh monitor, you know, the residential areas with our supervisors looking after curbside collection. Uh but we aren't um tasked with collecting uh materials uh as litter in the side streets. Okay. Um with respect to um the uh street furniture and the garbage pickup for that that remains under our purview. Is that correct? That's correct. Okay. Um my next question is which aspect of litter collection falls within transportation services scope of service? I know that's not for you specifically, but I'm thinking of side roads um highways and other areas uh where litter does in fact um accumulate. So through the chair to the councelor um Ashley can touch on that, but what I can do is uh provide um a matrix of litter within the city and what division is responsible for what and and where um we deploy our resources either divisionally or uh with uh divisional partners. Um because as you said when you're looking at um you know the public right of way off of highways off of streets um in parks there's lots of interdivisional work but I have that and I can share that not a problem. That would be really helpful and much appreciated. Thank you. Any comments on that? No. Thank you. Yeah. Uh thank you councelor Turner Lyn. I think you have some. Go ahead. One. Go ahead. Oh, thank you. Um, so as per the report, calls about missed collections peaked in early January and have since subsided to, I would say, a still significant 49% or of uh 311 calls. And I wonder um what proportion of 311 calls were actually about issues with recycling on average before circular materials took this over. Perhaps we could get 311 to answer that. Oh, sure. I can I can uh to 311 or not. Are they here? Then we'll continue. Pardon me. So I I I can address that. um councelor the uh so if we're if we're looking at year-over-year we had around um 12 to,300 m recycling collections for January and February last year and this year it's it's much less but the the the challenge with that is we have been promoting for quite some time not to call 311 to call circular materials and so that's part of the data gap is um our numbers have dropped from that 1300 substantially lower. But is that because the calls are now going to circular materials and maybe it's 2,000 3,000? Uh we don't know that. Um but what we do know is that um year overyear our calls to 311 for recycling uh February to February is down 95%. And again, that's to the success of our communication strategy of of letting the residents know the city is no longer responsible for blue bin mis collection uh and blue bin repairs. And when you look at the numbers in the report, the the split there is uh the the the 40 some odd percent that you mentioned is the percentage of miscolction calls as it relates to total blue bin calls. Um so there were calls for repairs, there were calls for you know other service uh issues but um you know overall our numbers have have dropped quite substantially because they're shifting over to the producer. Do you have more sort of I I what I'm really wondering about is um compared to the past are is this are we now kind of do you think we're in a place where we're doing you feel we're we're doing better in terms of our 311 like or are you still feeling that we're still getting more calls than we should be getting even despite the fact that we've done this? um outreach. I'm not saying that the outreach hasn't been strong. I think you guys actually have been very effective in that. Um and I'm in a ward where we had really significant challenge in those first weeks of January. Uh, and I actually felt people understood that it was a circular materials and GFL issue and sometimes a lack of communication between those two in some of the missed pickup dates. But I guess what I'm wondering is when we look at our 311, was it and recycling complaints, do you feel that we were doing better in the old system or are we kind of at a place where it's stabilized and it's roughly the same? Uh so uh the the the one in order to answer that um we would need to get the information from circular materials on the number of missed collections that they received through their call center and then we can compare um January and February of this year with the calls that came into our 311 system. We add in the circular materials number and get that sum and compare that to last year's January and February. So that's something that we uh will ask uh circular materials if they will share and we can provide that in the Q2 update. A little bit more information on that because at the end of the day the the overall goal of of the 311 uh system on recycling is to get the number to zero. We we don't want the calls to come into 311 because the best route for service delivery is to call circular materials. So that's the goal is zero. Um so again, we just need to get a little bit more data and we can provide a more comprehensive update um in in Q2 on those 311 numbers. Okay. And I I take your point that that's sort of we have a very I would say quite transparent system around 311 requests and counselors get updates on what 311 calls are coming in, what the topic is, what are you know what the percentage are particular to our ward even. So, uh, we don't really have that information from circular materials and I'm gathering from what you're saying, you don't either at this point, but perhaps that you will make that request. Yeah, we absolutely councelor, you have it. Okay. Thank you. Moment would like to answer that. That's correct. Um, we would need that information from circular materials. Of the 10,000 calls we transfer automatically by pressing four, what does that data look like for them? Okay. Thank you. Wow. 10,000. That's seems like a lot. It's Yeah. So, thank you. We'll look forward to that. Thanks. I'm going to ask some questions and I'm going to start with 311 because as you know, I've been tracking this very closely and seems to me that it looks like there weren't was not a spike, but there were a lot of people that called 311 that were transferred. Can you give us some of those numbers for this year, please? That's correct. Um, for the month of January, we transfer automatically without answering the phone calls, 10,000 calls to circular materials. We don't know what those were entailed. Be clear, 10,000 people called 311 and it was transferred automatically to circular materials, but it's not our business to know what they did with it. We just know they were transferred. Okay. 10,000. Yeah. Mhm. And in the last weeks in February, we're seeing 700 a week being transferred over the 311 for in person for the 10,000. Were there any direct for live operator transfers? We have 1,200 calls in January transferred 1,200. So that would be 11,200 calls about recycling. We're going to correct. So those are the the residents that come to us and then we do a warm transfer. We understand. Uh, however, what number did you give us, Mr. Killer? You gave us 1,900 that come came in in 20 25. Did I hear that number right? So, uh, what was the number in I believe it's around 12 or,300 missed collection calls. So, I don't have the total number of all calls because No, I'm I just want to hear cuz you gave a number. So, you've given us a number that was 11,200 Torononians called 311 over some issue with their recycling. Correct. Whatever it was. And how many had issues with their recycling in 2025? I'm sure you have that aggregate number for us. 1,200 missed recycling, whatever kind of other questions were called. How many were there? I don't have the data in front of me for the year. How many were there, Mr. Keller? So I don't have the total number. I know that there were was around 1,200 for Oh, there's a number. We're getting it. So there was 1,234 for mist recycling in February and one talking January for January 1,33 1,33 January 2025. Yeah. And then bin maintenance there was 1,947. Okay. So, we're going to assume if two things are can match, it would be the 1,33 mcollection, in other words, not broken bin, and 11,200 people that called 311 about their recycling. That's quite a difference. Or is that not a big difference year-over-year? Shocking the number. It is counselor but um the the 11,000 again we don't know if it was does my aluminum can go in the blue bin or not a question that could come in or if it was I had a how many came in last year about my aluminum can go in the blue bin. I don't have that number. Who's got that like this? I'm expecting that level of detail here while we're talking about the collections. So I'm assuming it wasn't 10,000 people. Would I be right about that? I wouldn't want to wager a guess at this point. You wouldn't. Do you think it's 10,000 people didn't know what to put in their blue bin? Let's get that number. We can hold this down. Uh, that's a lot of calls. Is that a lot of 311 calls? I have some for 11,200 that you patched over. Yes. That's a lot of calls. 11,200. That's right. And it's all 1,200 calls that came in are almost the same as the number of calls that came in about miscolction in 2026. Those two are pretty well the same. So we'd have to say there was a major event in January called changing over to circular materials. Wasn't exactly as smooth as it looked. Would we agree with that, Mr. Keller? It was uh rocky in certain areas, that's for sure. 11,000 people. Are we calling that rocky or smooth? Which one? Well, it's it was rocky for those people. For sure. Yeah. Very good. Okay. Uh the other question I have is in the bid um were our multi-res and etc. left out of the RFP that GFL bid on? So, not everybody gets collection here in this. My understanding is that the RFP that was put out by Circuit Materials was all-incclusive of curbside and multi-residential collection. And then what happened? And I'm assuming that the well that the contracts were awarded uh to GFL for all multi-res. That's my understanding. Yes. Okay. What's left out? Just remind us what's what are we still picking up. So we are um still picking up um church churches and uh in and institutions uh divisions, agencies, corporations uh and uh some small businesses and night collection and commercial. Yeah. For small commercial. Okay. Thank you. Um all right, Madam Chair. Sorry. I I have um a few more questions. It's also a point of order. All of your time. So, yeah. I just I just also want to understand I know on the next item we have circular materials coming. Will we have the opportunity to ask staff any questions if we're dealing with issues that are kind of related to those two things? Would you like to do that? I I wouldn't mind if I could request that. But I do have a question just as a followup um to staff on this on this report especially while we have 311 here. Well 311 will always be here with us on this including when circular materials is here. Should we bring up circular materials get that and then go back to a second can I ask one question just before we move to that? I I just wondered while we're talking about this number around, you know, 11,000 calls, has has 311 um have you guys been documenting how much this would this costed staff in terms of time and resources um because of the mistakes that uh were made by GFL and and circular materials? Do we have a number on that? I don't have a number out of hand, but I can give you that number. It's it's quite simple for the 11,000 calls. We can quickly calculate what that would mean. Okay. I'd be interested to know that number and I suspect my colleagues would as well. Thank you. You can ask for that. Okay. We'll stand this down. We'll ask you to stay and we'll ask for uh circum materials please to come with the presentation. Madam chair, I'd like to ask questions if I may. Questions. Could it wait for circular materials or you have to ask it now? This is a question to not going anywhere. They'll be here. Okay. Go ahead. My question. Yeah. My question to to both of you is this. So you saw the letter from 416 um Ted Aalis and he's asked in particular that there be for the rest of the year a monthly dashboard both of what what you can tell us about complaints which I recognize is limited and what you can tell us about the impacts on the city waste cost and they're looking for a monthly dashboard by ward. Is that something you can do uh on on recycling? No, we don't have the the data for that counselor and how that impacts us at this time. I'm talking about the the letter from Ted. What he asked was what's the impact on your Have you seen that letter, Mr. Keller? I've read it. Yes. Would you like a chance to look at that and then come back and answer that a little more crisply? Sure. Let's have him do that. Thank you. All right. We're having here. Sorry. Thank you very much. You can stay there and we'll bring circular materials here unless he has more folks. That'll be fine. Oh, you have quite a few. Okay, please. And then we'll have everybody. Appreciate that. Thanks very much. Just a point of clarification, Madam Chair. Are we doing another round of questions for circular material on item five or are we moving on to item six? We're now they're having a presentation on item six and then we can ask questions on item six. On item five, we can go back to in general. There'll be some of the things they'll tell us may have to have a question from Mr. Keller, too. Okay. Does that make sense? Thank you for the clarification. Good morning, chair. Thank you. Do you have a presentation or you just We do have a presentation, I think. Thank you. Is it loaded? Do we have their presentation? We don't have it. Okay. We don't have it printed yet. We just plugged in the laptop to the the cable. It should be there. Okay. Uh, we're also we also sent a copy in in advance. So, okay, just give us one second. Got your laptop plugged in. Maybe while we're waiting, I'll just um I think most of you know me, Alan Langden, CEO for Cycl Materials. I have my two colleagues with me, Nicole Gurley, who's our chief operating officer to my right, and to my left, Baljet Lai, who's our uh chief corporate affairs officer. Okay, perfect. Great. Thank you very much. Okay, I'll start just by giving a brief presentation kind of encapsulating what we've seen during the transition as well as some other issues and then happy to take any questions after. Sorry, just we don't have a printed copy here and usually we can follow along on that but you've not provided a printed copy here today. You've just not so just let me ask okay I don't think we can do it like that. So please proceed and perhaps uh yeah thank you. Yeah we did send a copy to the clerk so um yeah I'm sure they can we have an online copy but usually then we copy you bring one and then we can easily copy that for counselors who understood like to make notes on their paper. So um just to start off in terms of our commitment um you know this transition of course represents the largest recycling transition ever undertaken in Canada. Um and absolutely we experienced early transition challenges and we understand a number of Toronto residents experienced recycling collection delays. Uh we acknowledge the inconvenience this has caused and the resident and thank residents for their patient patience and understanding as we worked through and resolve these early challenges. And of course we're focused on continuous improvement and committed to building a system that Ontarians particularly Torononians can count on in the long term. Uh just to summarize briefly in terms of circular materials. So again, we're a producer responsibility organization. We operate in five jurisdictions across the country. Uh in Ontario, we administer the producer funded provincewide recycling program, a direction set by the government of Ontario to improve environmental outcomes and reduce costs for municipalities. And Ontario municipalities are collectively saving over $200 million annually as a result of this policy, this regulation. Uh we oversee a network of collection partners uh now servicing 395 communities across Ontario. And as we evolve recycling across the province, feedback and partnership is critical in supporting residents and communities. Again, just some top level numbers. Uh so again, as of January 1st, we're servicing over 5 million households across the province. That includes uh there's 395 eligible communities, which includes 383 municipalities and 12 First Nations. Of those 30 330 are serviced through curbside collection. Uh 65 communities have depot only collection, so drop off depots. And then all of that material is consolidated at 43 receiving facil sorry receiving facilities across the province including for servicing the city of Toronto. In terms of our goals, uh we want to meet uh Ontario's blue blocks obligations and requirements which includes meeting material performance targets. We want to have a convenient and simplified recycling system Ontarians can count on uh including an expanded and unified material list at technological advancements uh infrastructure advancements and supporting Ontario jobs and adding jobs to the economy. We're also interested in increasing recycling rates and reducing contamination in Toronto. The contamination right now is 35% uh one of the highest rates in Ontario. And above all, we want to advance the circular economy. That's why it's embedded in our name. Uh we believe that through packaging innovation and our material access program that we'll return processed material back to producers, they'll be able to use that in new products and new packaging. And this gives an overview of where we are of contamination rates as of November 2025. Uh so on the left you'll see single stream provincewide. Um the green bar is the contamination rate. Uh so in single stream recycling across the province we're at a 27% contamination rate. Uh then for dual stream it breaks out into mixed containers and then fiber stream. Sorry, I'm getting some background. Okay, that was council. Okay. And he's now been muted. Okay, good to know. Um so for a dual stream system in the mixed container stream we have uh 15.9% contamination and then in the fiber stream 4% contamination and that means overall provincewide we're sitting at an 18.8% contamination rate and that's as of November 2025 and this is just um again a reminder of the performance management target. So under this new regulation, it isn't just how much material we collect, it's how much material actually gets recycled. So how much material is actually turned into a product or a commodity that can make a new product or a new package. Um so we have and and when we talk about those target targets, they're done individually by material category. Uh so paper 80% um rigid plastic 50% glass 75% metal 67% and beverage containers 75%. Flexible plastics is 10% and that's probably going to be the most challenging target we have. Um flexible plastics is of course now collected provincewide in the system. That hasn't been typical in the past and it's a more challenging material to collect because of its lightweight density. Um, and it has a huge variety. When we talk about flexible plastics, it's not just one type of plastic. There's a multitude of plastics captured in that category. And so, a lot of our research and and development over the next few years will be specifically targeted on how can we make sure that we're recycling that material. Um, and right now in Ontario, um, we are probably collecting more flexible plastics than anywhere in North America as of January 1st. So in terms of collaborating to support the residents and you know I just want to I want to touch on the fact that you know we have been working with city staff um over the last couple of years but particularly in the months leading up to the transition. Um so there's ongoing partnership information sharing and discussions to understand resident behaviors and needs. We've worked together to streamline communication channels to support coordinated resident communication by collaborating on Toronto's uh recycling calendar which includes recycling information as well as the Waste Wizard app. And I I think we had the update from staff that that's going to be up and launched by the end of the week, early next week. Uh something we completely support. Uh we're also we've been working with the city to support the decision to swap recycling and uh waste schedule in district 2 and district 3, which from our perspective resulted in special collections required for 60,000 households. And we're working with our collection provider and the city uh will continue to evolve to deliver the recycling service that residents expect. Oops. Do you want to? Yeah. Oh, it will not. There we go. So, in terms of key learnings and solutions, so definitely in terms of contractor on boarding, uh we work closely with our collection service provider to identify and correct early gaps and ensure residents receive recycling services. In terms of special collections, uh those were created to support uh City of Toronto's new waist schedule change. However, there was resident confusion and um as well as excess holiday volume to manage. So, we work closely with the city team and our collection service provider to prioritize and address service delays. Uh and I know firsthand having, you know, discussed it with residents, received resident concerns. They sometimes would think that the recycling had already happened when in fact the garbage had happened that week and the recycling was scheduled for the following week. So, that definitely a theme. Was that all of the um inquiries received? not at all, but certainly was a component of what we dealt with. Of course, there was also weather delays and increased volume due to holiday season. In January, there was significant uh snowfall that impacted driving conditions. Uh we issued 182 service alerts across the province uh to keep residents informed and updated on delays. So, those service alerts would involve an inability to get to recycling that day as well as information on when we would be able to get to recycling. And there's without a doubt there was significant resident call volumes and wait times. Uh so due to heavy call and email volumes, residents experienced longer than usual wait times. Uh we onboarded additional staff to support volume, resolve backlogs and escalations. Current wait times are less than a minute. Um and today call call volume has declined significantly uh since the first week of January. In terms of resident inquiries and support, uh again the first point of contact uh as most resident is with the contractor. Um and so we have their information and certainly that's where we've been directing people to go. Um if they need an escalation, they can phone uh contact circular materials and we have um adapted our phone tree so that people phone into us maybe mistakenly they're thinking the phone the contractor. There is a prompt where they Oh, I've got to speed up. Got it. Okay. Oh, just comment please. Thank you. Yeah, I guess just the last port would be that we do have um emails uh set up for the mayor and counselors to prioritize or escalate inquiries and I know that they've been used frequently and we've been in contact with a number of counselor offices to help and support uh resident concerns, resident complaints with relation to recycling. In terms of resident communications, um we want to deliver timely and clear communications to residents, provide accurate information. Uh so you know we have targeted promotion and education proactive multi- channelannel strategy to highlight changes and benefits with residents including education resources and tools. Uh we will be engaging in community engagement so on-site recycling activation at local events such as due westfest St. Lawrence Remarket to support awareness and also collaborating with the city of Toronto on its long-standing 3 hours ambassador program to ensure that recycling continues to be highlighted as part of training and that's specific to multif family buildings. Uh in terms of school programs, we're working with Eco Schools and Earth Rangers to enhance recycling education with students for 20 plus Toronto schools have signed up. Uh and they'll participate in the Earth Rangers program. Recycling education toolkits are also being promoted through these programs. And then finally, website education. We have a dedicated Toronto community page including customer service details, request forms, and collection schedules. We also could you're reading and we can also read. So please give us the high level for each of your pages. I think I think we're pretty much at the end. So looking ahead, you know, we're con we're committed to delivering consistently reliable, fully compliant recycling services. Um successful transitions require collaboration and learning from all parties involved. There's ongoing meetings with municipal officials and teams and we have monthly or sorry bimonthly Ontario municipal working groups where we share key updates and again we look forward to progress in building a trusted and resilient recycling system. Thank you. Happy to take any questions. Uh we'll try to get you that so you can read it as well. uh questions. That would be you, Councelor Matlo. Uh thank you, Madam Chair, and uh thank you, Alan, and your team for being here. I appreciate it. Yeah, of course. Thank you. Um so, um as you recall, um there I mean, there's been I think a narrative suggested by some today that there was this was a blip in a in a certain way, an uneventful blip. But you recall and uh at that time after after you know Christmas with lots of people having lots of materials at home uh after lots of gifts being opened uh being told that uh their recycling would be picked up and after literally decades of reliable public service uh providing recycling collection and within transition known for a long time a huge runway in front of you. Uh it was a colossal failure and uh and we spoke at the time and and there wasn't a clear understanding of exactly what went wrong. But you recall residents experienced not only uh streets and entire neighborhoods not getting the collection that they were promised. But moreover uh they found rather than having more materials being allowed uh to be uh put in, there were fewer including alcohol containers. There were um uh promises that there would be a quick kind of cleanup after the fact that it didn't get picked up when they were promised and then that didn't happen for many days if not weeks. Have you figured out Oh, by the way, and I should add when people called over the weekend, there wasn't a call center available for them to be able to actually get access to anybody. So, there was a there was no accountability or any access to anybody. Have you figured out all the different errors that went wrong and why it went wrong? And can you give us like a candid account of uh of of why it was such a failure and what have you and your team done to fix things? Yeah. So, let me start off by saying I think and it was alluded in the previous presentation. I think there was was there challenges? Absolutely. Were they confined to certain parts of the city? Absolutely. you know, there was challenges, you know, maybe in all communities, but certainly the largest challenges were in the D2 and D3 um districts and certain components of those districts. I think there's no doubt that there was some miscolctions on the first day. I think we've acknowledged that and that contributed to subsequent issues in terms of trying to make up for those collections, right? Um so once we had identified the, you know, extent of the misolctions, I think resources were put um forward to try and address those mis collections as as much as possible. But I think in terms of um the scope of the number of initial miscolctions, all the work to um address that required more than just one day. It was multiple days and in some case weeks. Um in in addition, there for sure were data gaps, right? In terms of multif family buildings that we had as having you know weekly or bi-weekly collection when in fact they were weekly or collected twice a week. So I think there was a number of issues in terms of the material. So I just want to be clear about alcohol beverage containers. Are they part of our system? No. I think in the graph I represented, if you didn't see it, we showed how much alcohol beverage containers are collected. Um, but the point is that there's there's nothing in our contracts that require the con the collector to not collect those materials. So, if those materials are present, they're still collected. I think in our public promotion education materials, we try to be clear that they're not part of our system. So, that there is a system they should be returned to. Uh but we don't we don't um we don't refuse collection of material or we don't leave uh those containers behind. That's not the direction from circular materials. Um Alan uh with all due respect I didn't hear anything in anything that you just said that actually referred to my question about have you identified the errors what went wrong and can you take account and explain to us what you've done to fix them. So I I think as I said before there were miscolctions on the initial um yeah and so that there was resources uh that we you know diverted to try and uh address those miscons took a number of days to be able to um address and then in addition that too yeah and then in addition you also had the confusion with people not always knowing whether it was recycling or garbage they had to put out that week because of the swap and schedule. So, if I'm looking back of where we are now compared to where we are uh where we were at the beginning of January, what we've seen is a significant drop in the number of miscolctions, um we've seen a a significant drop in the number of uh resident complaints and phone calls or emails being directed to us. Ellen, I I I like you and I respect you. I I'm not hearing an answer to my question. And what is the answer you're looking for? So, I think I I I on behalf of Torononians, I want to hear from you uh respectfully. Yeah. that you have identified what mistakes were made, how they were made, why they were made, and take account for them and explain to us, articulate in detail what steps have you taken to correct them so that they won't continue to happen again. Thank you. That's your five minutes. And now you have you can answer that question. Yeah. So, as I related, we had mis collections. um those were a one-time event in terms of that specific date and they contributed to ongoing issues that took for us a number of days to catch up on. Uh when you're talking about what have we done? Um so we added call center staff and we expanded our hours to be able to be um address u the volume of complaints. Um we uh worked with our contractor to provide extra trucks and extra collection days including on Mondays uh when we didn't typically have collection. So there were a number of Mondays when we did special collections where trucks were out there collecting what had previously been collected. And then we've worked over the last few weeks to identify um data gaps like why is a multif family building contacting me saying they haven't had collection um when they've experienced in the past weekly collection on a regular basis for some reason they're in our uh databases having collection every two weeks. And so we work to address those data gaps. So what I'm seeing from where I am now to where we were back in January that we've gone through each of these issues. So we've worked at the contractor to understand what were the misolsions. We've addressed those. We've worked to expand our customer service hours and staff to ensure that we could meet the volume of of calls coming in. And then we've worked to address the data gap so we make sure that what was previously collected on a weekly schedule will continue to be collected on a weekly schedule going forward. Thank you. Whether or not that answered is you're you're done. Thank you. Okay, we have Welcome Councelor Pritza. We have others. Did you you're just here. Would you like to ask some questions? Go ahead, please. Go ahead. This is all new, by the way. New stuff. It might be new, but yeah. Um barriers and all. This is good. Um, so I took out the blue box this morning and usually what I would do is I uh uh cuz we have um a blue box collection today. So usually what I would do is you know just everything that goes into the blue box goes into the blue box and then I have a whole bunch of like leftover cardboard that I would normally kind of like package tie up together or put in a clear bag and put it beside the blue box and it would be picked up. I didn't do that this morning because I wasn't sure whether or not you guys would pick it up. Are you going to pick that up? We can figure it out. Yeah, I think additional stuff the overflow. So, I think we've commented on that a number of times publicly that we You know what? I sorry I missed that. I just got here and I I didn't get a chance to ask you directly, right? Yeah, no worries. So, yeah. Um we we have committed publicly that we're going to continue to collect overflow material in the city of Toronto. Okay. So, I can continue to do that. So, I should have done that this morning then. Correct. Uh maybe before you guys get to it today, I'll uh if I get a chance, I'll do it later today when I get home. Yeah. Why just in Toronto? Why not everywhere else? Uh so Toronto was a past practice and so knowing that and we had a contractor that previously worked in Toronto and so that was included in the contract. Um there for the most part um there's a mix of whether overflow is collected. So a number of municipalities never collected overflow. Uh they didn't see the need for it. It wasn't a requirement. um some municipalities did and then some municipalities were trying to move away from it because we have uh automoted automated side loader uh trucks um where the driver never gets out and so the driver doesn't get out um and that's the intention behind the system. Yeah. So I did have another question and and often here and I've been here a number of years now and often here we don't really sort of wrap our heads around uh the business part of the service uh that that we provide and we don't often do that. Um I I think we're kind of like come lately on this one and and I want to better understand the business side of this service right the blue box. Um so so it pay it currently pays for itself right by and large it does not it does not it does not so what's the shortfall I would say in percentage terms like what what uh you know what what do you have to um what does it cost now the the producers uh to have their materials um recycled by hundreds of millions of dollars a year and as you hundreds of millions of dollars a year and this is across Ontario, correct? Correct. Okay. Um do you see it at some point uh it breaking even and possibly uh you returning some monies to uh the the the producers of of u of recyclable materials? I do not you know the commodity value that we are able to obtain from the material uh will cover 10 to 20% of the cost of the system. So so I've often wondered about that in terms of how uh you know with with technology uh you know changes and or or advancements in technology and the expansion of uh materials that can go into the recycling stream. I I've often thought that um that one of the reasons why um uh producers uh would want uh to to this type of system uh would be that eventually it wouldn't cost them any money and possibly they could make some money from the products they produce. You don't see it going in that direction at all? Like am I being like I got do I have blinders on? Is that what it is? So commodity markets are um at least North America if not global. So let me take it for example a product like PET. So your pop bottle. So last year at this time we would have um obtained maybe $600 per ton for that material. As of today uh because of uh global trade issues and the No, and I understand the fluctuations. I got you fluctuations. That's 30 seconds and he's trying to answer you and then it's over. I'll just be I'll just be quick. So as of today uh we don't get any value for that material. We actually have to pay people to take it off our hands. And so part of the transition EPR has been actually removing that obligation from the city to have to pay those costs. So that's now paid for by producers. No, no, no, no. I I I forget your benevolence. I don't I'm not I'm not talking about your benevolence. I'm I'm asking you about the sort of the the business model that you intend to develop and build across the province of Ontario for the producers of recyclable goods. And the question was, do you see this system eventually paying for itself? I understand the fluctuation in prices. The fluctuation counselor. Yeah, that is the question. You're way over your time. The question seeing for itself, Mr. Please answer yes or no. Uh, we do not see the system. We do not see it paying for itself. We do not see the system paying for itself. We do not see the system paying for itself for itself. Okay. Thank you. Uh, next up, Deputy Mayor Morley, you're up. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I have a little bit of a different tact and thank you for being with us today and for sharing the information as well as some of the work you've done to adapt to the challenges of the gate. Appreciating no transition is ever going to be perfect. Um and we do appreciate um those staffing up etc. Um my questions are specific to the improve environmental outcomes uh goal of the work that you all are doing understanding again that it is early days but I'm wondering will there be a dashboard or other um data points um shared with municipalities so that we can manage our progress and success specific to litter diversion which you highlighted um and as well as managing recycling contamination within the municipality. Yeah. So um definitely recycling contamination like we've given you an update today you know we'll be updating um various parties on that particularly our collectors going forward right we want to reduce that contamination in terms of a dashboard uh we do have a commitment through the regulation we have to publish annual performance measurement reports um those measurement reports go into Ripper Ripper then consolidates the performance measurement reports from all the pros operating in uh Ontario and then they would be responsible for providing in information in terms of a snapshot in what performance looks like going across the province. What was the body you mentioned that's responsible for that? Resource productivity and recovery authority. That's different than other jurisdictions. In other jurisdictions, we would simply publish that information ourselves. So, we have annual reports in all the jurisdictions we operate. And so annually we would um provide a report outlining what the cost of the system, what was our performance, where did we see issues, has recycling improved or not improved over the year. In Ontario, that work is really left to the third party regulator and as a result that will take longer than it will in other jurisdictions. Okay, that's helpful to understand a bit of that path. It's a bit of a complicated one, but we'll follow it. Um, how will residents be able to see how we're doing as a city with recycling contamination? Yeah, it's a great question. So, you know, right now we plan to follow up with our uh collector on a regular basis to monitor uh contamination and work with them to address issues of contamination. I think we'd be happy to provide the city with regular updates um because reducing contamination is going to be a significant strategy in terms of improving the quality of recyclables that we're eventually available to sell into markets and actually recover and and use against our targets. So, as I said before, the contamination rate right now is 35%. Which means one out of every three trucks going to our sorting facilities is essentially full of garbage. And so, even getting that down to um the average for single stream, which is 27%, and eventually the average for all recycling, which is 18% in the province, would be a huge step forward in terms of improving the quality of material we receive from the Toronto system. That's helpful. Thank you. Um, and I did ask this question previously when you were with us at IEC, but I do think it's important because we know this is a major contributor. How are producers like Amazon um that generate a lot of packaging and we're all very guilty of participating in that. Uh, how are they involved in this process and how are we making sure that they're um at the table? Yeah. So, I know that Amazon is um is participating in the Ontario program. I believe most largecale online retailers are. I don't have information on all um uh companies that participate in the program. Again, that would be the resource productivity recovery authority that manages that. But certainly from circuit materials point of view, we probably have over 900 producers uh participating in our program and certainly the largest, you know, and a range of businesses. Everything from small retail chains to some of the largest retail chains and largest consumer goods companies in the country. Are they also reporting in about where they're sourcing their product going forward? So like are they buying it back from within the system? Right? Really focusing on that circular piece. Is there data not only on how much diversion to recycling we're doing but also data on the demand um for brand new products versus recycled products of the producers? Yes. So that's a great question. So what producers have to do every year is they have to report in how much packaging did they supply into the marketplace. They have to report that in 62 distinct categories. So cardboard, polyropylene plastics, PET plastics. And one of the key initiatives for circular materials is working with producers to be able to allow them to access the recycled material. So yeah, can we have a PD producer obtain the PET directly from our system and then use that as recycled content in new packaging? Uh essentially. So, we have a number of projects for that in the pipeline. And we're hoping in the year, 18 months ahead that we'll be able to start to move ahead with pilots and really start to profile some of the I think great work producers have done to make their packaging more recyclable and then go to that next step of actually including recycle content directly from the Ontario system into their packages. And my last question is, do we expect and anticipate that that might add some more value? You mentioned the sort of diminishing value on recycled materials. As we get this figured out correctly in those process and procedures and they come back within the system, do we expect to see more value of the recycled materials? That's exactly it. Like we think that, you know, we've always made the assumption that producers are going to have to play a role. If we want these markets to become more steady, to not be so volatile, we actually need the participation of producers to buy back this material. And we know that we have a number of producers interested. And so we think it will be a key strategy in providing more certainty and more um consistency uh to the commodity markets going forward. Absolutely. And hit on that environmental goal. Awesome. Thanks Madam Char there. Thank you very much. Other question counselor Saxs, hang on one sec while I get you reset. There we go. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you very much. Um going back to the multi-unit residential buildings, as you know, many buildings in my ward have had great difficulty getting their collections and aren't getting them often enough. uh what is the procedure that you want multi-unit residential buildings to follow to get back uh a workable collection schedule so that they've got room for the bins? Yeah, great question. So, you know, first of all, um first point of contact is really to go to GFL. Um if the issue is persistent, uh then they should escalate it to our customer service line. a ticket's created and then we can do the follow-up to ensure um that they're, you know, that they're collected on the schedule that they should be collected on. And again, I think what we've seen um evidence of mostly is people who were previously weekly for some reason being um included in our schedule is bi-weekly or every two weeks and then some people who were collected twice a week only being collected weekly. though um as those um issues or uh events have been brought forward to us, we've been working with the contractor to make sure there adjustments in the contract, they can be collected on the schedule that they should be collected on. Okay. The short answer is they just have to email you and ask to be put on a corrective schedule. All right. Um are you willing to extend the phone support hours? A lot of people work during the only hours that your systems available. You want to take that or you want me to? Um yeah, so currently we have extended our um customer service hours um from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. and then we do provide some weekend support to support backlog. Um so we did we took that interim measure to help support the volume coming in January and we're evaluating extending that over the next couple of months as well. Okay. Well, please extend it for the next couple of months. It's it's needed. Um the if the city has as I expect considerable extra litter costs that so many collections were missed for so long and so many bins were knocked over and there was so much spillage when the bins were picked up. Will your company contribute to the city's cost for the extra street sweeping and litter collection? So you know at this point that's so I don't think we know the extent of of um whether there is letter or not. So, I think that's something we would um talk to city staff about once we know if there is in fact a problem. I don't know that there is at this point. My constituents say there is. Okay. So, will you contribute extra costs if we have them? So, that isn't it isn't involved in the scope of our program. Um and so, again, I think I'd want to talk to city staff and understand the extent or or the nature of what in fact uh happened before I could make any commitment. So you won't make a commitment but I can assure you we have a problem. Um in terms of the flexible plastic on slide eight you mentioned that you your heart biggest challenge is diverting even 10% of the flexible plastic. Uh how much of the flexible plastic that you pick up is being burned. Yeah. So um we don't we don't send material to energy from waste. So um a couple things. Our primary goal is to try and recycle the material. Right now, if that's not an option or if there's not an end market, there may be some material that's landfilled. Absolutely. But I think our goal is to ensure as much of that material can get recycled. All right. But you told us that you're you're having trouble reaching 10% diversion. That means that more than 90% is not being diverted. What's happening to that 90% right now? Yeah. So, just a clarification that 10% would be based on the amount of material supplied into the marketplace. So if that 100% is supplied in the marketplace, probably at this juncture we're not even collecting 20%. Um so of that 20% um are we able to maybe get to 50% recycling of that? Hopefully. But keep in mind that there's going to be lots of loss of that material in particular because of its lightweight nature. So we're going to lose some in the collection. We're going to definitely lose a significant amount in the sorting because the way the sorting facilities work, they work on conveyor belts. That material tends to float. it gets wrapped up in machines and so it's not um it's a regular thing that facilities will close down and just go out and pull out the flexible plastic that are caught in their machines. No, I understand. I'm not asking all the explanation. I'm asking what happens. You're picking up flexible plastic. What percentage of it the amount that you don't actually have reused is it going to landfill? Is it being burned or both? Uh so if it's if it's not being reused then it would be going to landfill. It wouldn't be burned. All right. Uh and similarly the rigid plastic you say you're you're well I've got a target of 50% this the we know that all these plastics are expensive and hard to recycle the extra plastics are they being burnt or or landfilled again not burned and again for the rigid plastics a number of them are actually highly recyclable in particular the pet I understand okay I'm asking the overall how much so how much of what you're collecting now is actually being recycled being reused, going to some useful purpose as opposed to landfill. Yeah. So, I don't have exact statistics, but the overwhelming majority of the material uh would be captured and would be um recycled for use as a new product or new package. Can you get as actual reuse statistics? Yeah, for sure. Absolutely. And that's that's part of what we need for our performance manage um management or performance measurement report. We need to be able to say you know we collected this much and of this material collected this is how much actually went to recycling or was actually transformed into a new product or package. Absolutely. Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much. Lot I'll just ask a few. the um I did watch the Peele region and the issues that they had and one of the things that they have as a problem is that there's no cardboard that's being picked up and the blue bags overflow isn't being allowed. Is that because that was the contract with GFL or was that your prescription? So, two things. So, currently both the blue bags and the cardboard is picked up. Uh we're looking to phase that out but as of today it's being picked up. Sorry. Yes, you're planning to phase it out. Was that in the contract or was that GFL that made that? When they bid on the contract, did they not bid on picking up cardboard and blue plastic bags? Question. Yeah. So, keep in mind that one of the differences in Peele is when they bid on who how did that happen? Did they bid on the contract or did you put that in the tender? It's pretty simple. It's either or. Which one? So in in Peele y the GFL is a new contractor, not an existing contractor. The bid that they provided was for collection of materials in the carts. Um and it's our objective to try and get as much of the material collected as possible. And they did not. They said their bid excluded cardboard and their bid excluded blue plastic bags. Yes or no? Let my colleague I think it's important we're not kind of disclosing commercial uh relative pieces of of their agreement but I would say that what is in place today in their contract is specifically an automated cart program correct in the container. Okay. So that was what the bid was automated cart which left other exclusions and that contract wasn't awarded by Peele. That contract was awarded by Circular Materials or by uh what's the name of that thing? RPR authority. Who awarded that contract? Circular materials um is responsible for the contract. Thank you. You awarded that? You tendered that? Did you tender contracts that said same pickup as usual or did you tender because I think your tender is public. When you tendered that, did you require that the same materials or ways of operation would be pick people could still live out their blue um bags that you'd still be picking up cardboard or was that not something you included in the tender document? I I'll just again reiterate for the city of Toronto. No, I'm not asking there. I'm asking You're asking for us to comment on things outside the city about Yes. I'm asking you to comment on that in your tender when you made tenders to the city of you know you had a tender document GFL bid on it here and apparently were able to still put out our blue bags and still put out our cardboard. Correct. In that contract that we have today for Toronto you have overflow for Toronto we have overflow and cardboard correct and that was host bed it was a separate procurement activity. No, I understand everybody's got but somebody's in charge of a tender and you're putting a tender out and there was a requirement in the Toronto tender to maintain overflow capacity and maintain cardboard or was there not? I can say that it's not a specific requirement that is put forth in any of the RFPs. It's the proponents are opportunity to put forth proponents up to the proposals. Okay. That align with the regulation and you accepted that and and and excluded a few things. Competitive procurement process. Thank you. Can you just confirm and I've just left that on at 5 minutes so I'm at 4 minutes and 30 seconds. Um the reason why we had to switch days was because GFL did not have an the a number of trucks. They didn't have the trucks that would allow them to maintain our current recycling schedule. Is that correct or not correct? And I'll also ask Mr. Kellaher the same question. I believe it's correct. Um, so the city was the one that requested us. So we were requested by the city to accommodate the change in schedule. We were not. We had a schedule. So you were never going to accommodate our schedule. That's not the question. The city approached us and said, "We would like to change the schedule in D2 and D3. Would you be willing to accommodate that request?" the GFL had no problem in accommodating with the number of trucks that they had. Mr. Keller told us that before and I'd like the answer from staff. I'm hearing that it was us that just wanted it changed. I understood previously that GFL did not have the ability to um manage the same day pickup because of truck shortage. Which one is it? Sorry, councelor had a a number of folks here talking to me about this. Well, I'm asking you a question. Yep. Okay. Would you mind repeating it? Oh, I'm repeating it. Sorry. Uh, the question was, and you answered previously, that GFL, we changed our schedule in January because GFL could not pick up in those little sections of D2 and D3 because they didn't have the amount of trucks they needed and they needed to switch the day. Is that wrong or right in what we heard before? Um, councelor, the reason why we switched the days was to balance the number of trucks that both GFL under the city contract and our staff um and and trucks uh had uh on specific days. So, just broadly um with some uh rough numbers, if we were to send out on week one 40 trucks, week two would be 20 trucks. So, we would have to have 40 trucks. But with the adjustments, we streamlined it so it would be 30 trucks one week, 30 trucks the next. So it helped smooth out our operations and subsequently our contractors. So what you told us before is that we were accommodating their truck capacity was incorrect. I didn't I don't believe I've ever said that, counselor. Okay. Thank you. All right. I've used up my time. Pardon me. I had I thought you had Oh, I'm sorry, counselor. Of course. Uh we still have councelor I'm not I'm not opposed to a second round but I just you do your first you have your first um so uh to circular materials um I know that you've been we've been talking a little bit today about um the overflow and collecting bags and we're very happy to see you're doing that in Toronto. uh can you commit to doing that um long term for us? Because I know if it's a family like mine, we often have more recycling than we the largest bin uh allows. Yeah. So, as I said before, it's part of the contract and there was no plan, excuse me, there's no immediate plans or no plans to remove it and it's in the long-term contract that we have with GFL. Okay. So, there is no intention to change that. Correct. Thank you. Um in my ward in particular, we had some challenges with um communications I would say between GFL and um circular materials around pickup dates and then also um some miscommunication on the app in terms of showing the incorrect date. Can you explain like why that wasn't rectified quickly and whether you've um become perhaps more nimble around that because that was a real point of confusion for my residents and it stayed up um for a long time and no matter what the city did we couldn't seem to get that changed. Definitely. Um yeah definitely appreciate the confusion that caused. there was some data gaps um that were inputed within the recycling app that caused that confusion. Um when we understood those data gaps, we immediately connected with our vendor GFL um to validate the data and then we updated it within two week time frame. It is all accurate and up and running now but definitely acknowledge there was some u miscommunication based on that. Okay. Are you aware that GFL was blaming the city for this? No. Um, we did we did hear there was some uh miscommunication around sharing information with residents that was inaccurate and we do have regular training exercises with their resident relations staff and ours to make sure that we're all aligned on the communications and messaging. Okay. I I'm trying to remember if it was GFL or if it was circular materials. I'm now drawing a blank, but I know they were whoever my residents were phoning were sometimes telling them that it was the city that made an error, but the city did not make an error. Am I correct? There were some um just data um kind of challenges with the type of data we're receiving, but I wouldn't say I wouldn't put point fingers at any stakeholder or any kind of collaborator. So, um that was through the call center through GFL, but we have um we do regular training exercises to make sure we're sharing accurate information with residents. Okay. Okay. And are you able to update your app more quickly if there are errors now? Definitely. Yeah, we monitor it and we make sure that it's accurate. Okay. Um perhaps I'll let you go to a second round. I know I have some more, but I want to just make sure I'm on track. Thanks. Uh we can have a second round, but they're not going to be five minutes. How's that? 3 minutes. That's it. Pardon? 10. No, I'm sorry, counselor. No, because we have a lot of business and we're ending early for accommodate counselors here today. So, 3 minutes, no more. And I'm cutting you all off right at three. Thanks. Go ahead. Uh, thank you, Madam Chair. Um, does does RIPA um have a mandate to approve or review your operational plans? Is that is that something that they do? Apologies. No. um you know its producers are responsible for putting together the operations um and the operational plan to meet the um objectives of the regulations. So RIP's role is to ensure that um um that the organizations operating under the act are meeting the objectives of the regulation. Um that's their primary role. Have they have they uh have there been any um compliance complaints uh through Rupra about about your operations in Toronto? Um nothing that's come to us from RIPRA. Okay. Do you have um like do you have a contingency plan for when there's inclement weather when there when there's just extreme events where uh whatever your your deal is with with GFL may not accommodate that event. Yeah. So I think the the plan for inclement l sorry inclement weather would be the same as what the municipality would have done before. If you have weather that does not allow trucks to go out, uh, then you would need to not go ahead with collection. And typically in Toronto, because you're only collecting on four days, you would push collection by a day. So, let's say that, you know, there was a weather and event on Friday, and we couldn't get collection out, then typically you'd push your collection to the Monday, which isn't typically collection day, and trucks would be available to go out and and do that collection. Uh, the challenge of course would be what happens if there's weather events over a number of days. And again, I think it would be a combination of pushing collection and then you may have to engage in some special collections to go around and ensure that um whatever you know residents were missed were picked up. But typically what we would expect is if people had the recycling collection missed uh on a weather event that would be a collection push for one day and then the material be collected the subsequent day. So I given given the um I mean when when it was a public ser when it was provided publicly when the service was provided publicly uh there was clear accountability you could come to this committee answer questions there'd be direct answers we'd be able to move motions things could get done uh it's different now now that it's been handed to you by the Ford government. Um I'd like to ask a question of both uh circular materials and city staff. Same question. Hurry up. Oh it's it's all it's all together. I'm not going to recycle it. Um will given that that that we need data, we need information from circular materials to be able to provide uh the accountability that isn't set into this plan uh to provide information to our residents and to be able to review uh contaminated contamination rates, service, delivery, quality, etc. Will there will there be work done together between city staff and circular materials so that circular materials will agree to provide all relevant data information that's requested and will city staff work with circular materials to ensure that that's done so that we can have some type of dashboard some type of public facing information that can be accountable to the public and to those of us who represent them. So, I'd like to hear from both both city staff and circular materials. Will there will be an agreement for that? Well, asking will you turn that information over to city staff as requested? And I want to hear from city staff. That's my question. He's you've yes or no. We're on yes or no answers now. Well, I need to So, first of all, I don't know what's being requested. Second of all, rather rather than turn it over to city staff, if there's information that this committee be interested in, happy to hear that and certainly happy to come back at future either either by sending in report or appearing again to provide some additional information and city staff because I don't want them to know their time trying to answer the same question. Yes. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. You've got your answers. If you want a motion to come back, whichever kind of data you'd like to have and then we'll see if they can deliver that, counselor. Okay. Thank you. Almost. Anybody else? Councelor, please stay within the three minutes. Thank you. I'm being very nice to you today, everybody. You're getting a lot of time. Uh yes. Well, you one of the points been that's been raised by 416 is that you've reduced the number of staff per truck. Um well, have you reduced the number of staff per truck or is it still two people per truck in Toronto? Answer. I'm not aware of any reductions in any service. check and let us know. Sure. Right. The second thing again following up on both 416 and my colleague is we've been asked for visibility on misolctions and the collection days and recycling and contamination rates by ward. If the only way to get that to get you to come back to every meeting of our committee or are you willing to provide monthly data that the public can see? Uh we wouldn't have data monthly. We wouldn't have data by ward, but certainly we're happy to provide um regular updates on contamination rates in the city of Toronto. Absolutely. Contamination rates, miscolctions, collection delays, and we do need them localized. City averages don't tell us anything. How can we get that data from you? Uh let me take that away. You know, again, miss collections, at least at current states, we're talking a few hundred a week in, you know, compared against almost 500,000 stops. So I would say that generally miss collections are have dropped considerably and we would expect that they would stay at that level or lower going forward. We don't know that without the data and I can tell you that in my downtown words we have a problem. So it's what I'm looking for data when we anyway I've asked three times we need that data. How do we get it from you? Yeah for mis collections I'll have to take that away and molions contamination rates collection delays and we need it localized. When will you get back to us on that question? If there are collection days, we usually make those public and we publish them on our website. So I don't think any No, how long you delayed anyway? How long when will you get back to us on these questions? Would you like to make a motion, counselor, to have those particular issues, the data, the contamination, and everything because we're not getting that answer. Okay, I will make a motion. Great. Um, now in addition the um um can you commit to us? Oh, sorry. One other question was about the coordination with snow clearance. So, when your collections were missed, the bins are left on the sidewalk. The sidewalk plows can't get down. The sidewalks can't get cleared. People can't get through. And then your trucks then said, "Well, we can't get through because the sidewalks aren't cleared." This is an impossible situation which has caused major problems in my ward this winter. What are you doing to coordinate with snow clearance, the city uh sidewalk clearance crew? get the bins out of the way so we can clear the sidewalks. Yeah. So, great question. So, um happy to follow up with city staff and and whatever department in terms of snow clearance to have those discussions and totally agree if there's a way that we can coordinate efforts u because we need the streets clear. We don't want to send a truck down if the street isn't clear and we, you know, we worry about the potential for an accident. So, that makes a lot of sense to me in terms of trying to find a way to coordinate efforts. Thank you. That was your last question. I'll make a motion. That's perfect. Appreciate that. Anybody else with more questions? Councelor Turnislin, you wanted to go finish up your five first five minutes. Go ahead. Yeah. I I wondered um has circular materials had any lessons learned around um the challenge of collecting this kind of material when there's snowfalls. Um if there's missed collections, um how you're managing all of that. like have have you noticed any things that you you guys have reflected on that you can share with us? Um I'll start and then my colleague might have something. You know I think um generally in terms of the snowfall you know again you know what we've seen in Toronto is um is not usual. I think it's the most snow we've seen in 100 years. So I think that created a range of challenges. But just on typical snow delays again, you know, typically what we would see is if there is a snow issue, given that we have four day 4 day week collection, there is the ability to push collection and then hopefully we don't see any long-term delay in the collection of material. I don't know if there's anything you want to add. I would just say that we continue to follow best practices that many municipalities have actually uh executed over many many years. So we are aligned with those and I would just say the more that we can ensure that we have clear communication and service alerts uh alerting residents so that they're aware of the delay so that there isn't resident confusion uh is also key. So uh that's an area that we'll continue to uh expand on. Okay. Cuz there's there's been challenges in terms of bins tipped over, recycling getting scattered. Um but that's really not the responsibility of the city. That's really your responsibility. So, how are you managing that? So, when we do get these escalations, it is uh something we manage directly with the contractor to ensure that they're reinforcing that from a contractor, from a training perspective with the drivers. Generally speaking, uh when they note that things like that happen, they do go and and they rectify. Uh but essentially, as as those become aware to us, we ensure that we enforce those protocols with the driver wherever possible. Okay. Um, I just want to say I do appreciate Circular Materials coming today and answering questions. I know it's not always easy and you're in still a very challenging period of transition. Um, but as we've all noted, it it is starting to improve. That's good. Um, are are you open to regularly coming to this committee? Yeah, like I think as an organization, we're committed to engaging with communities in whatever fashion to ensure that they have the information about our services and we can address any concerns. Absolutely. Okay. Thank you. I I do think it's valuable and I know it's not maybe the most fun, but um I think I think we've really talked about a number of challenges that our communities have faced and um I think facing it together is a good thing. Uh finally, I guess I would just echo um the uh the ask for more transparency in terms of data and um creating a dashboard. So um are you are you willing to look into creating a dashboard? Like we don't have a mechanism in the same way we can't direct you the way we could direct staff let's say. So uh are you able to commit to doing that to provide transparency? So first of all we want to be you know our our default is to be as transparent as possible. So as I've said for things like contamination that's relatively easy. Um when it comes to misolctions I just want to ensure that we're not um we're not in breach of any contractual provisions. So, you know, if we're talking about uh public collection delays, again, that's information we release publicly. So, you know, happy to to share that with committee. Same with contamination information. Uh for other for other data, I want to make sure that I'm not um violating any, you know, breach or any breach of my contract. So, you know, let's take that back and then we can come back to the committee at a future date. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Uh I just have one question now from something that you'd ask and that is actually to city staff and it's either to um you Mr. Killer or directly to our acting DCM and welcome into your acting role this morning Mr. Curtis. I didn't say that earlier. Um, just about the litter because councelor Saxs has raised that and I think really and truly what steps has the city taken or is thinking about in what's left behind because that technically now is a littering situation what steps have you taken with GFL? What's your plan for that? particularly once the snow goes who's got that answer because it really is MLS I guess that would investigate or who would investigate and say there's a problem so uh chair there's um a couple aspects of that one it would be if the the bin is left behind because uh of contamination that would be something we'd work with circular materials and GFL on just to better understand that and of of course MLS if there's a a large amount of litter that's left behind Um there's typically it's typically done uh or as a result of just poor tipping of the materials into the bin and again it's an operational piece that we would work with circular materials on to inform the contractor and if needed we'd work with MLS and legal services on uh moving any Have you done that already? Do you know what you're doing if there's big mess? We're working on it right now um with MLS back and tell us what it is. Our plan got it done. Our plan counselor uh as outlined in the report is to come back in Q2 with an update on that strategy on how to minimize the city's risk for litter uh as well as materials recycle materials coming into their garbage stream. But 311 those calls can be taken by 311 if there's litter left behind. Correct. That's a call for 311. That's my understanding. Yes, I'm asking 311. Yes, that's correct, sir. And what about if there's a bin that's been discarded because of contamination? Who gets that call? So, if the bin is left behind um because of contamination, that would be a call into Circular Materials from the resident to understand, you know, why the bin was left behind. And it would be up to Circular Materials and their contractor to educate and rectify that situation. And um we would hope that they did. Last time Circular Materials was here, they said that their target was 4%. What point have they told you they're going to clamp down on the contamination rate in the recycling bins? I haven't been advised of any particular date when they're going to start um enforcing contamination at the curb. Let's just ask you uh circular materials. What is the date you're going to start enforcing contamination curbside? Yeah. So, you know, I think what we want to see is a is a plan of continuous improvement. So, our initial plans are really to focus on promotion education, educating residents on what doesn't go in there. What's that? You you have you have a certain point when will you start enforcing was the question. Uh we don't have a date in particular and and that's in part by two things. One we want to see what we can achieve through promotion education and we want to see where the data is uh going. So if we see that through the data our contamination rate is going down then okay and where will we get that data about the contamination rate will you bring that here? Yeah we'll be happy to bring come back. I think it's I think it's of interest to everyone for sure. That'd be great. Thank you. Sorry, I'm I've got to be as hard on myself time-wise as everybody else. No worries. I understand. Okay, now we're going to move to speakers. I don't where know where councelor Sachs went, but she had a motion. There may be some other motions. Okay. Um I are go ahead and thank you um madame chair. Uh, and I also want to thank uh, councelor Saxs for working with all of us to assemble a motion to ask for the data that's necessary to help provide accountability and transparency to Toronto residents. Uh, and I want to thank you very much for being here. As well, as I said earlier, like our experience uh, in many neighborhoods throughout our city over New Year's was that the the transitional roll out was a complete failure. Um, and the test of that, and I don't mean to be hyperbolic, just the test of it is, was the recycling picked up or not, it wasn't uh for so many people after having so much gift wrapping uh, and materials that needed to be picked up. So, if the test is, was the basic service provided that Torononians could dependably rely on for decades after New Year's? It was not. Has it been fully corrected? No, it hasn't. albeit the improvements. Um, there was a lack of transparency. There was a lack of uh accountability at the time. There's a lack of information provided to residents about who does what and where to go. When they made the calls where they were told to go, nobody was there to pick up the phone. And this just isn't acceptable when it comes to the basic services that Torononians rely on every day. Uh, it's not good for the environment. It's not good for accountability. It's not good for people. So, I appreciate that there there are real efforts being made by circular materials. And I know, you were you're just you were mandated to do this. Uh I blame Doug Ford for breaking what was working for decades. He broke it. Um and now we're having to literally clean up after his mess. I appreciate the intention. The intention is to get producers to pay more for the materials. uh that are being uh used and that they should be recycled rather than turned into waste. And I think that's a good intention, but the way that this was done, I don't think was the right way. You know, for literally decades, Torononians could rely on these services being provided. And now there's been a lot of confusion and interruption, and we need to put that back together one way, shape, or form. What is going to continue happening though, I'm sad to say, is that despite the fact that now we recognize that this is circular materials and GFL and a proincially uh prescribed change, those of us who represent our communities are still going to get those emails and those calls. People will still assume that the city should be somehow answerable for a service that they experience in their daily lives because that's how they see the city. The city of Toronto has the least amount of power but the most number of demands and expectations. So that's why that transparency, that data, that information is so important for those of us who represent Torononians because I know legally you're not required to provide it. You're you're working under provincial model, but we still are going to be expected by residents to be able to provide basic answers, basic accountability for what they experience in their daily and weekly lives. That's why we need to work together to ensure that that happens in a transparent, accountable way that delivers ultimately the most effective uh uh service that people can uh can expect from from you in this case. I'm pleased to see that staff have uh taken many of the recommendations that I put in my letter. I'm grateful for that. I do want to see staff and circular materials work in close partnership to make sure that the app, the website, uh any information we receive from 311 is updated for residents so that there's no longer the confusion about who does what. It is bizarre that even today after months and months and months and months and months of runway that if you click on the uh the waste uh app or or the or the website uh on the city side, it's like recycling's just disappeared and there's no explanation about where it went or who does what. Um there's a big gap. There's a big darkness out there for residents when they're seeking basic information. And ultimately um this is just an aspirational comment and this with with all due respect to circular materials. Yes, I'm I'm summited up 20 seconds. I believe then when it comes to whether it be uh uh basic services like recycling or things that we've done to ourselves like the Astromedia contract, the basic services that Torononians expect and rely on every day should be provided by the service by the city of Toronto rather by the public for the public. so that there's direct accountability uh for for when things go wrong and expectation for things to go right. Thank you. Thank you. I thank you very much and I think you heard a lot. I just have to let you know that your letter was helpful but the this committee actually asked for all that information to come here this time. So it was uh I don't want to call it redundant but it was helpful to have it reiterated but that was the committee request from December to deliver all of that which we're getting today. So, thank you. Who's next for the speaking? Deputy mayor. Uh, thanks, Madam Speaker. I just want to say thank you again for being with us today. Um, councelor Matlo alluded to the fact that, you know, this was not something the city was looking forward to going on this journey. We've had uh a long history of successful garbage collection and recycling um here in the city of Toronto and and very well managed. Um, but here we are on this journey together. Um, we appreciate the commitment to being consistently available to this committee and to the city and for your ongoing work and collaboration with our colleagues in solid waste management. Uh, as I always say, Torononians don't care which order of government is responsible for what. They expect a good level of service and they want to make sure that our communities are looked after. Um, that the service quality is high and we're able to manage um, our responsibilities here in in government and in oversight. So I also wanted to just highlight again the need for me while my colleagues have been appropriately focused on the beginning part of this transition and some of the challenges and hiccups. My interest is more so on the big picture. Ensuring that the circular part of this work and sort of the driving hopefully intention behind it uh for the environmental impacts looking towards more of a circular economy um making sure we're using what we have as opposed to putting more pressure on the planet and on materials and supplies generally. and I'm very keen to see that sort of um part of the work continue to grow and be reported on so we can monitor and support that in our work here at the city as well. Um I'll leave it there, Madam Chair, again with thanks and looking forward to our ongoing dialogue and work together. Thank you very much. Uh councelor Sax, I know you have some motions, so please go ahead. Yes, thank you. I have two motions. Um one is about coordination with sidewalk clearing which was just a total mess. Any part of my ward that had blue box collection supposedly happening when the snow fell got slammed. Particularly the areas with narrower sidewalks like Satan Village where again the the the blue box collection was delayed weeks with very poor communication which prevented the snow plow the the sidewalk clearings. People were trapped in their homes. People in wheelchairs couldn't get out. People with strollers couldn't get by. And then GFL used it as excuse for not picking up the blue bits. So it was an unmanageable knot created in the first instance by the failed collection when it was supposed to happen. So we need to see much more responsibility on managing the program. And I agree with my colleague. I mean as far as the public's concerned they're paying their taxes. They've had a good service that people believe in. People love their blue bin. They believe they're doing their thing for the environment by putting things into the blue bin. and to have that service thrown back in their face um so many times uh has been really offensive, really distressing to people and it needs to be fixed. Uh you made promises to us when you appeared in the fall. Those promises weren't kept. We need to see them kept now. Uh my second motion is about reporting and this is again picking up on the request that we had both from my colleague and from 416. We need visibility. It's great to have an annual report for the city as a whole. But that doesn't tell us anything about the areas that have problems because the problems are are concentrated. You don't have a problem in Atobbico. They got wide streets, lots of room. Um there's no wide streets in my wardino. Um so we we need to have clarity where the problems are and how they're getting better and we don't have that without detailed tracking at least for this year. I hope by next year you've got this sorted out but for now when people have just been really battered um and it's getting better but still bad. So still needs still needs considerable improvement. But we need the visibility, the transparency both on the collection piece which is just a nuisance for people but also on the larger question that I I share with my colleague is are we actually or this is supposed to be the wastefree Ontario act. All of these changes were because we have an enormous pressure on landfill space. We have an enormous environmental footprint from the from the plastics. This thing has to be a tool for getting our waste volumes down and at the moment it's just pushing them up. So we're we've had what is it 8 years now of hard work to get to this point and we're not achieving the goals we set out to get. So we need you to do a better job not just on the collections part but on what happens afterwards and we need to have visibility for the public that those things are happening and we don't have it yet. Thank you. Thank you very much. Other speakers, councelor Perza. Uh yeah, I know I I I think we need to find a way to work together here to to provide us that, you know, sort of deliver a service that people have come to expect, a quality service that people have come to expect. Um and and I and right now I don't really know how to do that. But for example, uh you know, when when the service first went into play at the beginning of January, you left, I don't know, over 10,000 folks in my ward, uh with garbage bins at the end of the street. You didn't pick them up. Uh many of them got left out. We tried to You provided misinformation. You told them, "Don't worry, leave them out. We'll pick them up tomorrow, the day after." Uh some people pulled them back. Some people left them out. Garbage bins tipped over. where garbage flew all over the place. Uh recyclable stuff. Storm came snow. When the snow thaws, there's going to be garbage all over the place and somebody's going to have to pick that up. So, people weren't happy. There's no question that there was a there was a breakdown. There was a there was a great big failure uh in in the launch and how you sort of opened the service. Uh but but we need to find a way to to to make it work. You need to figure out how to provide uh your customers with access so that they can call in and and get timely information and all of those things so that they do and they act in a way that's responsible because that's what most people uh that's what most people want to do. And I can tell you this, I mean, I it's not me you're going to hear from. And you we allow you to go up and down our streets and collect that stuff. And and I remember when we did it, you know, if there was a problem, we we would found a way to deal with it. And people had an an elected person that they could go to. They had a 311 uh uh service here that they could go to and say, "Hey, we there was a breakdown in the service and and I need your help." And they were able to do that with you folks. uh that wasn't quite the case. Now, maybe it was just, you know, at the beginning and it was the launch and you've you've got a way to fix that and make it work going forward. But I'll tell you this, uh you need to find a way to make it work uh going forward because uh because otherwise uh as my good friend Matt Law reminds us uh we're going to find a ways to to have the provincial representatives and the provincial premier at the end of the day be responsible for this. And quite frankly, if you're not up to the task and you don't provide the service, I suspect that they will move in very very swiftly and change the deck as it were. Uh cuz that's generally I trust me I I spend a little time at the province and uh and uh and and they come at you in the night. They don't give you advanced warning when they come. um you know the you'll hear some grumblings early on but uh and then you're always surprised by their uh you know by their swift and decisive action because that's the way the the place operates. So I'm hoping that it doesn't that it doesn't come to that. I'm I'm hoping that uh you know you provide the service, you give access to folks, you give people the right information when they need the right information uh so that people continue to be happy with the service so that you make it work. uh so that then you know people don't come to us and we and we point the finger at them and they point the finger at the others uh and then you hear back through the back door. Uh I'm hoping that that doesn't uh happen. Uh and uh it needs to be it needs to be collaborative and I think that you folks need to also come to understand in a very very clear way that you drive through all of the municipal jurisdictions that you drive through. I understand that your mandate comes from up above, right? Currently um but but times change and things change going forward. So it you know establishing a respectful, friendly, collaborative working relationship with all the municipalities that you drive through to collect their recyclables is to your benefit. We're not we're not here to work against you. Um I don't believe we're here to work against you. I believe we're here to work collaboratively with you to make sure that the service that uh the people in this city, the people across the province have been receiving for years and years and years continues to um you know to get better uh for lack of a sort of better way to describe it. Uh, so I'm hoping that you're up to the task and I would hope that you uh leave this meeting with uh those nuggets of advice uh and reflect on those cuz they can only uh work to your benefit. Thank you, counselor. Uh I just have a couple of things to say and then we'll move to Sorry, I'm sorry. I apolog for you. Sorry, there you go. Um, okay. I just want to clarify like we're doing are we doing comments on to circular materials and like 20 point or um 6 and five at the same time or be helpful but that would be helpful because I have a motion on five. So I just want to make sure I'm doing it at the right time. Okay. So then I if you don't mind I would like No, no, I would like you to speak then. Okay. Thank you uh chair. So, um I just want to say that I I do believe that there has been progress made um significantly and from a number of residents this was a seamless tradition. For others it was significantly more bumpy. Uh but I do appreciate that you're here that you're taking feedback that we're thinking about how to improve things. Uh, and I'm also happy to see that there's um a strong working relationship with the city uh both with 311 but with um Matt Kellaher and his department because I think this is truly a partnership that benefits all of us and um the ideas behind this are very strong and very positive ones. So, it's really making sure that we're all working together. Um, but also that any advice that we can provide um helps as well um and vice versa. So, um I just I just want to um also uh comment that um you know I think the the more transparent we are about all of the pieces the data that you're collecting um the kind of feedback uh that we've asked for today those are all important pieces for both of us. the more residents of Toronto understand um understand the challenges that you're experiencing with the waste that you get, you know, when it's not clean, when it has to go to landfill. Um the better they hopefully we can get those numbers moving. And so I think it is a partnership that we have to do together. Um and uh so I'm hoping that there will continue to be partnership. you know, there were so I guess I have a number of things in my head that I'm thinking about. Um, and perhaps I'm not explaining them correctly, but I I just think it is to the benefit of all of us that we get those um that percentage that's going to going to landfill down. Um, not just because of the challenges we face as a city, but in terms of the environmental impact. Um, and so, you know, your success is our success, our success is your success. And um I just want to also state just for staff um I think it's important that we are keeping track of all of the pieces that are no longer necessarily exactly within our control but um where we are incurring additional challenges and costs. So my questions earlier around um how much time uh and staff resources are going into 311 calls. I think it's important that we track that. Uh also, um if we're seeing increased waste going to landfill, and I know this is something that you're looking at, but I want to make sure that we're continuously tracking that. So, I do have a motion on that that I'd like to put up on the screen. Yes. I'm letting you do that even though it was supposed to be at the beginning, but that's okay. Oh, that's okay. Sorry. Thank you. I'm not looking in the right direction. It's okay. There it is. There. Um it's it's a little difficult doing um these two items at once because we have guests and we have staff. So I can't direct them. So I feel like I need to be an owl where I can move my head all over the place. Being a good owl. So thank you. Um anyways, I'm hoping that I know that this is in the staff report to some extent, but I want to make sure that we're continuously monitoring it. Um, and I of course was happy to see uh or happy to hear today that there is a commitment to um continuing collection the volume of of recycling waste, whatever that is that we have in the city of Toronto. And hopefully it will be minimized over time as this as this um project gets more and more underway. Um but we we just want to make sure that we're really monitoring this and making sure that we're keeping this out of landfill because that ultimately is our goal. So, uh, with that, I'll stop and let us move on. Thank you. Thank you, counselor. I'm just saying we have 10 minutes till we're going to recess. So, let's keep that in mind here. Um, we have some Okay, I'm just going to say thank you. This is hard to do. You're right, counselor, because we had staff and then we've circular materials, but they don't report to us and they don't really have to tell us anything. We're just asking for that and councelor Chernosyn's motion really is what we can control which is how much we have in the solid waist stream. If that's increasing then we're going to know. I just want to pick up two things three things. One is uh your focus, Deputy Mayor Mley, on recycling our recycling, how important that is and that's one of the whole reasons why extended producer responsibility was so important and we'd like to make sure that goal is being met and I do appreciate you having that at the forefront as you always do and then the contamination rates which we're going to deal with by understanding if there is more contamination and then how we're going to deal with that because you did have your 4% which one of the reasons we didn't bid, but we're also clear that it's very hard to achieve and I think you told us that last time. You understand that. And then data. We're very hungry here for data which we can get all the data we need from our city staff, but it's hard to get data because you're not required to give it. So all the motions and asking to please come back and bring us the data, just hard data. how you're doing contamination wise, pickup wise, glitches, all those kinds of things so we can smooth smooth this out from a system that was a great system that we had here. Um, and we want to make sure that it stays at the same level of excellence. So, thank you very much for coming today. I think there was some requests to come back again, not next month, but uh when we have the next next Oh, you're you're volunteering for next month. No, you're not. Um, but had your hand up, but I I'm sure you will when the request goes out. So, thank you very much to and your team for being here today. We'll take these in. We're done. Okay. Thank you. And then, uh, if we could have the motions up. So, are we doing yours, Councelor Sachs, first? Your motion? Yes, please. Go ahead. There it is. There. Uncollected recycling. Very good. Thank you very much. All in favor? Opposed? That's carried. Um, is that functional? I think do you have one more, do you not? Yes, here it comes. There we go. Monthly award dashboards. Very good. Thank you. And looking at contamination trends. All in favor? Opposed? Carried. And then councelor Chosin has hers. And I'm going to try to clear off some of these ones that might be easy to do. Okay, there's the council chos. Thank you very much. on increase in contamination and gar increase in garbage. We're just checking. The clerk is checking with something. Okay. I just want to make sure we councelor Satcher, your motion on item two is ready apparently. So I submitted it. Yes, I know. I'm going to clear that up now. Did you clear that up? Okay, we're all set with that counselor. Yes. All right. All in favor? Opposed? That's carried. Let's try to clear off a few of these that we have. And uh councelor Saxs put in her motion on the automated Sorry. Oh, sorry. Receive number six. Receive uh Thank you, Deputy Mayor Mory. Receive item number six for information. Thank you. Could we clear up IE 27.2, the automated vehicle pilot, with your motion, councelor Sachs? Thank I have a motion. These are very these are very sensitive today. There we go. There's my motion. Um this is uh as uh negotiated with Mr. Pastnack. We do need to know what authority we have. Thank you. Uh all in favor? Any questions to the mover? No. All in favor? Opposed? That's carried. And then councelor Saxs I'd like to you you had some motions coming in later your ones the new ones and I'd like to see if we can clear up 27.14 your authority to enter into agreements with the board of management blur annex business improvement area for the improvements to Satan Park. You'd like to move that? I move the recommendations. Thank you. All in favor? Opposed? That's carried. The 15 options for winter access to laneway homes and garages. I move the recommendations in my letter. All in favor? Opposed? That's carried. I'm going to hold 16 counselor Saxs and then 17 27.17 Lennox Street 2-way Markham to Palmerston. I'm moving the recommendations in my letter as requested by a large number of constituents. That's fine. All in favor? Opposed? That's carried. Which one? Oh, 17. Okay. So when we're back, we will start right on trees, uh, ravine strategy, tree report, vision zero, and then, uh, we could just have a conversation about accessible parking. Good. Thank you very much. We'll break now. 1:30, as close to 1:30 as we can. Probably a little later than 1:30, but not too much later than 1:30 if we can do that. All right. Thanks so much, everybody. I don't know. That would be Mike, can you hear me now? But you need to unmute your mic. Yes, I can. Okay. Uh the issue is we could do 27.9 vision zero if we can do it as a quick item. Um if everybody needs to speak then we'll save it till the end or we have Mike's me Mike's motions and uh two technical motions from staff. I'm just going to see what the will of the committee is. You have questions of staff so we're going to hold that down then. Okay. And if we run out of time and people that will just go to the next meeting. Okay. Thank you. Here we are with everybody here except councelor pastor Knack who's excused today. So here we are with the ravine strategy item 27.7. We have a number of deputants and we also have a great presentation from staff with Mr. Nolan and Miss Statham. Thank you. Turn it over to you. Thank you chair. I think we're just trying to get the presentation up. Great to read every single word we do have. We will not. Uh so good afternoon Sheriff Fletcher, members of the infrastructure environment committee and members of the public. I'm James Nolan, executive director of the environment, climate and forestry division. And I'm joined by Kim Staithm, director urban forestry and one of the original authors of the ravine strategy. We are pleased to provide a presentation on the ravine strategy implementation report on behalf of both environment, climate and forestry and parks and recreation. I will start with a brief contextual overview and then Kim will walk through the details of the many achievements outlined in the report. So Toronto's ravines Toronto's ravines are one of the city's most important natural assets covering more than 11,000 hectares or 17% of the city's land area. They are critical city infrastructure. They're home to much of the city's biodiversity. They provide pro provide important access to nature and they filter and convey storm water household and house sorry household essential gray infrastructure such as utilities, buried sewers, trails, roads and transit corridors. Toronto's ravine system is supported through a coordinated approach to environmental stewardship, public a infrastructure protection. Environment, Climate, and Forestry leads ecological management, community engagement, and volunteer stewardship. Parks and Recreation enhances the public connection uh to nature. And the TRCA or the Toronto Region Conservation Authority owns much of the ravine land and is a key partner in monitoring natural systems, managing erosion, and advancing watershed based management plans across the region. Just a quick reminder about the ravine strategy. In 2017, council adopted the first citywide ravine strategy and then adopted a report on implementation in 2020. The visions, actions, and guiding principles are designed to address the challenges and opportunities in the ravine system and act as catalysts to move the strategic vision forward. Through the strategy, the city has invited a broad spirit of partnership with community champions, not for-profit and charitable organizations, indigenous communities, and provincial and federal governments, philanthropists, and residents. And this has expanded and accelerated the city's work to implement the strategy resulting in the significant achievements we'll speak about today. And last, just to note, the ravine strategy sits amongst a number of uh city plans and uh and divisional strategies and broader strategic plans and it supports these uh as it relates to everything from n nature and health uh our planning system as well as connections and transportation. And with that, I'll pass it over to Kim to talk through the details. Uh the report for consideration today is the second in a series of status updates that have been provided since the implementation report in 2020. This report is a joint environment, climate, forestry, and parks and recreation report, and it recognizes the efforts and contributions of other divisions, community, and nonprofit partners. It provides updates across key program areas. This slide highlights the key quantitative achievements since 2020, including cumulative efforts on invasive species management, litter pickup, the successful student internship and pathways to employment programs, events, participants and volunteers, and achievements on capital delivery, both projects delivered, and a reduction of identified capital constraints from 104.9 million to 50.2 million in 2026. Six since 2020 when new and enhanced funding was phased over five years uh as part of an the implementation plan of the ravine strategy, the city and our partners have increased land managed by staff by 300% and land managed by contractors by 1,000%. The ravine strategy has created new opportunities to build upon impacts of city-led volunteer stewardship programs through student internships and community-led restoration. Staff have also uh finished the management plan and framework for environmentally significant areas informed by input from indigenous treaty and rights holders, urban indigenous and the public to aid in communicating management decisions to the public and ensure a consistent management approach. The community-led restoration program with Toronto Nature Stewards launched in 2021 and it brings additional opportunities for local volunteer stewardship. Toronto Nature Stewards is hosted by the University of Toronto and recruits and trains volunteers to steward lands identified by community members. The city ensures that proposed stewardship sites and activities are appropriate for volunteers and do not conflict with other planned work by city divisions or the TRCA. We are happy to report uh along with Toronto Nature Stewards in 2025 that this led to over 120 hectares of lands being stewarded by over 2,000 volunteers. The establishment of this program provides additional opportunities to bring additional organizations uh to the mix such as Don't Mess with the Dawn. The new funding provided in uh 2025 and 2026 is bringing additional staff supports to three sites that have been stewarded by Toronto Nature Stewards volunteers for the last 5 years. Launched in 2020 in collaboration with Park, the Into Ravines program has been an incredibly impactful program that encourages community-led activities that introduce residents to ravines and deepen their understanding of these natural spaces. The program promotes celebration, connection, and stewardship through training and supporting champions, providing micro grants, and supporting community events and programs. The ravine campaign and its first major project, the loop trail is a joint initiative between the city, Evergreen, the Toronto Foundation, and the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority. The loop trail will connect the Dawn and Humber River ravines along the Finch Hydro Corridor and the waterfront. Evergreen and Toronto Foundation bring unique experience, expertise, philanthropic relationships, and a high added value to the shared priorities with the city of improving ecological health and connecting peoples to nature. Toronto is widely recognized as a leader in ecological restoration, urban forest management, and ravine stewardship. With the generation restoration program concluding at the end of 2025, there is significant value in maintaining the international connections that have been made through this project. Cities with nature has been identified as a platform for this ongoing collaboration. By joining, Toronto will be able to continue working with cities around the world that share a commitment to sustainable urban development. In conclusion, this report outlines the significant progress made since January 2020 to implement the ravine strategy through strategic partnerships and targeted investments that protect, maintain, and enhance Toronto's ravine system while supporting public use as the city grows. Through this report, we are seeking authority to enter into agreements with our partners to continue to implement this work. Environment, Climate, and Forestry and Parks and Recreation working with other divisions and the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority as well as community partners are passionately committed to ongoing delivery of the strategy's actions over the next two decades. We will continue to report to city council every three years on progress toward the strategies goals, actions, and guiding principles. Thank you. And we're happy to take questions after the deputations. Um, I just think we may want to hear from want to hear questions first from staff or who are the deputants and then do the questions. What would your preference be? I'm happy to suggest we hear from deput deputants. Sometimes those inform our questions to staff as well. So, sure. Is that all right if Thank you very much. That's how we'll proceed. So, we have five deputants today. Natalie Brown, Albert Albert Cole, Sheila Dunn, Jerry James, and John Boston's. And I don't know if they're here in person or online. Some people are in person. Thank you. Uh, is that you, Natalie? Please come on up. You have three minutes. And then is Albert online or Albert's here? Uh, Sheila here online. Jerry James online. and Jerry is here. So, we've got four out of five present. That's great. Thank you very much for coming today. And we'll start your Are you together? Sorry. I'm sorry. Are you together in your deputation? No, we're not. Yeah. We'll just call everybody separate. I'm sorry if I confused you by calling your name. I'm sorry. Um, so Natalie, please park people. Thank you very much. Touch the button. There you go. How's that? Good morning, chair and members of the committee. My name is Natalie Brown and I'm here on behalf of Park. We have partnered with the city of Toronto for 5 years to deliver into the ravines together. a true collaborative effort with dedicated city staff and political champions who are passionate and dedicated to the ravines, many of them in this room today. First, I'd like to share a submission from Nala Teik of Flemington Community Support Services who could not be here today. Good morning. My name is Noala Teik and I represent Flemington Community Support Services. Flemington Park is a community of 60,000 residents in high-rise towers. It is a neighborhood improvement area where many are newcomers, many are low-income families, and access to nature depends on our parks and ravines. From their apartment windows, residents could see the ravine, but many had never entered it. Not because they did not care, but because no one had invited them in. In 2014, a group of mostly stay-at-home mothers who had never worked in Canada received Park people funding to organize four park events. Over 80 residents came out and explored the ravine for the first time. In 2021, FCSS re received ravine champion training through the Into the Ravines program. Since then, we have been training our neighbors as champions, too, equipping them with the knowledge, confidence, and leadership skills to guide others through our ravines. For us, the ravines mean health in a tower community. They mean climate resilience where heat vulnerability is real. They mean belonging for newcomers who are still finding their place in this city. When you invest in community-led ravine programming, you are not just funding events. You are building environmental leaders. You are strengthening social infrastructure. And you are advancing climate equity. Thank you. Jerry James, who you just met, will also be speaking today. Jerry and Nal are two of the over 200 community leaders who have participated in into the ravine since 2020 and two of the over 20,000 people who have attended city and partner ravine events since 2020. In other words, the ravine strategy has built a political constituency of 20,000 Torononians who care about our ravines. Municipalities are responsible, as many of you know, for 60% of Canada's infrastructure and receive 10 cents on every tax dollar. As a result, the ravine strategy is not fully funded despite $822 million in documented environmental, health, and social benefits. Without full funding, ravines are doing a fraction of what they could for communities like Nals. We are asking this committee to do two things. Approve the ravine strategy update and work with staff to accelerate a proactive, ambitious intergovernmental funding strategy. We can approach this work in the same collaborative spirit as the ravine strategy itself, mobilizing community as advocates and building on the strong foundation of the city's efforts to date in securing federal grants. Every counselor in this room has a special role to play. When you sit across from your federal and provincial counterparts and say, "I want to introduce you to the women from Fleming Park who are bringing their community into the ravines, and I need you to support them." That is one of the most powerful asks we can make, and 20,000 Torononians are ready to help you make it. Thank you. You Thank you very much. Questions of our deputent uh deputy mayor. Thank you so much for joining us, Natalie. Good to see you in person and offcreen. Um I'm just wondering uh with respect to the second ask that you made and again thanks for the submission a really um important advocacy today. Are is your organization doing any engagement with the federal government or other levels of government on some of those funding uh opportunities for the city of Toronto or municipalities generally? We certainly are. So we publish a lot of research documenting the value of natural infrastructure and parks and green space particularly for community well-being, sense of belonging, social connections. So some of the things that are sometimes hard to quantify and we've also uh collaborated a little bit with Parks Canada on their national urban park strategy, but unfortunately that's completely separate from our ravines. And we know the natural infrastructure fund has supported the ravines in the past, but all of that funding has been project based and timelmited. And what we're saying is that we need generational funding for this system, long-term sustainable, right? Thank you so much. That's all from me, Madam Chair. Thank you. Anybody else? Eler Sachs. Um, yes. Thank you. Um, again, thank you for all the work the park people do. What spec I mean other than asking our counterparts for money which we seem to do endlessly. Is there anything else specific that you're asking us to do? I think to mobilize the power of those 20,000 Torononians that I mentioned and to think about us as allies and advocates in the strategy. So you have entree into particular conversations, particular strategies with the provincial and federal governments. We have the firsthand experience of what the ravines have done for us and we're voters. So, kind of thinking even beyond the limits of this building and beyond the limits of city hall to ways that we could collaborate creatively and effectively to try to get the attention of the levels of government who actually a lot of the benefits of the ravines are attributing to their budgets, not ours, right? In terms of health system improvements, climate resilience, etc. Right. Um, other than asking the other levels of government for money, um, I wondered what your members are finding to be the volunteer opportunities. We, you know, we've got this report, lots of great things happen with volunteers. We know that people care deeply about their ravines. Are your members finding enough opportunities to volunteer or are there more ways that we could get those people not just asking other people for money, but doing things hands-on in the ravines? Just to clarify, um, councelor, so is that doing things hands- on in the ravines with federal and provincial represent representatives or we can't count on getting money from other levels of government. So my question is what can we do if we don't get their support? What more can we do with your support and the support of your group? It's a great question and I think that the the strategy update today shares a lot of the innovative work that the city has done particularly on the community-led restoration front with Toronto Nature Stewards and that's a model for the rest of the country that other municipalities are beating down our door to ask us about in terms of that balance between staff expertise and well-trained volunteers being able to really mobilize and reach a lot more sites uh than ever before. I won't speak anymore on their behalf, but that's really a model. Um, and I know also there's creative philanthropy underway with the loop trail. I think, you know, I'm not saying that we're not all, you know, shaking the bushes as much as we can and trying to do this. I guess I'm just trying to encourage all of you to seize every opportunity that you have to leverage our love of the ravines, our dedication to them, and our firsthand experiences in them whenever you get that chance to make the case. Okay. But I'm trying to get more about that. Okay. Are there um volunteer opportunities that your members want that you don't have yet? And if so, what are they? I would say that there is uh an endless appetite essentially across our network of over 200 community groups around the city to host events. And I know the city's been working on innovations like a no fee permit process that are removing barriers for those groups. So any and all creative ways to support community groups uh within the ravines, within other parks, we can absolutely scale up those volunteer moments. We can support groups with capacity building to make that possible. So I think it it is about us collaborating to to essentially expand and build on the good work we've already done. Thank you very much. That was your last question. Any other questions? Great. Thanks so much for being here today and all your great work. Uh next up is Who's next up? Oh, Albert, you're here in person. Thank you. Thank you very much. Albert, Community Bike Waste. Okay. I'm going to restrict my comments to the loop trail element of the ravine strategy. Um, three headings. I'll address what we're happy about, what we're curious about, and what we'd love to see more details about. So, what we're happy about, this is the Loop Trail is a fantastic city building project. Imagine being able to say to visitors or residents of the city that you can see your city by bicycle, affordable, healthy, fun. Um, and secondly, it's an opportune time. Some of you might have heard we have a premier who's not big on bike lanes. Well, it's a great time to be connecting our trails. Thirdly, right now we've got a bunch of strands of u of trails. Now, these strands are sort of like a house without doors. In other words, once you're inside, it's great, but getting into the house or onto these trails can be a real challenge. The other piece of good news is that we have 67 km of this 72 km loop that are in place, but it's not yet a loop because of these gaps. So what we're curious about, first of all, the connections that we're talking about here are actually mostly on roads. So what we're curious about is even though we see parks and recreation mentioned, they they of course build trails in parks, uh but we don't see u the cycling and pedestrian unit mentioned, they're the ones that build the connections if they're on roads. Uh the gaps themselves amount to only about 5,500 m. There are about 10 of them. And uh once we've get those done, then uh we can accomplish what was started about a half century ago when we started planning these uh trails and building some in the 1970s. Uh that we can actually offer something uh to uh city residents. So what we'd like to know more about? Well, first we'd like to know who's actually in charge of implementation. Uh we've met with a cycling and pedestrian unit. They couldn't tell us much about this project. We've met with capital projects. They're not mentioned in this uh report. Uh the um and the other groups uh uh haven't provided us with any uh timelines uh who we should be talking to as a a point person and uh what the next steps are. So, it'd be great to see in this report before it goes to council some of those details, specific timelines for action, remembering, of course, that the loop trail was first introduced by a former mayor about 6 years ago. So, finally, um, we'd like to invite you as well. We're going to do another ride on the Loop Trail. We did a ride in November along the southern part of the Loop Trail. We're going to do another ride along the entire 72 km. So, if you're up to it or even part of it, you'll get our invitation to that. Thanks very much. Thank you very much. Any questions for Mr. Cole? Nope. Thank you so much for being here today. Thank you. Is this similar to Go ahead, counselor. Is this similar to the ride that the uh United Way did uh for for the fundraising stuff? You know, the you know, the the the the ride to these six municipalities. I don't think so. No. or within it's within our city. Sorry. It's totally within Toronto. That was within Toronto, too. Yeah. And and the western uh the western connection there. Um where's that here? You don't show it as a broken connection. Show us something. Well, that's right. I mean, it's not yet a loop. And so, so the for example, the Humber, the Mid Humber Trail, that that's a gap that is being addressed separately by the city. That's one of the few gaps that's actually in a park, but the rest of them are not in parks. The other Western Road gap, I think, is in your writing at the top of Western Road where it connects to Finch. And there's also a gap. Oh, yeah. Yeah. There's a gap on Finch under the railway near Arrow Road. So, those are all onroad gaps, but it connects it connects to Finch, the Humber Trail connects to Finch near the U uh near Islington. Uh well, you're right. There's two there's two there's one little piece on Western Road that they're planning to do but hasn't been done yet. But the trail actually does connect to Finch at Islington because you the trail you know just before you interrupt. It's a meandering route, right? Exactly. Okay. Okay. Sure. Thanks. Hey, thank you. Are you good? Thank you. We know you cycle there all the time. Thank you. I meant you. I meant councelor Perusa Sheila Dunn. protect diary beans. I think you're online. Correct. Pardon me. Just hooking you up, Sheila. There you are. Thank you. You have three minutes. could you just unmute, please, because we'd like to hear what you have to say. You unmute testing. Got it. No, we do. Thank you. Okay. Okay. Uh, thank you. My name is Sheila Dunn. I'm a long-term resident of Beaches East York and I represent the Protect Our Ravines Initiative, uh, which is partnered with the Friends of the Glen Stewart Ravine. We're a community nonprofit corporation formed to address threats to our local ravine from overdevelopment. We applaud the achievements of this report, the restoration work, the community-led restoration program, investment in stewardship and partnerships that make the system work. But we feel there is a real consequential gap in it. The ravine strategies first and foundational principle is protect. In this report, protection is operationalized almost entirely as ecological stewardship, invasive species uh removal, restoration, management plans for ravines. What's missing is protection from development pressure on ravine adjacent lands, which is an irreversible threat to these ecosystems. Our community has lived this directly with a recent OOLT settlement hearing for requested bylaw and official plan amendments to permit construction of a condominium on the narrow ledge a boundary of the Glen Stewart ravine. Um the ravine is an ESA with one of the city's few remaining old Carolinian forests. A significant threat to Toronto's ravines is this incremental cumulative loss of ravine integrity through resoning and boundary edge intensification. No single application may appear decisive in isolation, but the aggregate effect of individually approved resonings along ravine corridors is the slow erosion of the edges that define and protect these. Exactly. I don't know why they did that. I don't know why. people. The ravine strategy has no systematic answer to address that cumulative threat. We are asking the committee to consider first create a ravine edge protection workstream. Development immediately adjacent to an ESA, especially on narrow ravine edge sites, should not be permitted. The ravine edge is not a building site. It's the boundary of a protected ecosystem. Establish a city policy of non-settlement on ravine adjacent upzoning applications. A clear policy that the city will not negotiate away ravine edge upzonings changes the calculus for developers who consider filing an application. The second is to accelerate and resource ESA specific management plans. A site prioritization tool must consider active development pressures. Make a completed ESA specific management plan a prerequisite for processing any development application within the buffer of an ESA. Finally, use to protect ESAs. There's a long history of doing this in Toronto. Identify specific ESA ravine adjacent properties under development pressure now and recommend an acquisition strategy including funding mechanisms and community partnerships. Once reszone and build upon per Sheila, sorry, I'm sorry we had three minutes. Could you just please finish your thoughts? Thank you so much. Um the uh we're willing partners for um looking at strategic land acquisition. Finally, this report documents real progress, but if Toronto continues approving ravine edge intensification, we are funding restoration with one hand while allowing irreversible damage with the other. Um let's thank you. do the work to prevent the next loss and not just celebrate the last repair. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Councelor Saxs has a question for you and she'll ask it now. Thank you. Hi, Ashila. Thank you. I mean I understand your point about ravine edge protection. Um was there anything else you wanted to tell us? Um well there's I I had a submission a uh online submission that you could do some reading about but we were mainly concerned with ravine edge protections and looking at how to with the Glen Stewart ravine friends group um really exploring maximizing their capacity of the friends groups and the stewards to do real work in the in ESAs um working collaboratively obviously with um the ravine folks, but doing what they really are are well trained to do and they've shown the the actual kind of work that they do and and look at the amount of work that they do uh to support the remaining strategy. Okay. Oh, thank you very much for all your all of your efforts on Thank you for your help. Thank you very much, Sheila. Next up is um Jerry James. You you uh you have three minutes and don't forget to press that green button. Thank you. There we go. Okay. Hello and thank you for the opportunity to speak about the impact of the Park people program on city residents. My name is Jerry James and my husband Gary and I are 2021 graduates of the Park people into the ravine program. As a lifelong resident of Toronto, uh, and as someone who loves outdoor activities, particularly hiking, you might assume I always embrace Toronto ravines, but until about 10 years ago, I didn't. Uh, instead Gary and I would drive an hour or two out of the city to find what we thought was real nature, overlooking one of the largest urban ravine systems in North America, right in our backyard. Today, we spend time in a Toronto ravine several times a week. So, what changed? Uh, first, we learned about the significant physical and mental health benefits of spending time in ravines. benefits we now know are essential, especially as many areas of our city experience higher densities. Second, we began to explore the ravine system close to our home, and that includes Newton Brook Creek Ravine, East Dawn Parkland, and German Mills. And we discovered its beauty, biodiversity, and accessibility. And finally, we connected with organizations such as park people, TRCA, Toronto Nature Stewards, and City of Toronto Parks, which provided programs that deepened our understanding of the ecological and social importance of Toronto ravines. In 2021, Park People into the Ravines program uh became a turning point for us. The program not only expanded our knowledge of Toronto's ravine system and its ecological value, but also highlighted its social importance as a space for connection, inclusion, and community resilience. With the training and small grant support provided through the program, we began leading guided walks in our local ravines. Our focus was on introducing seniors and newcomers, many of whom were hesitant or even afraid to enter the ravines um to this nearby natural space in a welcoming and supporting way. For some, it was their first time stepping off the sidewalk onto the trails. Watching that initial uncertainty transform into curiosity, confidence, and appreciation was incredibly powerful. I firmly believe that when people experience Toronto's ravines firsthand, they develop a personal connection like we did. And when people feel connected, they are far more likely to care about, advocate for, and help protect these ecologically sensitive spaces. The impact of that initial park people program has continued to grow. Since completing the ravine champions program, we joined and later helped establish a Toronto Nature Steward site in Newton Brook Creek. Uh we've supported community cleanups, um formed formed a community group to help protect turtles in the East Dawn Ravine and participated in the Toronto Ravine Days through popups and guided walks that celebrate and educate others about these unique landscapes. We also engaged with our city councelor uh our MPP and our MP to advocate for uh beneficial policies that support the ravines. You have to wrap up, please. I'll wrap up real quickly. I I'm I'm actually pleased to say that all three of those government representative cames on walks with us. That's great. Thank you so much. Maybe there's questions. Sorry, we have a tough afternoon because it's quarter after two and there are. If not, thank you so much for exploring our gorgeous ravines. And last up is um you know who you are, John Boston's. Thank you so much. Three minutes, John. There you go. Thank you, Claudia. Claudius. It's green now. Okay. Thank you. Uh first of all uh I'm representing the Midtown Ravines Group uh which is a consortium of 10 residents associations that have in Midtown Toronto that have banded together uh to uh support improvements in Midtown Ravines. We're strong supporters of the ravine strategy. We applaud what parks and urban forestry have been able to do, but we also want to advocate for more resources uh for parks and urban forestry in the ravines. There's a the huge need that we want to emphasize is the need that is building over the next 25 years with a million more people expected to live in Toronto. many rep renting units with little access to nature. There's a huge potential need for recreational space and green space and uh so our key for focus uh is local uh it's the ravine called the veil of Aoka uh which where we are pioneering uh a if you like local version of uh a private public partnership. Uh we're very grateful for the fact that the city has uh committed a total of 7.5 million uh to this project already. Uh a million and a half towards the development of a master plan for the ravine. Uh another 6 million in committed future funding uh as a contribution to the capital investment that's going to be required. The total capital investment we figure is on the order of $30 million. So the we so there's a major fundraising job that's required. Uh we are in the process of setting that up. We've set up the institutional framework. Uh we are we have raised uh to date uh a little under 100,000 uh in the last couple of months and uh uh are are negotiating what we hope will be a significant additional uh grant from a a major donor. uh we believe this kind of private public partnership is essential not just in our local area but throughout uh the city and so we do view it as a pilot project. There are many aspects to this and uh one of which I want to talk about which is the work of uh stewardship in ESAs. John you have 30 seconds right. Thank you. uh citizen stewardship can make a major difference. At the moment it's not approved for uh for ESAs and as is true for Glenn Stewart. It so is true for the veil of Aoka. The entire veil is an ESA. So stu stewardship is really has two benefits. Augmenting uh what the city can do and secondly involving the community. I think it's really important and I hope that uh you can find ways uh in the future to uh expand what can be done. We're working with Toronto Nature Stewards and want to achieve more. I know how much you do. Thank you so much for being here. You're a champion. Thank you. Sax has a question for you. What else did you want to tell us? What else did you want to tell us? just I just like to emphasize the need for more city budget uh for parks and urban forestry. Uh you know we we sp if you look at the amount of money it's really a small amount of money compared to the need and particularly compared to the need that is going to be growing in the city as we expand our population. So that's number one and number two to find ways in which uh we can take make better use of the citizen resources that exist in the city. you know, Toronto Nature Stewards is, I think, has done has made major progress and uh working with urban forestry, uh it's uh in I forget the number of sites is now well over 40. Uh and uh this is this is great, but there's a huge opportunity to do more and and uh we badly need to find ways of being able to do this kind of citizen stewardship in ESAs as well. They're important. We need the additional resources uh and uh we need to find ways of doing it. There are complications, I know, but that can be worked out. Okay. Well, thank you again for all the work you're doing on the Veil of Aoka um and the fundraising that you're doing. And I know you have a plan for this summer. Yes, we do. To have some work done in the ravine. Do you need any direction from this committee to make that happen? I don't think so. We look forward to uh negotiating with urban forestry uh on this. Uh we're uh uh uh we're already working closely with the uh capital projects group in uh in parks and with the TRCA. Uh we are keen to do more in the way of uh developing research underpinnings uh leading to the development of an ESA management plan for the veil. Uh we intend to spend money on this this summer uh and already you raised enough to be able to do so. So uh we're keen to build on that and uh we're looking forward to discussions pursuing that. Thank you. Thank you again. Thanks everybody. Everybody deputing today is does amazing works in our city. Thank you. Now we'll bring back our staff for the questions if you don't mind coming back up. Pardon? Yes. Would you like to come back? Well, we kicked you out of there. You might as well come back. That way everybody gets to see you. It's always hard to ask questions when people are sitting directly behind you. Okay. Uh, Deputy Mayor, I know you have questions. Yes, just a few on this. Um, and with thanks to the deputen for the great work happening in community and to staff. um and particularly you Kim for the um work on this since the very beginning. My ward is very lucky to have many ravines and waterways in it that we're grateful for. Um couple of quick questions just to pull on some of the themes that came up through our deputations. Um can you expand on what training volunteers undertake to participate in the community-led restoration program? What does that training compliment sort of look like? I'll I'll do my best to speak on behalf of uh Toronto Nature Stewards, but but certainly um the urban forestry team works uh very closely with their leads on you know design of that program since it was piloted in 2021 and has grown um and evolved uh to date. So the the types of training that um that TNS would look for of course would be uh around ecological um expertise in terms of invasive species removal um uh identification of plants uh best management practices as well. All things that that we would do uh through our own volunteer programs with the city. Um and uh they have a a really wonderful resource and training program to create lead volunteer or sorry lead stewards for their sites. uh and then uh that there in turn um how they support the volunteers that come out uh to their sites. That's great. I think I see one of the lead stewards from my community in the audience today. So, uh glad to see that. Um can you talk about how accessible the program is and how well it's doing at keeping up with the demand? Is anybody who's interested able to participate and get through to training or is there a bit of a gap between resources um and capacity? Well, I can speak to um you know, I think uh this program, the interest, the demand was really born out of of our own volunteer program. So, either hands-on stewardship, tree planting, etc. Um at that time, I think the the Toronto Nature Steward leads, you know, really pointed out that there was a gap um and that that we could do more by adding on this new type of program. Um and through that uh you know collaboration and and coordination um growing that program over time has has been um incredibly important. We have a lot of ravine land. We we all have uh a lot to do as well. Um each year uh uh between uh Toronto Nature Stewards and the urban forestry team uh we look at new sites to to bring on. um if I'm correct and someone will tell me if I'm not but I think when we started we piloted with nine sites um and as actually John said in his deputation I think in 2025 we had 47 49 47 um in 2025 and that's looking to grow again for 2026 we're looking at site approvals now so there is interest uh and there certainly is demand from the perspective that there is a lot of work to do across Toronto's ravine system and and I just note we did receive additional funding in 2025 budget uh as well as 2026 to support expansion of the program and that will help both uh expand the existing program but also enables us to look at other potential opportunities as has been identified by the deputies. Fantastic. Um I'll leave it there just in the interest of time. Um but really grateful for this good work and excited to support it. Thank you so much councelor Sax. Thank you. Uh thank you. Um, we heard a lot about opportunity, volunteer opportunities, people wanting more volunteer opportunities. Um, and I'd like to hear more about that. So, first of all, starting with ESA. So, we we've got this incredible work going on that John and colleagues are organizing uh to start collecting data in the Veil of Voka. It's in an ESA. Do you need direction from council in order to make this kind of thing work? So, at this time, um, as we alluded to in the the presentation, um, there's many different programs that cover restoration, stewardship, invasive species management across the ravine system. Uh, uniquely in ESAs, this has been an area that, uh, has been left to the ex ecological expertise of urban forestry staff. So, we do have uh we could have events in ESAs that are led by urban forestry and should be led by by uh staff with with expertise where we could invite and work with volunteers. Um but to put the finer point on it, um through the Toronto Nature Stewards program, we have not approved community-led uh work uh in these sites to date. But we've we've heard there's a there you need the resources. They've got the appetite to do the work. um and Veil of Voka being a perfect example. So your staff's limited. How do we get the work? How do we make better use of the volunteers? And do you need council direction to move in that move in that way? So through the chair um we have had events uh uh again partnered between uh urban forestry and volunteers that will continue and that can expand uh uh on its own. So, um I would would say at this time we don't need council direction, but we're certainly committed uh as we see the value of of these diverse programs uh and the impact that they're making uh to look at how we work together. I'm going to call you because we need to make this happen. All right. Now, what we also heard um from Natalie that there's a tremendous appetite for more events. People are having a hard time hosting events. Uh and I understand that trying to get plantings on really difficult. Um, first of all, do you have the resources necessary to keep this this impressive rate of progress going? And what will it take to allow volunteers to have a lot more events to do the work that's needed on invasives and planting and so on? So through the chair um yes as you've seen in the report and through the presentation um this is um really at the heart of a lot of the work that we do community events engaging um uh Toronto's residents and and volunteers. We are so grateful for the partnerships that we have with the various um organizations um on the ravine strategy who can um who have uh good access who can put on uh additional uh events. So, um, we are, we'd absolutely be happy to, uh, expand, you know, what we're doing. Uh, we have what, we have what we need now to continue that continue that, uh, trend. Um, and we're always looking for opportunities to to expand and partner uh, so that we can uh, host additional events. Our partners can can host additional events um, all in good service of connecting people with ravines and nature. Great. So, you've heard Nicole say that her folks want to have more events, and you've heard John say they they want to do more things. So, what is it going to take to make these actually happen? This year, we can continue through um uh our 2026 budget. Uh it is uh sufficient to continue to grow the these programs. Uh and we're we're committed to to doing that. We have the partnership set up. The recommendations in the report before you today in fact secure uh resecure those partnerships. So, we would be looking for support uh for the report recommendations. Okay. But I'm trying to to get to something tangible here. So, we heard Nicole say lots of groups want to do things and you're thinking about reducing fees, but it needs to actually happen. How do we make more events happen this year? So, maybe I'll add to to what uh MTAM Stithm said and obviously we've got the additional resources that we're now in the process of bringing on. uh we were doing design last year that will support more community events. Um and I think we can look at you know within existing resources what we have this year in terms of our prioritization and then the outcomes of some of these learnings will be part of what we bring forward in future submissions as we prioritize our budgets to support kind of these types of actions across community. So we'll have more this year and then we'll be able to report back on how we can grow that. All right, I'm going to try to get another question in here. Um, we heard a lot from Sheila and others about ravineage protection and all the anguish over the Glenn Stewart ravine. Have you evaluated or do you have the capacity to evaluate the damage to the ravines that's caused by developments that are right at the edge or eating into the buffer in a way that could support some action to increase the buffer? Last question through the chair. Um the existing legislative framework uh does uh is in place to mitigate impact and to maximize restoration um uh a as a result of of development with concern to uh ravine edge protections. That's something that that lies with the uh the official plan and the uh natural heritage system. Um we haven't as you framed the question we haven't done that work. That's something we could take away to discuss. Yes, thank you. Other questions of our great team here? Yes. I'm just noticing page two because I always find that a little difficult of who does what in the ravines. So, the owner of um the parkland is generally the TRCA for all of our ravines to the chair. Correct. So the great graphic that you have here, uh, would that be for everything or for just the major rivers? So the Williamson ravine is a small ravine, the Glenn Stewart ravine. Is that owned by TRCA or those city ravines? So the TRCA uh owns lands related to their regulation limit, which is very similar to the ravine and natural feature protection bylaw. So that on the the map uh in the presentation um uh almost without exception the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority is the land owner. And so the Glenn Stewart ravine that we had our deputent Sheila came to talk with us about is that owned by the city or is that owned by the uh conservation authority? uh to you chair. Um I understand it is a mix between city ownership and TRCA ownership. I can get that very specific uh uh map for you and provide that. So there probably is I would understand that all the watersheds the Dawn Valley, the Humber Valley, the Rouge are very clearly and the waterfront sections. Um but all of the small I see some light green in there. see a number in your ward, deputy mayor, down here that look like parkland only. Those are city parks and so that is uh what percentage have we got there? It's 60% public land. Oh, let's just go to that percentage that over here for PRCA versus city ownership. So, um, so 60% of, uh, what is deemed ravine land in the city of Toronto is owned publicly. Uh, meaning then it could be a mix between TRCA or the city. But now I'm interested on page two. What's that ownership versus direct park versus TRCA? I understand that parks and forestry basically do all of the management and capital delivery, but do you have some idea of what the percentages are there for direct city ownership versus GRCA? Uh to the chair, I'm sorry I don't have that with me today, but I'll have that for council. Yes, I will. Could you not? Yes, that's absolutely that would be great. and um just in some of yourus because this we just heard so many great things today from so many people that are so active that we can't do this work. I know they do such incredible work. What's your process that either you are advising counselors that may be on these ravines? I think three of us, four of us here are on ravines, watersheds and or the requirement of the um groups to make sure that we know what's happening and I don't mean inviting all levels of government but these are funded through the city. We manage them the TRC that ownership of which city councilors are half the membership. So, I'm just interested in what thatou looks like or what that requirement is so we can really really uh push these things when we're talking to people and let everybody know about the great work that's going on because I don't think we have that yet. So, what is that arrangement look like? So through the ravine strategy either uh um uh primarily from the implementation report in 2020 or through the two status updates the one in 2023 and the one before you today um is where we seek council approval to enter into partnerships with with these various organizations. Um theus that come through those we have authority through that council direction to create those uh and they are updated as needed. Oh I think you mixed it. It's not yourus, it's and letting the counselors know what's happening in those areas. What's that requirement if any so we can promote that on our lands? And so to the chair, if um if counselors ha haven't been engaged um onus through the various partnerships, we'll we'll ensure to do that uh for for the next round. Okay, we can do that. And just on the loop, how many counselors have have lands? I think everybody here has loop lands. You might not have the loop, but councelor Saxs, councelor Chernoslin, and myself, and I think councelor Pastnac, councelor Cole, there's a lot of us that are looped in here. Um, but maybe not as looped in as we need to be. How many counselors are on the loop? I don't have that stat. I know that the majority of wards are uh well 24 out of the 25 ws have ravines. Um, and then the loop uh does uh come through the dawn uh the Humber across the waterfront the center of the city as well. So I'll get that exact number. We can do that. And um and we'll we'll make sure to engage if we haven't. Oh yeah, he's got eight. He's show according to our experts in the back. It's 8. Thank you. Thank you for the experts in the back. Thanks very much. That's a great thanks a lot for your work. Did anybody Sorry. uh speakers, deputy mayor. Uh thank you, Madam Chair. I'll speak briefly with again reiterating thanks to the team for this great work and for everyone who's part of um the local community stewards, our friends of groups, the nature stewards. Um it's such important uh work that we do here together to honor and maintain and protect these spaces. Uh we know that Toronto's ravines are a huge environmental and recreational asset to our city, but not every resident is fully aware of all that our ravines have to offer. Uh programs like our community-led restoration and into the ravines help to engage both the most enthusiastic volunteers and those who may not have set foot in a ravine before, like we heard about um from Natalie and the parks uh group uh down in Flemington Park. Uh Jerry also mentioned about the just invaluable impact of being in nature and in a moment where we're all over stimulated and lots is going on around us, being grounded in nature and knowing we have access to that in our own backyard is a really important and special thing we need to honor and make better connections uh for Torononians too. Um so I'm glad that we're expanding the work. We're ensuring capacity is there. We're making sure that those who are interested in putting up their hand and doing great work like we heard about with the veil of Aoka uh and making sure to protect those lands are continuing to be supported and the city is a strong partner in that work. Uh by meeting people where they're at, we can help raise awareness about this great resource and hopefully involve more people in their preservation for years to come. Uh so we are committed in this. I look forward to receiving and supporting um this implementation update from staff and also uh hopefully next year looking at additional resources and ways we can continue to expand on this good work. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'll leave it there. Thank you. Uh and anyone councelor Saxs? Thank you. Yes. I have two motions. Um they are advanced circulated. Uh the the first is uh building on Mr. Cole's deputation uh asking that we get a report back when we get the 2027 Q2 cycling network plan that it should include an analysis of cycle access along the loop trail. Um I will I can't wait. Uh the second thing is to get a report on options to enhance protection of the ravines from the ravine edge real estate development. As we heard from Sheila, this is this is a problem and we heard from Kim that this is a ma a planning matter. So, we need to hear from planning. Uh, thank you. Okay. Other than that, I do want to say that it's really good news to see how much progress we've been able to make. I mean, a couple of years ago that with the hundred million dollar gap, no funding, the ravines getting worse, erosion getting worse, invasive species accelerating, trees falling down the hill, um bridges looking as if they're about to be washed out, thousands and thousands more people needing the ravines. It was looking pretty grim. And I really want to congratulate both staff and the volunteers. Um um and my colleagues at council for the extra money we were able to squeeze out of the couch cushions to be able to make so much improvement in something that matters so much uh at a time when the the climatic conditions are getting tougher and tougher. The human use pressures on these ravines are growing all the time. um that we've been able to working together with with volunteers, trained, you know, incredibly trained and skilled volunteers to make so much progress. So, please do more. Um I I don't want us to fall back. We We have to catch up. And we all know with invasive species, if you fall behind, they win. Um because they never get tired and they never run out of resources. So, we have to keep at this. We need to do everything we The ravines are such a precious asset for the city of Toronto um for storm water, for recreation, for uh wildlife, for u livability of the city. And we have such opportunities that we need to build on. Veil of Aoka is a perfect example. For anybody who doesn't know, you should certainly look at the work that John and the Midtown Ravines group are doing. This is a place where we know there's a big hole in the trail access. We know we can link together the different parts of the city in the way that'll make life better for not just the hundreds of thousands of people who live along it, but the tens of thousands more we're packing in every year or at least every few years. So, we have an opportunity. We've got people who want to help. We can't do it ourselves. We need to do more to take advantage of their skill and passion and also to build love and engagement. People take better care of a place they've planted themselves moving. So, please do more. Thank you. Thank you. I'll just say a few words because we're all ravine people. got these ravines there and I really love working with all of your folks from your side, councelor Saxs and Rosedale when we go out after those invasive species and people get birthday presents that are to take out invasive species. They're very excited when they do that. And I see Floyd Ruskin's here as well from uh many years in in the ravine. And I just want to remind everybody that we were able to stop the crazy Metroink's idea of putting a train yard in the Dawn Valley ravine a number of years ago and that was really all the great people that worked on that. So both sides of the valley where we stopped that. One of the things that really struck me was um one of the deputants, I think it was you, Jerry, when you said that you thought you had to drive out of Toronto for an hour and a half in order to do something in nature. And it's so exciting that you don't have to drive out of Toronto an hour and a half that we have such amazing places in the city where you can basically be in the biggest city in the country but out in the bush as a northern gal. That's what I call it. You're in the woods, you're in the bush. Uh and so all of the tending to those places and spaces is so important. And we do have very very dedicated staff. I'd just like to thank you, Miss Staththam, for your drive here and getting this set up and also to recognize our dearly departed uh councelor Jay Robinson because this was her passion. Ravines were her passion. Hogs hollow all of this part of the city and we really pay tribute to that amazing work that she undertook that brought us here today and I know that councelor Chinos Lynn always does recognize the amazing work of u former councelor Robinson. So with that, I think councelor, your motions are both great. If we want to take those, can we move them separately or at once? Uh clerk, how do we have to do that? Put them up separately. Put them up separately. Okay. Thank you. That's the first one for the loop. Uh okay. All in favor cycling in the loop. And the second is uh looking at development in our ravines. And that's a great motion. There we go. All in favor? Opposed. And then I think we are item item as amended. All in favor? Opposed? That's carried. Thank you very much to everybody. You can all give yourselves a round of applause for all the great work that we do and we will too. Thanks. I'm just going to do two quick items here because um that got left. Uh councelor deputy mayor wanted to deal with vision zero road update. There are tenders in there in order to get that done. So it she is forfeiting her questions and asking that we could just do that one now with uh the motion that exists there. Which one do you want? Sorry. I 27.9 and 10 which is Tinder the Tinder Crescent sidewalk that has been around for a long time. Are we okay to do that? Sorry, I thought we already dealt with Tinder and Fitch. No, no, Tinder is part of nine. Nine. Okay. They're all tied in there. Fixing Tinder, so it can go into nine. Fixing 10 so it can be part of nine. I'm happy to move a seat on this report. Um, Madame Chair, and uh deal offline with questions of staff between now and council for for council. Yes. Yes, you should. Okay. Sorry. We'll receive that one first. So, we'll receive item number 10. Sorry, madam chair. My correction. Um, moving staff Rex on number nine. I'm going to move 10 receive. Sorry. On 10 and receive nine. Yes. You're moving 10 to receive. All in favor? Opposed? And you're moving the staff Rex on nine. I'm sorry. There's a motion there. Series of motions. A series of motions on nine. Okay. That you that you are moving council chosen on nine. Are we getting confused here? We'll let everybody get Councelor Cole. Councelor Cole has a motion on nine. Deputy Mayor Cole, you have a nine number nine motion. Is that councelor Burnside's motion? Vision zero. No, vision zero. Yeah. Can uh we put them up. I think this is the burn. This is this is his motion. Yeah. Okay. Roundabouts. Yeah. Basically, I'm just uh first of all uh with this asking that the police uh report on uh what steps they are taking uh to deploy police resources at our schools especially uh since the cameras have been uh eliminated. Uh councelor has deputy mayor has two motions here on vision zero. Yeah. And secondly, I'd like to Wait a second. This is number 10 or number nine. Sorry. Same thing. Okay. Go ahead. Oh, and secondly, I I'd like to uh ask the province to give their head a shake and tell us how they're going to uh uh force us to use roundabouts on our main streets and speed humps on our main streets when the TTC, our ambulance service, and our fire services say they will endanger lives. So that's why I'd like a report from the Minister of Transportation uh who took away the speed cameras and from the police services on how roads. Yeah. Thank you. Yes. And then you have another motion to deal with our Tinder Crescent issue. Yeah. That's on behalf of uh Council Burnside. Councelor Burnside just moved the Tinder uh crescent uh adjustment there. There's a lot of tinder here in this meeting today. The tinder box. Yeah. Okay. So, we have two sets of motions and you've moved those. Is there anybody else that wishes to speak or move motions? There's also that technical amendments to adopt uh amendment for attachment. Uh there are some technical amendments here that have to get moved. I'm sorry. I thought this was really fast, but it's not. But let's make sure. There are two technical amendments in order because these are going to be tender documents for all of these streets. So that's as well as vision zero. We have tenders out there for the streets that are listed in item number nine. There's quite a few of them. It's on the screen. It's coming here. And councelor Cole, that was your Tinder one. And now we're getting this one, which is your original one. Here is the deleting recommendation four. Should we just I think there's a move to maintain community safety zones. Think so. Well, this one is there a second one, too? Let's see if there's another one. delete for it's a minor amendment maybe you could explain it Mr. Curtis, if somebody could Yeah. Hello, chair. Uh the this motion is just a very minor amendment. Uh we had referenced attachment two in the recommendation and it should be attachment four. Okay. So was incorrect. So it's fixing that. And then there's one to around committee safety zones, I think. And these are Sorry. We're almost there, says the clerk. That was just something called four that was supposed to be two or something called two that was supposed to be four. That one's up. Which one was it? Said two in the report. It said two and it was supposed to be four. Okay. This changes recommendation three, which I think was to do away with community safety, which was to do away with community safety zones, but we don't think we like that recommendation. So, we're overturning that staff recommendation. And so, I think you're moving that, are you not? Pardon? You're clarifying. Oh, we are clarifying that we still like those things, right? We like them. Yeah, we weren't doing away with Well, you weren't doing away with them, but people were reading it. People were reading it like that. So, it's clarification that we still maintain them. Okay. And here it comes. Right. We're just correcting a few tweaks here. All right. Oh, yeah. I'm moving that. Okay. There we go. This is the tweak. We don't have ASC anymore, but we can have community safety zones and school safety zones. So, that's that. replacing I'm so sorry madam chair but this is just one area if we're maintaining them can we determine the size with in which they exist like I think previously there was direction from province around 150 m if we maintain it as a municipality are we able to inform the um I see staff nodding yes so I'll I'll fix anything else but when it gets Now, council. Thank you, Madam Chair. That'll be good. Okay. So, we have four motions here. Uh, councelor Cole, your two motions about automatic speed enforcement and how we're going to deal with not having any cameras. Are they as one? There they are. There you're moving those. All in favor? Opposed? That's carried. Then you have your technical amendment for councelor Burnside about Tinder Crescent. All in favor? Opposed? That's carried. Then we have the technical amendment about two and four fixing the that. There we go. All in favor. And then we have the one for community safety zones. Just as councelor Chernos Lynn said, we're clarifying that we're maintaining those and then if we need further clarification, we can just do that at council. If they're not the same size as before or if we have a chance to make them bigger, we'll know that when we get to council. That's great. All in favor? Opposed? And that's carried. Thank you very much for that. Oh, sorry. Item as amended. All in favor? That carries. And then uh councelor Cole uh councelor um Saxs I had held your motion on the uh permits but I'm happy to let that go and support that. So can we just do that quick business and then we will have the tree bylaw. Yes. Yes. We we have a motion. No, we have councelor's motion and she's going to move that. I would like to move the recommendations in my letter. Good. Uh, transportation services have said they can check with the uh, accessibility committee at that time, which was my concern. Okay, perfect. Thank you. Is it up there or you just recommendation? Item 16 moving the recommendation. All in favor? Opposed? And that's carried. That's great. So now we're Pardon? Yep. We're done items. No, no, we're done with that. We're done with the quick items. Now we're going to the longer items. Sorry, I got all excited. No, it's good. This is our No, no, no, no. We're done with all the little ones. Now we're going to the big ones, which is all of the tree bylaw. And we have 12 speakers. And I know there'll be a lot of questions. Councelor Cole is online. I thought pro councelor Pruss was going to go online, but he didn't turn up. He's not there yet. I wonder if clerks could check with him. I'm going to have to step out. I'm going to ask uh councelor chair nose to take the chair. And the item is here. Here are the deputants. There they are. Okay. Thank you. And here are the technical. Sorry, turning that off. Okay. Um, so we're going to go to this. Are we doing the staff presentation first or? Yes, after. Okay. So, I think what we should do is the staff presentation first, then we'll go to deputations. Uh, that way if there's any questions, um, we can go back to staff for questions if that's okay. So, uh, welcome. Uh, we've got, uh, Kim Stam and James Nolton here. Um, so, uh, I'll hand it over to you and you guys can get started. We're all really excited. We've been waiting all day. You have a big audience that's been waiting all day. All right. Uh, so good afternoon again, members of the infrastructure, environment committee and members of the public. Uh, for those who were not here for the uh, the last presentation, I'm James Nolan, executive director of the environment, climate, and forestry division. And I'm joined again by Kim Staithm, director urban forestry. For our second presentation of the day, we are providing an overview of the outcomes of our tree bylaw review. As before, I'll provide some brief context and then Kim will walk through the details of the report. Uh so, just to put this in context in terms of of why we're bringing forward uh the recommendations today, really looking at the value of Toronto's urban forest. And I'm not going to go through all the details here, but there's some pretty staggering and significant numbers as it relates to the value that uh the urban forest plays for Toronto. Um it is is well documented and we put it uh came forward in our tree canopy study and it is the reason that council adopted a 40% tree canopy cover by 2050. But that $7 billion structural value is just one example. in that $55 million annual ecological services. Another example of that significant value that the the the urban forestry plays both directly to residents but also in the quality of life of residents of the city of Toronto. So today we're going to talk about the tree bylaw reports and and really I think what I want to highlight here is that the purpose of these bylaws is not to prevent removal or injury to protected trees. rather it is around regulation of of tree protection and then requiring replacement and undertake compliance enforcement where necessary. So looking at avoidance mitigation those measures the tree bylaws are really about finding that balance between development housing and other uh elements of city building such as ecological services, climate resilience and those those broader benefits of a of a large tree canopy. Uh in terms of the tree bylaw review, uh it was a significant undertaking uh over a number of years from staff and was informed by a number of pieces of information. We've outlined them here, but jurisdictional reviews, uh engagement of constituency groups, public engagement, an online survey, um a lot of internal work and work with city councilors and as well as engagement with the province. We specifically wanted to highlight some of what we heard uh as part of that survey uh public survey where we had 6,400 responses and about 1,400 comments provided. Again, a very high uh engagement number. And here again, we we've got some of those uh those numbers here and I won't go through them again, but I think one really to highlight that 98% consider trees important to their quality of life. So while in other areas we see numbers not quite that high in terms of what we should be doing, pretty much unanimous that that trees play that important role and and a significant number of people concerned about tree loss. The tree bylaw review report before you today prevent uh presents a comprehensive set of bylaw amendments, operational updates, future studies, and an incentive program that takes a balanced approach to strengthen strengthening protection for trees, improving compliance and enforcement, and enhancing service delivery while recognizing the critical need to support housing delivery and address climate resilience through sustainable city building. Uh the report contains 12 recommendations uh that will um uh amend the bylaws in 2026. Pilot a new incentive and tree maintenance uh for tree maintenance on private property in 26 with a report back in 27. Update operational procedures and processes as well in 2026 and 2027 and direct further study um on size threshold and additional forcement tools with a report back in 2027. Large trees provide significant ecological benefits. Uh and an ideal urban forest would have 10% of its canopy uh in the largest size class. Currently, Toronto has 2%. For that reason and others, we are introducing a new distinctive tree category that would strengthen protection for healthy trees larger than 61 cm in diameter. uh distinctive trees are uh remain subject to all the existing permit processes and staff may deny applications to injure or remove uh in service of tree protection. A new distinctive tree maintenance incentive program would also assist homeowners with the maintenance cost to retain these trees on private property. Toronto's private tree bylaw currently protects trees at 30 cm in diameter and larger. Uh, this is higher than some of Toronto's jurisdictional counterparts. Lowering the private tree size threshold to 20% would provide earlier protections for younger trees to support long-term canopy goals. Our analysis shows that this change would result in an estimated increase of over 3,000 private tree permit applications or a 50% increase in current volumes. There would be implications to current resources, staffing and service standards for both permit and compliance and enforcement staff. If C if city council gives us a direction to lower the size threshold, uh this report uh currently commits that staff would prepare an implementation plan to report back in 2027. With regard to stronger enforcement tools, this report presents an enhanced compliance and enforcement framework based on education, fees, orders, and fines through prosecution. Uh listed on the slide uh in front of you are the uh various uh improvements uh updates and strengthening that we are looking to do through this report. Um some additional initiatives that would come back in the later study um uh include additional operational updates um and looking at the feasibility of an additional enforcement tools that are not currently in play. Currently there is no application fee for ravine and natural feature protection permit applications. So, the report before you recommends introducing a requirement of a non-refundable permit application fee for tree permits under this bylaw. Uh uh this is estimated to generate uh roughly $400,000 uh to cover staff costs to do this work annually. Permit exceptions will remain in place for stewardship projects, not for-profit housing projects, and lowincome households. City Council reaffirmed its commitment to achieving 40% tree canopy cover by 2050, recognizing that healthy natural infrastructure is essential for quality of life and a sustainable city. This report reflects a comprehensive and balanced approach to improving Toronto's tree bylaws, which work together with critical city building goals of housing delivery to support a sustainable city. Following direction from infrastructure and environment committee and city council, the recommendations before you today will be implemented starting this year uh and be completed in 2027. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Nolan and Miss Stathm. Uh so we will get back to you because I'm sure there will be a few questions. Uh but at this point we will move to deputations. Uh just a reminder that we have uh lowered our deputation time just because of the length of this meeting to three minutes per uh deputent. And so we will start with Fathma. Are you in the audience? Oh, wonderful. Come on up. Um hello good um good afternoon chair and members of the committee. My name is Fatima Mashe. I'm an undergraduate stu undergraduate student at the University of Toronto Scar Bro campus studying public policy. So today I wanted to focus on enforcement uh penalties because strong rules only work if people believe they will be enforced. Toronto already has one of the most comprehensive tree bylaws in the country. However, we continue to see illegal tree removal and damage which tells us that some individuals are still willing to ignore the rules when enforcement is limited or consequences feel unlikely. City data and reporting showed that thousands of tree related complaints are made each year. Yet only a portion of enforcement um uh results in enforcement action. According to a report in 2024, the city logged 2,642 contravention calls related to trade bylaw issues, but only about one in five of those, so roughly 433, led to enforcement actions. This highlights that while many people report potential violations, not all calls result in enforcement, suggesting that non-compliance is frequent and enforcement can lag. A very recent example um in Toronto is at least side where we saw how an 80-year-old tree was moved without a permit. Um this case showed that even when protections are in place, rules can be disregarded. And that's why we need stronger enforcement and real consequences, not just penalties that are easy to absorb as a cost of doing business. Strengthening enforcement and penalties isn't about punishing people. It's about making sure that rules actually work. If it's cheaper or easier to cut down trees illegally than to follow the law, then the system isn't fair to the environment or to the people who do follow the rules. Other municipalities provide strong examples of how deterrence can work. Um, for instance, the city of Siri imposes fines up to $20,000 of unauthorized tree cutting or pruning. The clarity and seriousness of these penalties send a strong message that trees are valuable public assets. Toronto already has a a tree bylaw penalty system in place. Under the city's protection bylaws, cutting down or seriously injuring a protected tree without a permit is an offense that and can result in fines of up to $100,000 per tree. In some cases, the court can also apply a special fine. Beyond fines, the city can require placement planting or cash um payments to help restore lost tree canopy. However, enforcement often happens after the tree has already been removed and relies on investigations and court processes, which can be slow. As a result, some people are still willing to take the risk, showing why stronger, faster, and more consistent enforcement is important. Um Toronto should see these examples not as extreme but as evidence that stronger enforcement is the is the need here as um we are going to continue building more homes and buildings. Um sadly this will be the issue um this issue will will start growing going forward. I encourage the city to continue exploring escalating penalties for repeat offenders, stronger um administrative administr administrative penalties and improved after hours enforcement capacities. Um, I believe that these amendments move the city of Toronto in the right direction. With stronger enforcement and um and meaningful consequences, Toronto can ensure that street protection laws are respective, effective, and future focused. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Are there any questions by our colleagues? Thank you. Okay, next up we I believe we have an online uh delegate. Uh Shannon, are you there? We have Shannon Rancer. Do we have She's online. Okay, Shannon, please uh unmute and you can go ahead. Shannon, are you there? Okay. So, perhaps we will come back to Shannon and we'll move on to Claudia. Wonderful. Claudia, please go ahead. I want to just put this on the overhead. Uh, how do I do that? Just turn it on like this. We'll get you some technical help here. There we go. Okay, feel free to start whenever you're ready. Hi, my name is uh Claudia Annis Hensland. I live on Craraven Road. Um in the summary, uh first of all, I want to applaud what parks and urban forestry has done. Put in a lot of work. Thank you. In my summary of the um bylaw um tree report um I'm I'm scattered. Sorry. In a recent trip to Australia, I saw trees in Sydney with plaques attached to their base where the trees were given names and spoken of much like the spirit of the indigenous feedback in your public consultations. By giving trees a voice, they have a say in their own protection. It would be great to add some of the points in your final report um that I'm about to make uh before it goes to council. Your public consultations tried to cover all the bases, but I feel the First Nations comments deserve a stronger integration in your strategic planning. The importance of integrating indigenous knowledge and cultural values into tree management cannot be undermined. Yet, aside from a short mention, I do not see any concrete timebased goals mentioned on how you will do this. Um, their group suggested that you give trees their indigenous names. that trees are identified for their cultural and sacred value and that first nations are consulted before trees are cut down. They express concern about our definition of healthy that is being used to remove trees as indigenous values give life to a more holistic approach when making this decision. Knowing that First Nations peoples have been stewards of our land and its trees for centuries gives them the knowledge, skill, and judgment to have more say in how to um achieve our tree preservation goals. Statements like trees don't need us to survive, we need them. And that trees are our spiritual beings and relatives. Before we cut them down, we talk to them. These reflect a larger consciousness needing urgent integration into mainstream thinking. Try telling a building, a builder and a developer this. In order to achieve some of our tree preservation goals, I suggested in the public consultations a partnership with neighborwoods, a program run out of the UFT's forestry department. Daniela Purich is the head of this program. Kim is familiar with her. Um, I'd like to see a partnership with urban forestry and neighborhoods as many residents associations have elicited this program to in inventory their trees. Their goals are online. I myself paid $3,000 out of my own pocket to commission the neighborhoods group to do a first pass inventory of trees on Craraven Road. How can this be used for your distinctive trees pilot? Other neighborhoods in Toronto, Long Branch and others have also used the neighborhoods program. So, you're going to work with partnerships and hire a third party trustee will use something that's already in place. Last but not least, um your report is replete with mention of invasive species and how they're damaging and need to be removed or replaced. So, I'd like to know how much of Toronto's urban canopy is comprised of so-called invasive species trees, mature, healthy trees over 30 son meters. Okay. Um, if you're going to get rid of them, how will they be replaced? Are you just speeding up permits to uh remove them for buildings? Thank you very much, Claudia. I'm sorry. I know the three minutes is tight. Got Okay, next up. Oh, I let me just ask if there's any questions from my colleagues. I do have a quick question. Okay, please go ahead. Councelor Marley. Sure. Thanks for being with us, Claudia, and for your patients joining us all day. Um, you highlighted the neighborhood program, which I'm not too super familiar with, but Long Branches in my ward, and I know, um, they do incredible work in terms of inventorying the trees and of course advocating for the tree canopy. I wondered if you could just speak a little bit more about the value of having tree inventories that are hyper local and like having residents be engaged in the process of inventorying trees and knowing what we have in our backyard to begin with. Well, first of all, um the neighborhoods program teaches residents what is a what is a so-called healthy tree. They talk about leanings. They talk about branches. They talk about how to care for the trees if a resident has um questions about removing a tree, what kind of tree should we replant. Um when they went up and down Craraven Road, there was a lot like we put out a flyer, there was a lot of resident engagement and they have like 30 criteria that they use to measure the trees. So the city arborists can use this data. So it's for professionals and non-professionals alike and it hires students. So they hire students who go around to inventory the trees. So that's a job creation. It's a program that's already ready. Um I learned a lot about the trees on our street and which ones are safe. I thought, "Oh, this is a great tree." No, this is a sick tree. It's it's teaching. Yeah. Amazing. Thank you so much. Really appreciate you joining us and sharing your voice today. Thank you so much, Claudia. Okay, next up we have Phoebe Natividad and I believe this one's Oh, you're in person. Wonderful. Come on in. You can go ahead as soon as you're ready. Okay. So, hi, my name is Phoebe. I'm also a University of Toronto student. I'm studying public policy and one of my courses right now is actually politics in a changing environment. And in that course, we study Canada's net zero goal for 2050 and Toronto's goal of reaching that by 2040. Now, one thing becomes very clear. Climate targets only matter if they shape real decisions. And item 27.8 is one of those decisions. Now, we all know that the larger and older the tree, the greater the return. When we remove mature canopy, we're not just removing greenery. We're also removing decades of accumulated resilience. We feel that the most in the summer when people are spending time at Edward's Gardens or taking a walk at Trinity Bellwoods Park or even like spending their time at the CNE. They're not just enjoying program space. They're benefiting from shade, cooler air, and tree canopy that makes those public experiences possible and safe during extreme heat. That comfort doesn't just happen by accident. It's the result of long-term protection. That's why we support introducing the distinctive tree category and strengthening in enforcement under the tree bylaws. This review recognizes that environmental protection and development are not mutually excuse exclusive. Responsible city building means planning for housing and resilience at the same time. My generation needs both. We are also experiencing in my generation we're inheriting record heat waves, smoke fil summers and infrastructure strain. We don't just experience climate policy as a theory we're experiencing as it lived reality unfortunately. So if Toronto's 2040 goal is going to mean something, it has to show up here in how we protect the assets that quietly protects us. Protecting mature trees isn't sentimental. It is strategic. And on behalf of students like me who are studying climate governance while preparing to live with its outcomes, I urge you to adopt these recommendations and continue turning Toronto's climate commission uh commitments into binding or enforcement action. My generation is playing paying close attention to whether climate commitments translate into action and today is an opportunity to show that they do. Thank you. Thank you very much. Are there any questions for the deputent? Okay, not seeing any. We just thank you for that deputation. Thank you. Okay, next up we have Leanne Corino, University also University of Toronto. Very well represented today. you are up and you can start whenever you're ready. Thank you. Good afternoon everyone. Um my name is Leanne and I am an undergrad public policy student at the University of Toronto. And I just wanted to preface this by saying that everyone in this room has had um experiences with the benefits of trees in Toronto. Many of us spending majority of our days inside whether in offices, in classrooms or other indoor environments. But especially in the summer, going outside and seeing greenery is one of the um highlights during our breaks. And though and because we experience um this uh the benefits of trees outside, this kind of benefit this kind of benefit is not accidental. Access to clean air and shade and green space is a result of consistent and sustained public investment and long-term environmental stewardship within the city. This in of itself is not a new thing and it speaks volumes towards the value that green space has in our communities. And even going beyond their aesthetic quality, trees do act as a means to cool our streets and directly work towards positive climate action for the city and also the greater country. And as Toronto aims to reach net zero by 2040, I do think it's very important that city planning and governance reflects these goals. Which is why I come here to support the implementation of strengthened tree protection and the creation of the distinctive tree category. Establishing this category acknowledges the unique value that mature trees have and ensures that their existing ecological and social benefits are not overlooked. Without these protections, once trees are cut down or damaged, we cannot simply replace them and assume that the loss is immediately resolved. While newly replanted trees may offer future benefits, protecting current ones delivers those benefits now and secures them for the long term. In my courses, we often discuss sustainability within the context of an ongoing process rather than a fixed end goal. Which is why I also support the city's incentive program pilot to ensure that you're providing targeted assistance for the maintenance of mature trees so that the city can move towards lasting outcomes of support rather than just single time implementation. My generation faces some of the greatest risks posed by climate change. So supporting these amendments is not just about protecting the trees now, but it's about ensuring that future generations understand what it's like to sit in a sit under a tree after class or walk through shaded sidewalks. So I strongly encourage the implementation of the um amendments in the review and I would really love to see the city take on more action to advance our climate goals and invest more long-term efforts to ensure that urban forestry continues to thrive in our city. Thank you. Thank you very much, Leanne. Uh, are there any questions from our audience? No. Okay. Thank you. And next up, I believe this one might be online. It's Nagok Dang from the Spark team. Oh, she's here. Okay, come on. Thank you for joining us. And you can start as soon as you are ready. Thank you chair and members of committee. Thank you for the opportunity to speak today. My name is Annie and I am an undergraduate at University of Toronto and I am here to share my perspective on item 27.8, the tree bylaw review report. At its core, the report is about how Toronto managed its urban forest in the context of climate change, housing pressures, service delivery, and equity. Trees are increasingly recognized not simply as aesthetic features but as natural infrastructures. They contribute to cooling down extreme heat, storm water management, air quality, biodiversity, and the overall neighborhood livability. For that reason, updates on the tree by law are not only minor technical changes, they relate directly to long-term city planning and climate resilience. From my perspective, it attempts to strike a balance between strengthening environmental protections and maintaining practical implementation and consideration. One significant elements of the proposed creations of distinctive tree category. The intent is to recognize and provide strong stronger protections for Toronto largest healthy mature trees. Mature trees provide environmental benefits that are not easily or quickly replaced through replanting. The complimentary distinctive tree maintenance incentive program pilot reflects an approach to that combines regulations and stewardship support. Rather than relying solely on restriction, the city is also considering ways to assist property owners in maintaining trees that provide broader public benefits. I also support proposed improvement to enforcement and compliance mechanism. These updates, including clearer evidentiary tools, administrative refinements, and enhanced transparency, are aimed at strengthening credibility and consistency in how the bylaws are applied. Effective enforcement is important not only for environmental outcomes, but also for maintaining fairness and public confidence in the in the system. In my view, this reflects a cautious and evidence-based approach to a pol to a policy question that has operational and development implication. More broadly, this report acknowledged an ongoing tensions in urban policy, how to strengthen environmental protection while al while also facilitating housing delivery and growth. The document does not frame these objectives as mutually exclusive, but instead emphasis the needs for careful coordination and implementation planning. Overall, I see this report as an effort to modernize Toronto tree protection framework, improving administrative clarity, enhance enforcement, and integrating equity consideration while recognizing that further analysis is needed in certain areas. Thank you for your time and consideration. Wow, that was really timeefficient. It's exactly three minutes. Thank you so much, Annie. And uh just looking to my colleagues to see if there's any questions. Not seeing any. Thank you very much. Yeah. Okay. Next up, we have Judy Gibson from Long Branch Neighborhood Association. And I believe this one might be truly online. Yes, she is. Okay. Uh Judy, please go ahead. Welcome back. Thank you so much. and thank you for allowing me to speak today. Um, I'm sharing my screen. Can you just confirm that it's up, please? Yes, we can see it. Thank you. Thank you so much. Um, so I'm Judy Gibson. I'm with the Long Branch Neighborhood Association and delighted to be here today and I'd like to congratulate the previous deputants for their excellent presentations. Um, Long Branch has been working in partnership with the city of Toronto to grow the tree canopy since we've been created in 2018. As we've already heard, trees are essential to urban living. And in the last um eight years, Long Branch is pleased to help to distribute over 9,000 trees for planting on private property in the city of Toronto, mostly in South Atobico, and we'll be distributing another thousand trees in 2026. This report is the first step in stronger tree protection that is so badly needed in the city. Because we do not have strong enough tree protection through our bylaws, in our opinion, too often lots that are redeveloped are virtually being clearcut in our neighborhood. And I'll be showing some examples. We're protecting too few private healthy trees and the current fines and replanting requirements are insufficient to support tree retention. Therefore, we do support um the following aspects of this report. We support increasing the number of private trees protected by reducing the diameter at breast height from 30 cm down to at least 20 cm. As we've heard, many other municipalities have already done this and Toronto has fallen behind at a time when we would like to see Toronto being a leader and when our populations are increasing and there's an urgent need to grow our tree canopy. We request that this committee take action on this as soon as possible and not wait until 2027 as this is long overdue. Long Branch has experienced the greatest tree canopy loss um over 43% in all of WI 3. 43% of our tree canopies disappeared in a very short period of time. So we know what it feels like to lose trees. Um it's the eighth hardest hit neighborhood for tree canopy loss in all of the 140 neighborhoods studied at this at the time in Toronto. So we would like to see protection increased and and um more trees protected. We would we support the introduction of distinctive tree category as already discussed. We'd also like to see um the revising the tree replacement planting ratios and starting at 5:1 and increasing for larger trees. we strongly support. Um we've I've got some examples on here of the um what happens when trees are not protected. And you can see the clear cutting that happens in the lots. Before well-treated communities or or properties and afterwards, all the trees are gone. Even the tree in front, the city tree was lost. And here's another example. So we refer to this committee. We absolutely recognize that Toronto needs to grow its housing stock and homeowners have a right to renovate their properties, but we strongly believe that this should not be at the expense of removing healthy trees. We believe that there's benefits of the trees that have already been mentioned and we would ask this committee to support the recommendations for stronger tree protection in this report and accelerate the actions where possible. In South Atobbico, we have over 62 acres of vacant land that was cleared years ago of buildings and has already been approved for over 10,000 housing units. Nothing in this report is going to stop anything from being built there. So, we would encourage stronger protection for private trees. And thank you for your time. Thank you very much, Janet. Okay. Any Sorry, Judy. My apologies. Um, thank you so much, Judy. I'm just looking around to see if there's any questions. None. None here, but thank you for your deput deputation. Next up, we have Janet. I was looking ahead on my sheet. Janet May, are you with us? I believe uh Janet is from Cliff Crest, Scar Bro Village, Southwest Association. Okay, wonderful. You can start whenever you're ready. Okay. I don't know why my camera never works when I'm here, but whatever. I'm old. What can I say? Um, my name is Janet May and I represent the Cliff Crest Scarbor Village Southwest Residents Association. Our comments, uh, the tree protection threshold needs to be immediately lowered to 20 centimeters. We cannot wait until 2027. Toronto is lagging behind our neighbors. We need better by law enforcement on weekends and evenings. It can take up to it can take 72 hours or longer to respond to a tree under attack incident, which is a priority one contravention. Priority ones have increased by over 300% in recent years. That's on page 20 of the report. City inspectors need to be witnessing these contraventions. It would help with court cases. It should not be the job of residents to be policing this. Um, okay. I have a slideshow. I'm not sure if it's going to work. Did that work? Share. No, I'm just going to pause you for a moment. Okay. I Yeah, I Oh, there it is. Is that it there? Yeah. Okay. So, I'm going to show you a few photographs like Judy did. Um, so this is a a healthy tree that was in front of a rental property which housed two families. The owner had had workers drill holes in the tree and Urban Forestry was unable to save it and then the owner applied to committee of adjustment, demolish the house and replaced it with an oversized luxury house. Um the next the house next door um same thing. It was a healthy maple growing in front of a well-maintained starter home. Um last October actually when the Jays came back to town uh from LA uh workers decided that it was time to take down the tree. And you can see clearly that the the worker on the ground has no safety equipment, no helmet. He has gloves on, but he has a rope and he's pulling a limb that's being cut down towards himself. Um, this is the kind of activity that goes on in our neighborhood with trees, and it happens on weekends, it happens on evenings. There's nobody we can call, but nobody responds. Um, and finally, I had to cut things down because of the five minutes. Um, this is an aerial view of 80 trees that will be clearcut to make way for an approved condo development. This is interestingly enough near Bell just above the Bellamy ravine. Um it's a flyway for migratory birds and it's just 50 meters north of the Dors McCarthy trail. So that is what we're dealing with. Um, so finally I I would like to see we always do land acknowledgements and include indigenous people in consultations, but that seems to be as far as we go. We don't respect the fact that many people love trees and feel very they're they're just part of our culture. And I really do do urge the committee members to swing the pendulum back towards strengthening our natural environment and to make sure that our trees are are protected properly, that we collect data on what's going on and that we strengthen enforcement and extend it to weekends and evenings. Thank you. Thank you very much, Janet. I'm just looking to see no questions from my colleagues. So we thank you for this deputation. And moving on, next we have Sue Dexter, who I believe is also on video conference. Sue, are you with us? She is. We just need you to unmute. Okay, maybe this is a good time to go back to Shannon Rancort and see if Shannon is with us. She was going to try to call. Okay, so we're watching for a call-in number from Shannon. Okay, not hearing from Sue. We will come back to Sue and we'll move on to Jeff Catel from the from Fontra. Jeff, are you with us? Catel. Okay, we are going to move down the list. Next up, we have Laura Lamar. I believe Laura would probably video as well. Laura, would you be able to unmute, please? I'm unmuted. Do you want to see my face? It's up to you. It's up to you. I don't have any video. I submitted it. So, okay. Um, yeah. And it's funny that that shows up to the Steuart. Anyway, I'll get started. Um, just a note, it's great to see the young voices at the table. It's really important that our decisions today um take them into consideration because it's their future. So, thanks to the U of I'm I'm hoping more will come forward. Anyway, thank you, chair and members of the committee. My name is Laura Marsh. I support this tree bylaw proposal. Definitely. I've lived in Hogs Hollow for over 30 years, 33 to be exact. A ravine with nearly 300 properties woven into the Dawn River Valley. My community has watched our tree canopy disappear, losing a 200y old tree can't be replaced. The city's 218 tree canopy survey said over 60% of Toronto's trees are on private lands and a major concentration is in our ravines. We are aware of this trend in other areas like Bside, Long Branch, Cliff Crest. This is a trend that does not contribute to the city's goals for climate resiliency. We've seen protected trees removed, often illegally. We've seen responsible approvals for one or two trees turned into clearcuts. a tree protection zones poorly maintained so that the tree eventually dies. Mudslides, basement flooding, power outages are all happening more than the 100red-year storm in our area. Now, it's a 50-year-old storm. And in the the last 10 years, it's happened twice that major flooding and street cleanup has occurred. And yet, we continue removing the very infrastructure that protects us. Under the RNFP bylaw, every tree is protected in our area. But that's on paper. On the ground, developers often treat fines as a cost of business. They remove trees, maximize the build, flip the house, and laugh all the way to the bank. Meanwhile, the rest of us inherit the erosion, the flooding, the loss of character that define our neighborhood. So, I strong strongly support these enhancements to Toronto's tree bylaw, especially the distinctive tree designation, and the stronger fine program. Distinctive trees are important living infrastructure. They stabilize slopes, absorb storm water, cool our streets, biodiversity. You've heard it all, and they define our ravine system. Protecting them is not anti-development. We have seen smart developments that protect the mature trees, but they are very rare. Our neighborhood is in demand is demanding clearer refusal authority, stronger maintenance requirements, and real accountability. Many letters have been written, campaigns launched, and much press coverage, all pleading for tree protection. We need stronger enforcement tools. Escalating fines for repeat offenders so deterrence actually works. It makes no sense that someone can exceed building intent, clearcut a lot, increase property value, and not pay a penalty that reflects the real cost to the community. Right now, a legal removal can be profitable. It is important to include all these proposed measures collectively as they are stronger and more impactful together. Careful planning and implementation is imperative for the six success of building sensible and sustainable housing in Toronto. We need replacement ratios as outlined on page 22 of the report that reflect the size and ecological value of what was removed. Also, a 30cm tree is not equal to a 20 cm tree. Early tree protection results in a long-term canopy growth for the entire city as outlined on page 32 of the report. Smart implementation from staff will win for the city and its climate resiliency goals. Trees protect our properties, our infrastructure, our budget, and our quality of life. We can build housing, we can grow a city, but we cannot pretend that removing century old infrastructure is good climate policy. I urge you to advance these measures and reinforce the tree cities commitment to safeguards. Laura, okay, thank you. We know you're passionate, but we're on a tight timeline today. Yes. Yes. Okay. I'm just looking around the room. I'm not seeing any questions for you, but we thank you for your really thorough deputation and your passionate work on this. Okay. Next up, we have Sarah Buchanan from Toronto Environmental Alliance. Welcome back. Thank you, Sarah. You can go ahead when you are ready. Thanks, everyone. I'm Sarah from T. Um, so, uh, if you remember one thing from what I say today, I hope it is this one thing, which is that the majority of our trees in Toronto are on private land. Thanks. Uh, no, just kidding. Um, so when we're talking about protecting private trees, uh, I think that this is not it's not a fringe issue. It's one that's really really important to preserving our uh, urban forest and in fact the majority of our urban forest. So that's why um and this is what we're going to rely on to keep people cool uh in 20 years when our summers are almost exclusively days above 30° C. Um so that's why T uh strongly supports the plan before you for tree protection. Uh we ask you to do everything in this plan including the things that they are um planning to report back on in 2027. Please also do those things. Um and uh I also want to point out as many many other folks have pointed out today that other municipalities have gone ahead and reduced their threshold to 20 centimeters or below. Um and that uh Toronto can and should uh do the same when you have the information before you that's requested in this report. Um so another fun fact that I wanted to tell you is that um in fact the number of trees in Toronto have gone up in the last decade but actually the amount of leaf cover has gone down. And why is that? Uh because big trees have more leaves and small trees have fewer leaves. And uh this shows that we are in fact losing the battle to preserve our big healthy trees, which is why uh we need stronger fines and enforcement to make sure those big healthy trees stay up. And it's also why we are big supporters of the um the suggestion to have a category for distinctive trees in this report. Those are trees over 60 cm in diameter. Young people, there are a lot of young people. That's true. Um and um those trees are are really irreplaceable and they actually remove about 70 times more pollution than a newly planted tree. So we also uh we're asking to see a little bit more tracking of the survival rates of replanted trees, we want to know when we're asking developers or homeowners who have legally cut trees, we're asking them to replant, let's say, five trees, six trees or more in their place. How are those trees doing? Are they surviving? are they thriving beyond that initial check. I think that's really important information to have on hand. Uh as well as uh potentially what kind of programs we can put in place to uh to enable those trees to better survive if possible. Um so that's something we'd like to see. Um, and I'm going to leave you, I think, with one uh last fact if I have time in the last 10 seconds, which is that um the 2018 tree canopy study told us that we're actually losing plantable space for trees as it turns into pavement. And the the place where we're losing this surface uh most quickly is actually on hard surfaces other than buildings or roads. So that's not housing. That was parking lots, driveways, and patios. So, I think that this underlines why it's entirely possible to have a city where we can build dense housing and we can also protect the trees that we have. Thanks a lot. Thank you very much. Uh Sarah, I'm just looking to see if there's any questions. Okay. Oh, yep. We do have one. Please go ahead, Councelor Sax. Sarah, thank you as always. Um so good to that you support the report. Are there any particular things that you're asking us to change or add? Um, well, a couple of things I mentioned were better monitoring how those newly planted replacement trees. So, those are trees that are planted as a result of a bylaw contravention are doing. Um, so getting a sense of um, you know, when a developer is asked to put those trees in the ground because they've cut down uh, you know, a bunch of trees or one really big tree. If we're asking the same people who cut down trees illegally to be in charge of replanting those trees, how are they doing? What kind of supports might they need or what kind of guidance might they need? They might be people who need some tips on how to do this properly. So, is is there a way the city can make sure those trees um survive and and have a sense of how well they're surviving? Okay. So, that's one thing. Was there anything else you were asking us to add to this? Honestly, it's a pretty comprehensive report. So, I think uh I think there's a lot in there. I think that um forestry has a lot on their plate with with what's in here. So, I'll uh I'll stop there. Thank you. Okay, thank you very much uh for that. And we're going to try again with the folks who we missed first time around. So, I'm going to go to Shannon Rancort. Do we have Shannon? She's still just need to Shannon, would you be able to unmute? Here I am. Can you hear me? Oh, hooray. Yay. Feeling like you. Oh my goodness. So happy to be here. I'm sorry. Um, I've didn't get it figured out today. So, I'll zip. You have you have three minutes very much and and and thank you. Good afternoon to you all and thank you to the authors of this report. I fully support the recommendations. As you know, I'm Shannon Rancor. I live in Hogs Hollow, which is a designated ravine protected area on a flood plane surrounded by steep ravine walls with the Dawn River running through our community. In 2021, when I first started really noticing what was happening, a healthy 200-year-old sugar maple near my home was approved for removal to build an iceberg house. Urban forestry tried to save it, but because the removal was considered as of right, it was allowed. We were able to garner national attention, residents were outraged, lawn signs went up. We worked closely with councelor Robinson, held community meetings, and mobilized trepayers groups. But frankly, our tree protection bylaws could not save this iconic tree. The tree was destroyed, the lot was clear-cut, and the house was never built. Today, the property sits bare. No mature trees to absorb rainfall. Neighboring homes uh flood regularly. The natural infrastructure that once helped protect neighboring properties is gone. A 200-year-old living ecosystem was erased. The proposed tree bylaw changes could have saved it. This is why I'm firmly behind lowering private tree pro the private tree protection threshold, implementing the distinctive tree program and strengthening enforcement. These are not policy these are not minor policy tweaks. These are urgent corrective measures. The city's own tree bylaw survey as we've already spoken of 98% of Torononians say trees improve their quality of life and 85% are concerned about tree loss. Tree protection is no longer a fringe issue. It is a civic pri priority. We all understand the value of trees. Yet 90% of tree removal permits are approved. And remember that does not include all of the trees that are removed without permits. We see it all the time. So this is not a system airing on the side of protection. I feel the system now facilitates removal. tree protection and development can coexist, but the balance is currently skewed towards those with the resources to put to push projects through. So, I'm asking council, help us restore that balance, lower the private tree protection threshold, strengthen enforcement, and put forth penalties that are not treated as a cost of doing business, and fully implement the tree the distinctive tree program. and importantly recognize ravine communities like mine where the TRCA is frankly no longer providing the productions it once did. We need to protect these re ravine communities and we need these bylaws to wrestle power back to Torononians back to Torononians. When mature trees are removed in ravine neighborhoods, ravine walls fall, basement flood, insurance is impossible to get, and the pressure on the storm water systems, which I know is something you're very concerned about, councelor Chernos Lynn, is costs that are borne by all of us. Just one last thing I want to say was that we looked at at 20 in 2021, the council looked at um decreasing the uh private property threshold. We're we're in 2026 and nothing's happened. So, please support these these enhanced tree protection programs and also thank you very much for the opportunity to be heard. Thank you. Thank you so much, Shannon. I'm not seeing any questions, so uh we appreciate uh everyone's patience and getting you back online. And we'll move to our next delegate. Uh we have Sue Dexter. Sue, are you able to unmute? Are we showing that Sue is online? She is unmuted. I'm here. Oh, hooray. Good. Please go ahead for us. Long and interesting day, you guys. Uh I'm here in two capacities. As a member of the Harvard Village Residents Association on the on the western edge of uh of the St. George campus and is a member of the friends of Queens Park North, a coalition of foster and a halfozen residents association along with residents which is working to protect the old growth forest in Queens Park North. This report moves to extend protections onto private lands. Good work. We all have stories. There are 15 trees within a block of my house illegally cut, not replaced. All would have fallen within the protection of the 20 cm measure. Please do it now. But the next step, bring the same style of engagement you've developed in ravines to the city proper. Our two inventories show 30% loss in trees in Harvard Village between 2007 and 2017. Damage was mostly caused by construction and paving on owner occupied property. We are soon to do a third inventory and the news will not be good. Our data has spawned a solid halfozen academic studies. Information that can be used to begin to close the still mysterious gap between broad public support for trees and actual plantings and care. Consider pilot projects. What leads property owners to plant and protect trees? Test models of engagement. Build on existing data and coalitions to inspire the communities to raise its game. Consider forest management plans to define targets and assess goals. Use distinctive tree identifications to highlight heroes in our urban forest and protect them. Consider our 250year-old pre-cont bur oak growing neglected enduring on a shared property line between parking spaces in a lane behind Brunswick Avenue. Saved now by the installation of permeable paving paid for by the community assisted by Robert Mays in transportation. Our buro is cousin to the 250year-old oak savannah forest survivors in Queens Park North. They need status and inviable protection to ensure that changes being considered under the generous western grant do not hasten their deaths. They are part of our shared history from indigenous lands to 1793 when before soldiers could even pitch their tents along the shores of Toronto Harbor, they had to clear a patch in the wall of forest. That some nearby trees in Harbor Village in Queens Park North escaped Simco's axes and remain among us today is nothing short of a miracle. Honor the stewardship role with the nature that survives among us, that creates our oxygen, that raises our hearts when we hear the song of a returning redwing in spring. Please keep the faith. We must do no harm. And I hope spring comes. It's been snowing during the day of watch. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. I'm I do have a we do have a question for you, so don't go anywhere yet. Uh, councelor Saxs, please go ahead. Yes. Hi, Sue. Yeah, no, I was very glad to be able to work with the HVA to save that buro and get transportation to lighten up in that lane way. Um, the, you know, you and the HVA does amazing work counting the trees and lurking on the canopy goal. Um, and we've I've been giving away free trees at each of my community environment days and other days. What other kind of help is the HVA looking for? Uh, I mean, I saw your point about the urban forest management plan, but other than that, what are you looking for to encourage HVA members to plant and protect trees? What are you looking what are you asking us to do? I think the city can act in the middle actively. So what you have is you have various organizations, LEAF and the rest yourself, your office, uh, city staff and the community and and community association and there's no connection between them. So what you need is like Carney says, a a plan beats no plan. And the thing to do is to do similar stuff to what's been done in the in the uh in the ravines and to have pilot studies in various areas like a couple of pilot studies might capture the diversity of the city and begin to explain what's causing people not to plant trees, what's causing people not to water the trees when they're planted. to raise awareness to develop a movement. You have a movement in the ravines. You could have if if the city comes in and we get handson and publicity and and a consciousness then there's a chance with these pilot studies that we would also break the mystery and we and that would be a a worldwide contribution. Nobody understands why it doesn't happen. Why people say they love trees and then don't plant. So let's try to figure it out. It's similar to it's similar to heat pumps and to the other conservation me measures. Why what's holding this up? If they love trees, why are they not planting and protecting and designing and renovating with a consciousness to saving the trees? So, sorry to go on about it, but I think it's just there needs some there needs to be some coherence to it and the city could provide that. Okay. I'm going to put it back to you. So, I'm going to encourage the HVA to propose what that pilot project would look like. You've got We are We are We're working. Okay. All right. Well, send it to me. Let me know when to expect it and we'll work together to make it happen. But a specific tangible proposal given your knowledge and and your colleagues would be really helpful. Well, it's in part well it's a mystery. So So in in a sense coming forward and starting to work with the city, you design the proposal. That's the point. And and we've been talking to uh to city staff about it and have had a positive response. Yeah. Well, I' I'd encourage you to learn from um John Boston's and the Midtown Ravines people. They didn't wait for the city to do it. They organized themselves and came to us with a plan and we're making it happen. I'm challenging you to do the same. Anyway, thanks Sue. Okay, thank you very much for those questions and uh we're going to move on to the next delegate. We have one left. It's Jeff Catel. Jeff, are you online and can you unmute, please? Okay, we are going to I think at this point close the deputations since we're not hearing from Jeff Catel. Uh he did send a letter so I hope everybody has read it. Okay. Uh with that, um we are going to move on to questions of staff on this. I've got a few. I do. Oh, I definitely have a few. I will jump on in. Madam B. Okay. I do. We want to just let Are we Is I'm fine if you're fine there. Let's get started. Yeah. Time in the day. Um thank you so much uh Madame Vice Chair, if you want to start my time. Keep me honest here. Um or Mr. Madam um start my time because I might go on this one. Um I will try to keep it uh fairly brief and again um many of the questions that I had were actually answered in the presentation uh that we had. So thank you for that. Um in terms of the specific recommendation around changing the minimum diameter threshold for private tree protection, what is the recommendation before us within this report? So uh through the chair the recommendation is to endorse um or to approve in principle whatever language you would like the the change to the threshold and then we will go off and do the work around implementation. We want to we want to be sure that there is support for that because implementation, resourcing, looking into what we'll need for uh enforcement, permitting, etc. is is a fair amount of work and we'll also be doing process improvements. So really kind of business engineering to ensure that whatever we do, it's actually supporting our overall permitting process and compliance process. Fantastic. Um would a piece of that work include looking at the important um issues raised around enforcements, fee structures, fine structures rather, um and availability of resources for more immediate action when uh the bylaw is being contravened on private property. Uh yes, and I think that's kind of our overall work that we're doing as well as looking at other opportunities. We have a I believe a recommendation in there related to looking at other um mechanisms uh related to enforcement and compliance. So that is all bundled up in that. Okay. Um we heard a little bit about this from the deput uh from the deputent today, but uh can you talk to us about when the city when city council initially provided direction to review the protected private tree threshold uh and when staff were originally supposed to report back? So I'll start and then I think Kim will jump in. uh we were directed I believe in 2021 to report back uh in 2022 staff um initiated the work. There was a number of uh elements underway. Obviously that report back has taken longer um when the uh the division was created at the beginning of January last year in terms of environment and climate and forestry. So um it moved into a different division. Uh Kim and I sat down and prioritized this as something that that was outstanding and we needed to move forward with. So that's what we've we we did we've done over the last year uh to bring this report in today. Fantastic. Uh sorry I don't know if anybody wants to add on to that but I'm satisfied with that answer. That's good. Thank you. Um understanding that it's been some time since 2022 and we have seen enormous rapid and significant changes to our planning environment uh and to permissions and sort of general mandates um largely coming from the province around growth goals. This is compromising a significant amount of plantable space as well as um trees uh that are currently protected. I just want to confirm that you all appreciate the urgency with which we would like to move on this um as we're trying to keep up with the mandates and growth goals. Uh we absolutely need to critically protect uh and ensure our tree canopy is is growing. Are you all with us on the urgency for this work? I will speak for the for the division. We are absolutely aligned and we we are uh we will be moving as quickly as we can to have that in place. Great. I appreciate that and we'll keep your feet to the fire. Um as well as look to support any way that we can. Um just a couple additional questions for me. Um would lowering the protected private tree threshold help us achieve our targets for the distribution of larger trees and our tree canopy goals in general? So through the chair, the lowering of the private tree bylaw threshold uh will improve protections for the smaller sized trees in the canopy. The distinctive tree proposal uh then is aimed to uh strengthen protections for the largest trees in our urban forest canopy. Great. Uh and in terms of the resourcing that was just referenced um to support uh the protected private tree threshold uh change that we're looking to endorse today. Will that be factored into the 2027 budget uh either by reporting back or some other means? Uh to the to the chair that is our intention. We will be looking at this through the 2027 budget as well as other proposals. We're also doing a tree maintenance review. There's a number of elements underway. So, we'll be do looking at uh our tree program holistically as we report back. Great. Uh those are my questions. Thanks, Madam Chair. Okay. Thank you. Up next, Councelor Saxs, please go ahead. Uh yes, thank you again. Um thank you for an extraordinary and overdue but much appreciated piece of work. Um picking up on some of the comments of the deputies working backwards or more or less backwards from Sarah Buchanan's point about better monitoring of replacement trees and sometimes we see the replacement trees die or be neglected uh and this is seems to be constant vigilance. What is it going to take to get better monitoring um and just generally better enforcement? we've got all these rules, people flout them constantly and there's no meaningful consequences. What's going to change? So through the chair, the report in front of you today has a couple of key changes uh uh with regard to this. Uh one includes extending protections to newly planted trees uh in contravention and development scenarios on private property. So there is a nuance there where uh replacement trees um are required um and but on private property currently trees on private property are protected at 30 cm and above. So uh this report closes uh a bit of a gap uh there and and will give uh the specific authority uh for those trees to be protected at any size. Um I'm sorry Kim with all due respect that isn't responsive to my question. I'm asking we've had the rules all along but they don't get followed and there's no consequences and we have the specific question about m u better monitoring of the replacement trees. So what let's do those one at a time. What are you doing to better monitor replacement trees make sure they survive? So, currently, there's nothing in uh in the report before us that changes, but currently we do follow-up inspections on permit applications as well as contravention and enforcement um through the deputation from Sarah at Toronto uh Environmental Alliance uh with this idea of what else could we do? We are absolutely committed to that and and uh keen to to understand what our role might be um to have a a longer view of survival of these replacement trees and we'll be taking that away and and working through that. Uh we uh if not sooner can uh if we can't implement sooner, we'll certainly be reporting in 27. Okay. Um and then the um u Sue's point about turning existing tree inventories in willing communities like HVE into actual urban forest management plans where we really work on successful pilot projects. Is that something that you're open to through the chair? Absolutely. Um we work with a lot of residents associations who uh and I think Claudia and her deputation talked about the neighborhoods program. A lot of uh neighborhoods do their own tree inventories. We've always used those to complement uh the work that we do for citywide tree inventory or tree canopy studies. Um and so moving forward, we love the idea. Um happy to to work with using those tree inventories to inform our next tree canopy study, which ultimately would inform um how we manage the urban forest. I I think we're looking for something. She's looking for something more than just a future canopy study, but what does an actual urban forest management plan look like? Is it not just an inventory? How are we going to better manage what we've got and grow it? So, through the chair, the city of Toronto does have its strategic forest management plan. Again, it's a citywide plan uh with with certain actions, principles, interventions that we are applying citywide. Um and it includes many of the things that we're talking about today. Um, I think the work that we would have to do, um, and are interested in how we would do that is how we work then for that to be local or neighborhood based. Uh, and and we're, uh, happy to have those conversations on how we could use that information to inform those. All right. And finally, um, Sue's suggestion that we have something more structured to protect distinctive trees that are on public space other than ravines. What What can we do about that? Uh so to the chair we have um we're undertaking a tree by sorry a tree maintenance review so different than the tree bylaw review tree maintenance review so that relates to our work on public land. So that's led by our our uh forestry operations side of course working closely with with Kim and the urban forestry team and as part of that we are looking at uh opportunities to support mature distinctive trees. Um so we will have a report back uh on that work uh coming in 2027. Um we have the a consultant that's been doing work over uh a number of months almost a year now and they'll be reporting back in the summer and out of that we'll be then uh coming back to council on opportunities there. So that that work is underway and will be coming to council. All right. That's a year or a year and a half. In the meantime, can you um improve maintenance of distinctive trees in public spaces? So I would say at this point in time if there's any trees that are identified as uh needing maintenance that is part of our regular work and we do work um you know uh reactively as those are identified and proactively as well when they come in but the tree maintenance review part will actually provide us with a framework around how we would do that. So I can commit that we'll continue to do that as we come aware of them. But the framework will come out of the tree maintenance review work. All right. So we we need to tell you about trees. Okay, I got that. Okay, thank you very much. So you're you're good for questions. Okay, and I'm just looking to my colleague on the screen. Uh councelor Cole, no questions? No. Okay. Uh so with that, I have just um two very quick questions. I wonder if I can pass the chair to you. Uh thank you, Councelor Marley. Um, so is set the clock. I know. Oh, thank you. Three minute. Yeah, five minutes. Go ahead. Okay. Uh, I won't take five minutes. I promise. Uh, we we've certainly heard um today a few references to some um egregious incidents in Leid in particular in my ward. Um, and so recently there was a developer in Dawn Valley West who removed a number of large trees on their property in the middle of the night. Uh actually we don't know who did it but there was this incident that the community has been up very upset about where they removed a number of large trees on their property in the middle of the night without permits leaving only their stumps. No measurements had been taken before their removal. Prior to the stump diameter measures introduced through this report. What options did we have available uh to urban forestry to determine whether a tree bylaw was protected in circumstances like this? So through the chair that uh certainly is a recognized challenge. When the trunk no longer remains, the evidence isn't there to measure and to ensure if it was a bylaw protected tree. Again, this um would apply to to the private tree bylaw. Um ravines and city trees are protected at all sizes. Um so you know our team would do their best to to collect the evidence that our legal colleagues would need uh to to um uh either prosecute or for our team to to issue orders or or fees. Um but it was a recognized challenge and as you've noted counselor that's why one of the recommendations in this report is to introduce a stump diameter which takes us one step better to um having the type of evidence collection we would need to enforce these important bylaws. Okay. Thank you. I I am um so glad that we're looking to close that loophole as best we can. Um and so in that with with that same um idea in mind and you know we're looking staff is uh looking to report back and I I suspect um my colleagues on this uh committee I know we're all quite passionate about reducing or certainly many of us about reducing that um diameter uh of the tree um trunk at breast height. Is there going to be a corresponding because you don't mention it in the report, but will there be a corresponding measurement for trunk diameter for that smaller size? Like obviously it wouldn't be 20 and 40. It would change to something like 20 and 30. I don't I don't know how it will work, but I'm just wondering if if uh that's in there. So through the chair, that's a that's a great question. Um if we do get direction to lower the private tree size threshold from 30 to 20, there would be a corresponding decrease in the stump diameter definition in the bylaw. Uh it is currently based on um academic and scientific uh literature on the shapes of of trees and and it it's uh representative of the trunk to stump uh ratio. So yes, there would be a corresponding decrease um at the time that uh we action the other item. Okay, I already see a media campaign trunk to stump. Measure your trees. Okay, thank you so much. Those are my questions. I'm happy to take the chair back. Thank you, councelor Morley. Okay, so now we can move on to um speech speakers. So councelor Mley, please go ahead. Thank you so much. Uh Madam Chair, through you. I do have a motion. I'm hoping clerks have it available. Uh, and with thanks to our friends over at the Toronto Environmental Alliance, this is aligned with the um, ask that they've made of us today as part of this work. And it in it's an expansion on recommendations to include improvement of tracking of replacement tree survival rates through permitting and contravention scenarios. Um, we've heard a lot about that today. This is incredibly important and many of the deputants have spoken life into the why we need to have eyes on this and do better tracking and data analysis for enforcement uh support as well. The second piece is around expanding the enhanced public access to tree bylaw contravention data uh again to include tree permit outcomes uh so we can better track monitor and resource uh the necessary pieces to uh ensure that this is is taking the right effect that we're looking for. Um, so I hope my colleagues will support those two motions. I know we're all very passionate about this and uh there's so much positives uh in this report. We heard from some of the incredible, brilliant, brighteyed young leaders with us and many of our folks within community who've been engaged on the important work of tree protection in the city of Toronto. Uh and I want to also echo the support for new distinctive tree category and maintenance incentive program pilot. um the better communication and transparency from city with respect to archery bylaws, permitting outcomes and contravention investigations. Uh I support strengthening our contravention investigation processes and penalties, hence the motion before you. I also support extending tree protection to new replacement trees and strengthening our tree replacement ratio. Uh we love and want to endorse today the lowering um of the protected private tree threshold to 20 cm. Um, and this is something we've been talking about since I've come into office and uh first took my seat here as a member of the infrastructure and environment committee. We heard from Judy from the Long Branch Neighborhood As Association, from my ward who's been driving this work since well before 2021 and 22 when we had initially hoped to see a report back. Um, but I'm really proud to be here and be supporting us continuing to move forward in this good direction. Uh protecting and expanding our tree canopy is necessary and to improve our resilience in the face of climate change. And while we navigate a ton of pressures as a city uh and our growth, if we can't appropriately steward the natural world, none of the rest of it matters. That is job number one. Uh there's a commercial going around right now and the start of the commercial is like we all need air, you know, air to breathe and water to drink. And if that's not a, you know, universal value that we can all understand and share and appreciate our collective responsibility around, we've still got a lot more work to do uh in terms of education and engagement uh with our collective society. But I know that a lot of that important engagement to connect residents to these important green spaces um to support the value that our tree canopy brings and frankly the importance of it to our survival and to the future that we leave behind for future um future generations is just absolutely critical. Trees provide tons of benefit, including keeping our neighborhoods cooler, reducing storm water runoff, improving air quality, um, sequestering carbon, and frankly, improving our mental health. We are part and parcel of nature. We are nature ourselves. We need to be connected to it. I will be supporting the recommendations, but I would also like to see us be more decisive on the protected private tree threshold issue. uh as well as continuing to resource uh and appropriately support not only our uh colleagues but also the local residents who want to continue to be part of you know tree um taking inventory of trees locally, empowering more tree planting opportunities and again monitoring and protecting the the trees that we do already have and that we really depend on. Um as a community in Tobico Lake Shore we are um blessed and privileged to be on the waterfront. We also have the 427 and the garden are in our community. We're also on a flight path in our community. We also have a high water table in our community. So, the issues of air quality, flooding, all of the other pieces that are just absolutely interconnected to this work are very present um uh in our minds every day and certainly in mine as a local counselor for Atobbico Lake Shore. Um so with many many thanks to all involved very excited to endorse um this report today as well as the recommendations within. I understand there's also a motion I think coming to ensure we're really being clear about our intention here in addition to the one that I've uh advanced and look forward to supporting that as well. Thanks Madam Chair. Thank you councelor Mley. Up next, Councelor Saxs. Please go ahead. Uh, thank you very much. Um, you know, ditto and everything that that Deputy Mayor Morley just said and and uh thanks thanks to to Kim and the staff. Um, a really important piece of work and of course we always want more faster. Thank you. But um but definitely really important steps in the right direction. Uh we also do need enforcement to step up. We are just all so tired of the rampant I mean developers can make so much more money by killing trees and the fines have been rare and pitly u so definitely want to see that but I know I'm supposed to say motions first so first of all I support um deputy mayor Mley's motion I support the motion that uh my colleague um counselor journals Lynn is going to make as well and I have um two of my own with I think total of four recommendations Uh the first is that we want to be explicit. As Deputy Mayor Morley just said, we endorse the recommendation reduce the max the minimum diameter breast height of trees um and private property from 30 cm to 20 centimeters. And I should say breast height is not the same for everybody, but you know, maybe it's the average of counselors or something. In any event, um we do want you to do this. It's been hanging on since 2015, 5 years. A lot of trees have been lost in that period of time. So, we do want clear confirmation. We want you to do this. Um, we recognize that you need time to get the resources through the budget process. So, you've got the humans so we don't just have a rule and no way to actually implement it. Um and you've asked for time to the first meeting of IEC um in um well it was supposed to say in the next term um not in 2027 is there um is it necessarily 2027 there's going to be nothing in December. All right as long as you've got it in your budget submission because we don't want you to miss the budget cycle and then have to wait another whole year because we don't have any humans to do it. So please please please get on with it. Give us an implementation. Make it real. We need it to be real. Um the the second motion is um um uh gosh it keeps moving around. Um so first yes there we are. So to provide appropriate protection better protection for distinctive trees. They're not there are distinctive trees in ravines. Absolutely. I've climbed down very steep ravine walls looking for distinctive trees. But they're not just there. and the burr uh oak for example that we talked about in the laneway. That's a really good example of a tree that's not covered by any of the things in your report but need protection and it shouldn't have to be a question of u private fundraising and an individual counselor banging on Robert May's head to try to get some protection of those trees. So we need more protection for distinctive trees that are on public property that aren't in the ravines. Uh I know it's a ravine report but it's related enough or no that was before this is trees we can still do this. All right moving on. Um and the whole point about pilot projects working with communities that want to building on the voluntary tree count. So again the the a number of the resident groups in my ward have gone out and are individually and lovingly counting every single tree and grieving with the loss of every single tree. And there have been a lot of those losses including an enormous number of those losses in the last 5 years. So we we need to see some progress and pilot projects I know work really well in this city. A coalition of the will you've heard there's so many people who love trees who want to see this work done who willing are willing to be partners but need some leadership from the city. And so, um, please, um, we need this, too. We need a pilot project. We need it as quickly as you can get it together. I mean, it's great that you're going to use it to inform the 2028 canopy study, but we need action now. And there's people who want to take action now, and there's trees who need it now. And as the summers get hotter and the winds get stronger, um, and the droughts get deeper, we we're going to need enhanced community involvement to keep the trees alive. and we're going to have to have um you know more other rules to protect the trees than we've had before. Just sort of trusting on what used to work doesn't work anymore. So those are my motions. Um you know again really important step in the right direction. We need you to build on it. We need you to do more and we need you to do more with folks like this who want to be our partners who love the trees they that in their neighborhood. Um so let's put them to work. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, councelor Saxs. And I just have a few comments as well. And uh so um here I go. Uh I want to thank uh Kim and Nicholas and your teams. Uh this has been so much work and uh so much thought and really careful detailed work has been put into this report and um so much feedback taken from both the community um and all the the tree lovers um but also uh from counselors and uh constituents. And it really has been um and continues to be a partnership in protecting the tree canopy. Um and certainly in Dawn Valley West, this is very very much appreciated. You heard from Shannon uh and um uh Laura Lamar today, Hogs Hollow Tree Watch, but you heard also from so many different deputants. Actually, every single deputent who we heard from today on this item was in favor of it. Um, so I think that's testament to really listening carefully and thinking about the challenges that have been raised over the years and how to how to deal with that from um from, you know, within the city's framework. And so I really appreciate that. Um, residents in my ward and I and I think across the city are really committed to protecting and maintaining this invaluable asset. It provides so many benefits that you've heard about today. I don't really need to repeat them, but this report really brings so many improvements to respond directly to the concerns that we've heard about uh from um that I've heard about and that others have heard about across um Toronto. Notably, um it is also progressing an initiative um as councelor Fletcher alluded to earlier uh that was spurred by my predecessor, the late councelor J. Robinson um who moved a motion in 2021 calling for a review of the diameters required for tree protection under the bylaw. So, it's um been a long time coming, but it's really um I think very important and I'm uh looking forward to messaging her family about that. Um when this eventually gets to council and passes this and um other actions proposed through this report will help to ensure that the city can effectively safeguard our mature tree canopy and steward growing trees. And I think particularly you know in this report you outline how really the goal that target for that tree canopy the older canopy is 10% and we're at 2%. We've actually fallen from 3% I believe. Right. So, I think to the motion that was brought forward by councelor Saxs um and that Amber spoke to as well, that's why that 20 center diameter is so important. If we're to achieve that 10% goal, we need to protect those 20 cm diameter trees now. And when I look at um the neighborhoods in my ward where we have these aging Norway maples that are aging out that we're starting to see them coming down so regularly in the frequent storms we're having um but even in sometimes less um major storms they're coming down. So I think that's why that's why this report is so important and that 20 cm diameter uh is something that we really have to take so seriously. So, I am very much in favor of those. Um, and uh just wanted just wanted to um to speak to that. And finally, I also have a motion because I think everybody wants their hand in this. Although I feel like so many of the things that I've that I've talked about and wanted were in some of the other pieces here. It was hard to find something that wasn't. Uh but I really wasn't joking when I said um trunk to stump uh or whatever that was. I I think there's a place for some really effective communication. I know you guys do a lot of communication. It's been very good already. Um but as was brought up, um these guys came to my word forum last night and we had over 100 people listening and asking questions. There was a lot of interest in this, but there was also a lot of um you know concern about what do we do when if we suspect that there's been a tree cut down. So I think there's also in contravention. So I think there's also a place for um explaining to the public how to do that in short snappy ways. And I'm so I have a motion just around that um that I'm hoping uh my colleagues will support. But I just want to make sure that we are really sharing the important items in this uh and educating folks about it and making sure they know what to do if they see something uh how to report it, all that kind of stuff. but also on the value of of that 2% uh to 10% goal and and why that's so important. So, uh thank you so much. That's it for me and um I'm looking to my colleague on the screen. Do you have any comments? Councelor Cole? Nope. Okay. So, we will move on to open the vote on this. And all in favor Oh, sorry. Right. We've had all these motions. Okay. So, first we're moving to um motion uh 11. Is that 11? A motion by a motion by councelor Mor Mley. Thank you. It's up on the screen right now. All in favor. Okay. And there's none opposed. So, that has passed. Up to the next one. This one is from councelor Sachs. This is on the 20 cm. All in favor? Okay, double vote by councelor Sachs. We'll count it as one. And uh that has passed. And um another one by councelor Sachs. It's up on the screen right now. And this is around the distinctive trees and working with partners. All in favor? Okay. None opposed. So that has passed. And finally, uh the last one is the one from me. So uh this is on communications. All in favor and none opposed. So that also has passed. The item as amended, we're going to vote on it all as a whole. This has a large number of recommendations. All in favor? Any opposed? And that is unanimous and has carried. Okay, that's great. Thank you so much. That's very exciting. Um so, um one other item of business. Uh I just want to ask that we my report is on C40 is still on the list. Okay, we will get to that. Um I'm just I I do want to reopen um item number 16 uh because I realize that this has not gone to the um Toronto Accessibility Advisory Committee. So if I could just have a motion to reopen. All in favor? Uh, no. I don't I don't believe so. Sorry. Sorry. The conversation that Paula said she had earlier was that as part of the work that I've requested, they will be consulted. But the I'm also told this report has been promised for about a year and a half. The work apparently has been done. a motion be is this up for debate? You're trying to place a motion to request. So the question is TAC doesn't meet until May. So how is it possible for this to be dealt with April 7th because it says April 7th. Well the from the information I just want to review the bidding here. Um a year and a half ago we asked about this issue and we were told well maybe it was 2 years ago um and Barbara Gray said no worries it's going to be in the parking report. Well we got the parking report a year ago and it wasn't in there and we we were told no worries. Point of order madam chair madam chair what are we doing here please? I just so I would ask for a motion to reopen but well okay so let's vote on the motion to reopen. I don't think my point is that there is a report that I'm told is prepared that was o that's been promised over and over again. Um and the the consult consultation has apparently already been done. So that's why this report was due a year ago and then it was due in December and then it was promised in February and we're here and we didn't get it. We want to see the report that it has already been prepared and that is supposed to already have included consultation with the accessibility. Can we have the vote on whether to reopen or not, please? I think that's an order. Let's vote. So, my understanding from what I've been told is that it has not gone to TAC. So, I don't know if I'm I've been misinformed on that or not, but I I think I don't see how it can do that if it's in this timeline. Well, what So, I guess I would just ask that we make sure we're clear on this and that we're doing due diligence. Uh, and and I would ask for a vote to reopen. Well, I I clear Can I ask a clarifying question? I think the my understanding, if I'm following correctly, is we're looking to reopen in order to ensure that it's going to the correct committee for a consultation on the report and then that it would come back. Is that the intention to reopen and send it to? So, my intention was to reopen it to send it to T that the general uh manager of transportation services and the city solicitor report to the May 4th meeting of the Toronto accessibility advisory committee uh to do what councelor Saxs has asked. Uh and then I I personally think it should go to as part of the overall parking strategy so that we get that all together. Well, okay. I mean, I really we've been promised that it would be part of the overall party strategy for two years. We do have to vote to reopen before we can really debate on this. And from a from a governance perspective, I would just ask that we vote to reopen. All in favor of reopening. So, three that's three to one. So, I I think we I'm certainly open to now discussing this. I I would like to move that we that that would be the path for it because it I do believe it should be um considered as part of that, but I'm certainly willing to let you speak on that. Well, um Madame Chair, we've had that promise for years and it was never done. It was supposed to be in the parking strategy report that we got a year ago and it wasn't there. And so we were promised it would be a standalone report by December and it wasn't there. So I got a written confirmation that we would have the report to the February IC which is here and it's not here. So if you just is going to kick it into some imagine some future report we don't have another comprehensive parking report coming. We were promised an accessibility abuse permit report by December 2025 and in 2027 a report on park permit parking upgrades. This is not about permit parking upgrades. The general parking strategy report is already done. We uh in my ward abuse and fraudulent use of these permits is an enormous problem. Action has been delayed year after year after year by saying wait for some other report. And if you just say we're going to wait for some other report again, you're giving the people in my community and our parking enforcement staff and and the and the parking enforcement and police nothing to work with. They have been telling me for years that they can't do anything without bile amendments, which is why we asked for this report two years ago. We're promised it a year ago. We're promised it for December. We're promised it for February. Don't kick it down the road again. you're leave. We We have this problem when I get complaints on a regular basis. My ward is one of the hot spots of construction in the city. We're in the top three of housing starts and all those construction workers are having trouble parking. And what we've seen is an absolute epidemic of construction workers showing up with accessible parking permits and also the gig workers showing up at the restaurants with these accessible parking permits. And it seems to be widespread abuse and we can't do anything about it. right now, which is why we asked staff to give us a report. They told me the report's ready. We should see the report. And if when we get the report, the we the it needs action. It needs consultation with the committee, great. But don't let us see what they've done already after waiting all this time. Don't just kick it down the road and leave us completely hamstrung again. So, uh, are we able to get confirmation from staff that it has gone to TAC? I I don't know. Naz isn't here. I I asked him over and over again where this report is, and he told me to bring this motion today. So, I did. He said he's been working on this all this time. It was um so they told me it's ready. We should see what they've done. If it needs further consultation, then we can have more consultation. But we need action on a prevalent fraudulent use of these reports. Five minutes is up. Can we vote on this please? Okay. So, uh we'll put the motion on the screen and we can Yeah. Sorry. Sorry. Yeah. So, some clarification. So, yes, we have been doing some work counselor. My understanding is we haven't yet been to the U advisory committee. Um so if it was was the will of this committee that we went there first before coming with a report here then we could obviously do that or we could come here. It's really at the will of this committee. Can I ask a follow-up question from is there any general parking report that this needs to be a part of or can we deal with this particular abusive issue by itself? I think it could be dealt with by itself. I don't think I mean it it could be combined as part of an integral part of the parking strategy, but we've been we've been doing the work, so there isn't any reason why we couldn't come back with a separate report if that was the will of the committee. Thank you. Okay. Okay. So, I do have a motion that's on the floor. Um, Madam Chair, will you accept what I hope is a friendly amendment and in and ask them to come back to IEC immediately after responding to TAC rather than kicking this off into some indefinite future date. We need a report on this abuse and we need it this year, not in some future year. So, so my my suggestion would be to not put a date on it, but to allow TAC to take a look at it. I don't think I would I don't I don't think it would be in good faith to say to them that they don't have time to consider it. I I do believe that we should be giving our accessibility committee a chance to look at it. And I don't to be honest I don't sit on that committee so I don't know what their schedule is but I I would leave it open-ended uh for that to come back suggest what you're saying but I'm but I would be suggesting that we could if you don't want it to come back with parking exemptions I would be open to that change on it we need this report this year not sometime in 2027 or 2028 so I'm asking that we get the we ask transportation services to come and this is the city solicitor to come back to this committee before we break for the year with their report. It's if you if you want it to go to TAC first have it go to TAC first but then request them to report back here in Q2 2026 instead of just kicking it into the future. We had the major parking strategy report a year ago. Will you accept that amendment? Go ahead, councelor Mley. I just wanted to speak a little bit to this as I'm following the conversation. I think uh I would support if um an amendment uh to have uh come back to this committee in the June uh session. It gives the time for if work's already underway. The ask is that the consultation is done with accessibility advisory committee. That should advice should be able to be gleaned within a month of that opportunity and to come back to us in June I think is a fair way that allows us to ensure it goes to the right body but also have the line of sight on when it tracks back to this committee if that's if that's acceptable. But I would support that. That that seems fair to me. Does that seem fair to you councelor Sachs? Well, it's a compromise. It's a compromise. As long as we get a report this year, we've been caught in this endless, we'll get to you someday for years. So, if uh an amendment that says they can go back to June. Okay. So, we'll take the vote on that. And um so, I think it would just end uh with the amendment, it would just be that uh it would end um up to just end after committing and and report back to IEC, I guess. Report to disability advisor committee. And then it would come back to IEC for consideration. Okay. Can we move on to the next item so we can uh get on with this? Yes, sure. We can we will proceed to C40 and we'll just work out these technical details. So, we'll just lay this on the table. Okay. Thank you. So, moving on to the next item. Thank you, Councelor Cole, for keeping me on my feet. Uh question. Okay. And which is uh 13. Okay. So, we're moving to item number 13. And councelor Cole, I believe you have questions for staff. Please go ahead. Oh, I I just wanted uh to uh say, how do you get to go on these trips? Uh were other members of this committee asked that they could go? Not me. Okay. So this is this is a question for staff on how you qualify for the for trips such as the one that councelor Saxs went on. Is that what you're asking? Yes. Uh I I can address try to address that. So through the chair uh the invitation for attendance at the uh United Nations Environment Program workshops and the C40 came to Mayor Chow's office. Um um and Mayor Chow was unable to attend and so she uh sent a delegate. Oh, so the mayor decided for councelor Saxs to go to Brazil. Is that right? Through through the through the chair that uh that uh invitation was delegated. That's correct. Okay. Thank you. Okay, thank you. We're just we're just working on language. We're just amending that to make it reflect. Okay, so your questions have been answered. Councelor Cole, can we vote on that item? I think it's for receipt. I'm happy to move her seat with thanks to councelor Saxs for a representing us at the city and making sure that our interests are um also on the global stage as well. Thank you so much. and also Kim Stithm and Alice Hugh who who did most of the work and to staff as well. Thank you all very much and really great to know that the city's been acknowledged and recognized for our leadership as well and we hope to continue to stay in a leadership role on this important work of environmental championship. Thank you. Happy to move receipt of the report adoption. We are adopting this. My apologies. Thank you councelor Marley. So on the uh motion to adopt, all in favor? No adopt. It's to adopt. All in favor? Any opposed? Okay. And that has carried unanimously. Thank you for the group effort on that one. And uh we'll just get this this uh up on the screen in a moment. This is the revised motion. So we're going back to item number 16 just as a reminder in case you've forgotten. It's been a bit of a confusing day number 16 and staff are just uh going to put that up on the screen. So this is the compromise where we have landed and I will just ask all in favor any opposed that has carried. Thank you very much. And before we go Yeah. Please just uh I've just been advised that we need a motion to reopen the vision zero item because we had some incorrect language in that apparently. And so we're just going to put that up on the screen once we've uh moved to reopen this. So all in favor of reopening? Any opposed? Okay. And that has carried. So we just give staff one moment. We'll just get that up on the screen. And this is just a technical piece, I believe. Okay. So, I'm just going to ask staff to clarify what has been changed. Is that possible? I'll ask the general acting general manager, please. Yes. Thank you, chair. Yeah, there was a uh it's an amendment on recommendation four um which um the previous chair described it as a change in sitting out in attachment two. We changed it to attachment four. Um so there was just some of the technical wording in that um changed recommendation wasn't quite correct. So so we've included a new one here on the screen. Okay. So we'll get that up on the screen and we appreciate that explanation. Um wasn't a very good one. No, it's uh Listen, we're we're uh just making sure all our eyes are dotted and our tees are crossed and we thank everybody. I know it's been a really long day. Okay, here it is. All right, all in favor? Any opposed? And that has carried. Um, before we adjourn, I'm just going to look to my right to see if there's anything else that we need to deal with. Okay, thank you. So, that has uh we are all good. Motion to adjurnn. I think everybody's hands will go up on this one. Thank you very much. I hope you're feeling better, counselor Cole, and appreciate you staying online to help us with quorum. And thank you everybody for all your hard work, especially all the staff and everybody working behind the scenes. It's a monumental effort to put on a meeting like this. Thank you.

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