We are ready for you. Oh, you're on the phone. Wait. All right. Good morning. Um, I'm Mayor Olivia Chow. I am the chair of the executive committee. We have quorum. I'm now calling meeting 32 to order. Welcome everyone. I would ask you to rise if you're able and join in a moment of silence in memory of Toronto Police Constable Mark Pinos Sto an 18-year member of the Toronto Police who tragically lost his life on June 11th while on duty. Thank you. Today's meeting is being held by video conference and in person at city hall in committee room 1. This meeting is also being livereamed online at youtube.com/toorronto city councsil live. Although we may be meeting in different locations today, I see some of members of uh council online. Uh the committee would like to acknowledge that the land we are meeting on is a traditional territory of many nations including the Missaga of the Credit, the Anesnab, the Chipoa, Hornos and people. is now home to many diverse first nations, Inuit and Mateis peoples. We also acknowledge that Toronto is covered by treaty 13 with the Mrs. Sagas of the credit. If you are registered to speak at today's meeting, please listen to me to call your name. I will call speakers in the order they appear on the list. The list of the speaker can be viewed online by visiting the executive committee page at toronto.ca/countsel and clicking the speakers box for today's meeting. And if you're present in the room and wish to register to speak on an item, come up to uh the glass whatever wall of whatever it is petition uh located uh on the right side and a member of clerk, city clerks will uh come to you, help you set up if you need to. And uh members, city clerk uh can provide support if you need any IT support. Any decorations of interest? Seeing none, Deputy Mayor Paul Aninsley is moving the minutes from the meeting of May 12th, 2026. Are those in favor? Post carry. Thank you. And uh we have the Toronto Hydro with us this morning to give a presentation and uh after we run through the uh the agenda uh we'll hear from them first. Okay. All right. On the agenda, item one, we have a presentation and speakers on 311 rain barrel. Item two, does anyone want to hold on to that? Uh, no. >> You have demand for it. We all have demand for it. It was like, it's actually not nine hours. It was a few hours. It was bang gone. Uh, Deputy Mayor Angley moved. We're going to get that one done. Uh, Keyside. Uh, I don't see any speaker. I'll wait till the local counselors are in the room. And, uh, item four. No. Okay. Uh, all those in favor of the adoption of the council bravo carried. Thank you. None oppose the hydro. Uh, we have a presentation. Uh, we have deputents. Item six, city of Toronto investment report for year 2025. Deputy uh who councelor Perks, you're on the budget team. May I trouble you to move that? All those in favor? Post carry. Uh item seven also. Councelor Perks. All those in favor? >> I'm holding. Hold. >> You're holding which one? Eight. Seven. >> Seven. Councelor Fletcher. Item eight, asset management planning. Councelor Perks. All those in favor? Opposed? Carry. Fair wage office. Uh, councelor Bravo moves adoption. All those in favor? Post carry. Thank you. Item 10. There is a speaker and the survey to wart level insight which is item 11. Who wants to? Okay. Can councelor Bravo thank you for moving adoption of the recommendation. All those in favor post carry. Uh human rights guideline 12. We have speakers. Good Rose Conference. Well, Deputy Mayor Aninsley for their all of those incredible reports on 13, 14, 15, and I'll do one at a time. 13. Thank you for moving. Thank you for your report. And 14 city summit. All those in favor of post. Great Lake St. Lawrence Cities Initiative. Very important. the conference. All those in favor opposed carry. >> Madam chair, can I just say just a quick word on this? I'm just delighted uh that we've developed the practice of having counselors who go on these trips report back here. So we it's Yeah, it's a really good innovation this term and I just wanted to acknowledge that >> and thank you for being relentlessly committed to it. Deputy mayor, >> former mayor David Chicago actually founded the great city >> 2003 >> and now there is >> now there's over 440 municipalities on the American and Canadian side that are members of it. >> Yeah. And they do very very good work. Okay. Excellent. Thank you for sending us and representing us. Well, item 16, exploring legal service for toss LGBTQ plus community at the 519 community center. Uh, okay. Councelor Bravo, adopting recommendation. All those in favor? Post carry. Um, deputy mayor. Um, the Keyside Development Project item three, do you want to move adoption to it? Fabulous. The library is coming. All those in favor of the Kai development project update. All those in favor. So what we have left is one 311 intake hydro which is five and we have 10 which is the summary of city donation. That's a deputent and 12 is a deputent. And you the clerk wants me for something. >> Um item two. Um I know that you had somebody move it but we didn't do a whole in favor carried. So, can we just go to that >> deputy? May uh who was uh okay uh council perks on the brain barrels. May I ask you to move the motion? And all those in favor? Oppose. Carry. I did not say those last three words. So, thank you. Item done. Thank you for catching that. All right. Uh hydro uh is the chair and ah okay chair and the CEO the president of hydro please come. Thank you. This is item five. It's the Toronto Hydro Corporation annual general meeting and the financial statement. Um, go ahead. Yes. Uh, the mic is right there in front of you. >> I just pressed the button. >> Go ahead. Please start. >> Thank you, mayor and members of council. We're back. another annual general meeting. Um, my name is Brian Top. I'm the chair of Toronto Hydro's board of directors. Presenting with me today is our president and CEO. We also have our mic. Sorry about that. Taylor >> and our vice president of regulatory and government relations, Andrew Ceum. Our board of directors are appointed by you and your chief and your city council colleagues. And there they are on the screen, our current board of directors. And I should note our uh executive leadership teams going through a renewal process including the appointment of our chief customer officer Diana Stevenson last September. Our interim chief operating officer Dan Smart in January and our incoming chief operating officer Diam Paradi who'll be joining the organization on June 29th. We're with you here today presenting our AGM as we did last year to help continue to build the relationship between Toronto Hydro and you, our shareholder. Toronto Hydro is strategically important to the city. It's a $7.7 billion asset that provides strong financial returns while also delivering the essential service of electricity to Torononians. In these challenging times with a complex global environment and concerns around energy and climate resiliency, investing in electricity infrastructure is a critical response. This made in Ontario products essential to a stronger, cleaner Toronto economy. And the good news for you as shareholder and us as a utility is that the future's even brighter. The province estimates that Toronto's electricity use will double over the coming 25 years, which creates tremendous opportunity for growth. Now, just before we turn to our CEO, I just want to talk quickly about two things that I cared about a lot as chair in the last year. The first thing I want to draw your eye to is this is a picture of one of the Toronto Hydro uh learning and safety teams, worker-led safety teams. And what this is about is uh your utility, the hydro committee uh living uh the fundamental point that a responsibility of every employer is seated with that everybody who works there gets home at night. And so uh with no comment on what happened before, but what is happening now is when in what is after all a dangerous industry, there's safety concerns or safety incidents. the workers themselves on the work site for form uh learning groups talk about what happened discuss what needs to change and lead it and a couple of times then got introduced to our board where we underlined to them that we're 100% behind this approach to safety which I think is going to make a a real difference in the people who work with us and while we're concerned uh with the safety of the people who work with us uh I just wanted to thank you madame mayor and everybody on council and the senior executive team at the city for working with our officers to tackle the issue of the LED lighting situation in Toronto. That's about safety for everybody in the city. That's about safe intersections. That's about seeing to it that uh that the city's lighting infrastructure is done. And uh I got obsessed about light bulbs when I step up to this position and thought it can't be true that the city's lighting is all going to collapse all at once. And I'm glad that we finally stopped kicking it down the road and and addressed it. Thank you for doing that. With that said, uh, over to our CEO, Jenna Osley. >> Good morning, Mayor Chow and members of the executive committee. Well, large scale generation and long-distance transmission by other companies can often be a lot higher profile, especially in our province these days. Without Toronto Hydro distribution, only a handful of blocks in the city would have electricity. Today, Toronto Hydro plays a critical role in powering Canada's largest utility, distributing roughly 18% of all of the electricity in Ontario. Toronto Hydro's infrastructure enables a reliable citywide electricity delivery system every day, powering over 3 million homes and businesses, and events that are seen around the world, like the one we are proudly hosting today, the World Cup. These stations and thousands of overhead and underground cables support essential services and economic activity across Toronto. From hospitals, schools, and financial institutions to local businesses and growing communities. At Toronto Hydro, we take pride in powering the daily lives of our city and feel deeply responsible to serve our customers and support Toronto as it grows and evolves. Last year here at our AGM, we presented to you our corporate purpose, electrifying communities today and building a brighter tomorrow, as well as three pillars of our strategy: operational excellence, responsible growth, and enabling the future. To bring our purpose and strategy to life over this last year, we've defined a shared set of values that guide how we work, lead, and serve our city. Our strategy tells us where we're going, and our values tell us how we're going to get there. Our values reflect who we are as an organization and guide the decisions and actions we make every day and shape how we will work together and with Torononians. In 2025, we had meaningful progress for Toronto Hydro. I'm going to cover a few highlights of what we accomplished last year and and many more data points are in the deck that's in front of you. We recognize that these slides have a lot of information, so we're happy to follow up if you have other questions and do a deeper dive with any of you. Toronto Hydro's consistently provided a stable dividend to the to the city and growing equity value through discipline infrastructure investment and financial management. 2025 was the first of a 10-year equity investment agreement which the city council as shareholder of Toronto Hydro approved in 2024. This agreement enables us to finance billions of dollars of renewed and expanded distribution infrastructure to serve Torononians for decades to come. In 2025 alone, we enabled over $940 million of infrastructure projects, primarily supporting Toronto Hydro's growing energy needs. Our 2025 net income was $21.5 million, up 55% year-over-year, resulting in an annual dividend to the city of Toronto totaling 60 million. In accordance with the equity agreement, the remaining $141 million were all invested back into the local grid and the systems that support it. In our operations, we continue to maintain high levels of reliability through grid modernization and new technologies while also advancing a more flexible, resilient system that can keep up with the way Torononians live, move, and use energy. Our forecasts and those of the province of Ontario indicate that electricity demand in Toronto will roughly double over the next 25 years. To address this need, the Ontario Energy Board, the legislative body that regulates Toronto Hydro, approved more than $5 billion in revenue funding for the company from 2025 to 2029. We continue to advance our 5-year plan while remaining adaptable and evolving to community needs and public policy imperatives. We also continue to make substantive investment in safety with a focus on continuously improving how we work and deliver for residents and communities we serve. Our customers of course are at the heart of what we do. To reflect that, our chief customer officer, as Brian mentioned, was brought on board in September, and we are taking a deep look at how we serve our customers, grow our services, and ensure all our frontline teams have a continued focus on the customer service experience. Our customers energy needs truly are evolving and accessible, reliable, easy to use energy information services are increasingly important. In 2025 alone, we proudly connected over 5,200 customer sites raising from residential customers to large commercial customers. We focused on making it easier to connect with us and provided tools and programs that help customers manage their energy use, navigate new options, and make informed decisions that fit their needs. Given the growing focus on and importance of energy affordability, we supported over 53,000 customers last year who were in need through customer assistance programs. Building a brighter future for Torononians means supporting sustainable growth both through our operations and by contributes contributing to the city's broader sustainability and community goals. In 2025, we continued reducing our own operational emissions, managing climate related risks, and supporting a resilient city. We also continued our efforts to expand and enable electric vehicle charging by adding another 800 chargers across the city, helping make charging more accessible and reliable for Torononians. In 25, our employees continue to support a number of important initiatives to help strengthen our community and bring people together. A particular important cause and support as a company is medical care for burn victims because at of the workplace risks associated with electrical work. This can be one of the worst. Last year we raised over $775,000 for a dedicated Toronto Hydro Fund for regenerative medicine for burn care at Sunnybrook Hospital. And I'm pleased to say that we are more engaged with the United Way than ever. and I personally have the privilege of co-chairing the major individual givers campaign this year. I'm looking forward to better understanding the needs of Torononians so we can help them better as a company and serve our customers in ways that are meaningful to them. Looking ahead, so earlier I mentioned our long-term strategy for serving the city and meeting its evolving energy needs. The strategy, connected closely to the city's own priorities for making Toronto a great place to live, work, and play, is built on three pillars that position us to meet the moment while preparing for what comes next. First, we're focused on improving reliability by continuing to harden and secure the grid, investing in technology to become more efficient and reduce costs. Second, we're focused on economic growth for Toronto and Ontario. Investing strategically in the grid to accommodate rapid growth, attract new businesses, and increase the availability of new homes while maintaining electricity reliability and affordability. We're doing our part to make sure that Toronto continues to be a great place to live and work and locate your business. And third, we're modernizing and investing in technology to enable the future to ensure we have a more flexible, dynamic local energy system that allows for greater participation from customers and choice. Looking forward, we I want you to know we're focused on three major areas for the company. Customer connections, powering economic growth, and technology innovation. And I'm going to speak with about both of those briefly. First, let's talk about enabling multi-unit housing. A critical focus area for us in the time ahead is meaningfully adapting and enhancing our commitment to serve our customers. We know that we have opportunity in this space and the world is changing. Part of our role in making Toronto Hydro affordable, livable, and well-connected city is supporting the growth of the housing market in Toronto. Toronto Hydro's role is clear. Make it faster, simpler, and more predictable to connect new housing to the grid. We're focused on four priorities in this area. Simplifying and ex expediting processes, modernizing our standards, improving cost predictability, and enhancing the customer experience. In response to the mayor's motion adopted by council a few weeks ago, we prepared a plan for the coming 12 months with over two dozen tangible actions which is attached to this meeting's public materials. The plan builds on real progress already made and direct stakeholder input, reflecting our commitment to evolve with the city's housing need and learning from our customers. We're taking practical, measurable actions to support housing supply while continuing to deliver safe, reliable, and affordable electricity. To ensure these actions are focused on what matters most to customers, we've taken a close look at the customer experience and we're looking at it from start to finish. We recognize that we have an opportunity to reduce the timeline it takes to connect and over the coming months we're going to be closely focused on this with key stakeholders so that we can commit to a shorter timelines in partnership with the city and their processes and improvements that they've been making uh by the end of this year. The journey ahead to the customer connection process highlights the key touch touch points of customers to navigate as they engage with us from initial inquiry through to connection. There's a lot of touch points when you look at our customer experience and a lot has changed. The volume of these multiplex housing units have has quadrupled in the last four years and they require 10 times the power of whatever uh connection they had been replacing. So this is a complex issue that we are partnered with our stakeholders in the city to continue to get better and better at. When we talk about powering a growing city, our second major focus is going to be on economic growth in this city and therefore the province and quite frankly the country. The key to a healthy, vibrant local economy has been and will continue to be access to safe, resilient electricity service. And as Canada's largest economic value engine, Toronto runs on access to power. And as we look ahead to growing our economy and maintaining our quality of life, we're continuing to tackle record levels of infrastructure construction to ensure our homes and businesses are well served as we lean into a challenging future. Over the next four years, we expect to invest over another $3 billion in infrastructure and connect over 20,000 connections. Lastly, to enable a strong energy future of our city, we really need to be leveraging technology and tools for both our people and how they work and for our customers. We're going to continue to evolve the investments uh in critical customer and infrastructure platforms to allow us to adapt to these changing needs and take advantage of smart technology. We're focused on becoming the utility of the future, unlocking two-way power flow and connecting distributed energy resources to include energy storage, EV charging, and solar to our grid, and leverage the grid for demand side management and energy conservation, becoming the distribution system operator of the future. Through our continued partnership with you, our shareholder, we will deliver electricity that Toronto depends on while evolving and meeting the challenging needs of our customers. Thank you for your support and we will continue to help build a brighter Toronto. >> Thank Thank you for that comprehensive presentation with very specific timelines and very clear goals. Uh councelor Perk should look as if you have a question. >> Uh are there deputations? >> There's one deput No, I think you should go ahead and ask them. Thank you very much uh for the presentation, but also for the year you've had. Uh I've really noticed a change in the way Toronto Hydro operates and how you've you've centered the the broader public interest much more and that that's great to see. I did have a couple of questions though on um the multi-unit housing work. uh as chair of the planning and housing committee. I I hear a lot about this. >> Um and you may have noticed there's some correspondence we've received from people in the development industry about some problems they've had uh both in terms of timeline but also in terms of requirements that uh Toronto Hydro seems to have that uh far exceed what's in the building code. And I was wondering if you could talk to me a little bit about uh how you're going to be reviewing that. Uh yeah, start there. >> We've had some excellent conversations with customers and stakeholders over the last several months. This really has been evolving rapidly and even since we filed our report, we've had continued learnings, which is why you're going to see we're going to continue to add to the list where we need to to make these improvements and understand this better from our customers and the development community. when it comes to Toronto in particular. So, one of the things we are looking at is what is happening in other service territories that our builders and developers are experiencing and where can we learn from that and perhaps simplify. At the same time, one of the unique things about Toronto's system is we are much much older and we are much much more congested. So, as I mentioned, you know, where you're taking out say a connection today and putting in now a multiplex unit, the power needs are often 10 times the amount that was there. So it's not quite as quick and simple to just change out the connection. We're needing now to perhaps upgrade broader system infrastructure to make sure we can actually serve that much higher level of load. But that said, uh we have heard from some customers and some of their building experience where we may have opportunities to simplify what the connection is. And so we now have a task force within our engineering and standards team that has developed a list of standards based on feedback we've received and opportunities that we've brainstormed on where we're going to now go through those one by one over the coming months and look to simplify wherever we can. We believe that can make things quicker and perhaps even more affordable while also making sure though we don't sacrifice and do something in our system that is going to lead to a non-reliable connection for that customer and everybody around them. That's great to hear. Um, could I just ask uh this task force that you've established? Uh, is there anyone from the city side on it? >> Yeah. So, we actually met with uh our our city team just in the last week and our two teams are partnered together. The city has done some great work over the last several months in this space and so we do work together with the infrastructure team and our teams are now going to connect and see uh where they've made adjustments and if there's any learnings we have where we can continue to collectively make some adjustments. >> Could I could I suggest that um maybe you also include some uh staff from development review? >> Yeah, happy to take that suggestion. Thank you. >> Great. Thank you so much for that. >> Deputy Mayor Angelley. Thank you uh through you mayor. Thank you for the presentation this morning. It's very much appreciated. Um, at the Los Ontario Big City Mayor's Caucus, I was at and we had a presentation from Anthony Haynes from the public utility service pulse, I think it's called. >> Excellence. You got it. >> Um, around utility a review the provincial government's doing. And I was just wondering, you know, a lot of the points that he raised about um service integration and improvements to the system and credit risk to utilities. From my experience on the Toronto Hydro Board that a lot of that's continuously done and reviewed and worked at. So, I just wondering what impact to date pulse, the acronym for that group, has had on Toronto Hydro or do you think it's going to have? Yeah. Uh, happy to speak about that. So, first of all, we've been very involved in that consultation and, uh, provided insights on the development of the report with the panel both through the or our organization and through various industry organizations that we're part of, the Ontario Energy Association and the Electric Distribution Association. Um, from a Toronto Hydro perspective, one of the biggest strengths we have, well, first of all, just the robustness of our governance and our processes, our regulatory acumen and our ability to go out to the regulator and demonstrate the need to invest in the system and then our our reputation on executing that plan. So, uh, and the other strength we have, of course, is our financial, uh, agreement with the city. So, our 10-year equity investment agreement is exactly what some of these other utilities are are struggling with because in order to fund the massive amounts of investment that are required to maintain and grow the distribution systems, um it requires you know a lot of capital and under a regulated entity through the regulation of the OEB we're required to maintain an uh debt equity ratio of 60% debt, 40% equity And so, uh, we're very fortunate as an organization, uh, in our relationship with our shareholder and the continued support that the shareholder has shown us, uh, to fund that equity portion, uh, and continue to demonstrate to not only the regulator, but the government and to rating agencies that our financing is sound. So, we have the strongest uh, credit ratings of any of the local distribution companies here in the province. uh and in in big part that is because of the stability we have in our financing. So uh pulse there's some positive things in there in terms of regulatory opportunities. One of the key things that we uh points we made through that consultation is you can have the most wellunded uh and financially stable utility, but if the regulator isn't approving the revenue to go and and invest, then you can't actually build out the systems that's needed. So, it's a two-prong approach and that is what we continue to be focused on as Toronto Hydro with both the regulator and the government. >> Thank you very much. That's my >> Thank you. Any other questions to the dep to folks from Toronto? Seeing none, um thank you for your time and uh I believe there is one more deputent so uh just hang tight. Okay. Thank you. Claire Malcolmson the midrise advocacy group could be about yes multiplex go ahead good morning thank you very much um I'm my name is Claire Malcolm Sanon I am managing the midrise advocacy group um I'm I have very brief comments here today, but I just wanted to thank uh council and the mayor's office for um this direction for Toronto Hydro. Um the the group that I managed is comprised of developers, planners, project managers working mostly on mid-rise and what we're trying to do is get all of all of the recommendations of the mid-rise manual implemented. And Toronto is doing a really good job. Uh the the purpose of all of this is to try to chip away the pieces of development requirements that add unnecessarily to development costs. So all of the initiatives the city is doing including this really really matter. Um basically I I put in a submission on behalf of my group. Um but really I just wanted to say that we support the direction. We've been consulting with um Toronto Hydro for sort of four to five months. um our priorities are reflected in this report and uh we worked with them to try to you know shuffle some of the things into the 12-month time frame because um I just wanted to talk about the context and the timing. we have this development cliff 2028 2029. Uh the mid-rise building sector which is five to 14 stories mostly on major streets and avenues has a lot of potential to fill that um in that time frame. And I really think it's important for the city of Toronto to try to focus its efforts on on supporting mid-rise. So, uh, you know, streaming the development process, uh, making it easier for builders in that size category to get the connections that they want. These are really important features. And so we just highlighted in our submission, we really want to see within a um by the end of 2027 at the latest and it it's on the report on the under 12 months category to have more smallcale connection opportunities like what's available in some of the other municipalities around Toronto already. Um so that a multiplex or a mid-rise is not forced into using a excessively large or excessively expensive piece of um technology to connect. That's really the major purpose of the comments. So thank you. >> Pretty important. Any questions? Thank you for your advocacy. >> Thank you. Stay tuned. Any discussion question to the staff on this item? Item five. If not, recommendations in front of you. Uh, councelor Perk, since you asked a lot of some of the questions is housing related in some ways, you are moving the recommendations. >> Yeah, I'd be happy to move the recommendations. Uh, and I want to note, uh, just to make sure everyone got it that, uh, uh, because of the letter you put on at the last council meeting, we've actually directed staff to go and tackle a lot of the issues around Toronto Hydro's role in clearing obstacles to getting more uh, neighborhood scale and and mid-rise development. So, looking forward to that work. >> Speed matters. Time equals money. Some. Okay. All those in favor? Post. Carrie. Thank you. We're back to item number one. Thank you very much folks from Toronto Hydro for coming down to us. Uh item one. Miguel, do I see you? Miguel have not. Oh, there's this presentation first. Pardon me. >> Come on up. City staff has a presentation on 311 which is very important services that uh that thousands and thousands of folks rely on every day. Thank you for taking the time. >> Go ahead. >> Good morning, Mayor and members of the executive committee. My name is Daniel Sarapim. I'm the executive director of the customer experience division. With me today, I have Rebecca Patrick, interim director of strategy for the customer experience division. Thank you for the opportunity to be here today and to share the work underway at the city to improve our 311 customer experience. Today, we'll highlight key enhancements made over the past year, our approach to customer engagement, and how we're keeping customers at the center of everything we do. We will also provide a demo to show the public what the public can expect once our plan improvements are fully implemented. Our goal is to provide a clear picture of what has been delivered to date than the last year, what work is still ahead, and how these efforts are making the city services easier to access, more modern, and more consistent to what our residents are used to from the private sector. We'll like to begin with a brief overview of our division. Our 311 customer experience division. As a city front door, 301 helps customers connect with city services and programs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Last year, we supported over a million and a half customer interactions, almost a 6% increase from 2024, showing a growing demand for city services and support. We meet customers where they are, giving them choice and convenience in how they interact with the city. This includes service in over 180 languages and omni channel experience. While phone remains the most used channel, more customers are using self-s serve options, reflecting rising expectations for convenience, flexible access. 311 is way more than a contact center. Our vision is a modern integrated experience that makes city services easy to find, understand, and access. We're bringing the private sector to 31. The same familiar, intuitive experience customers already know from everyday apps like food delivery, online shopping, and ride share. Our customers expect to move seamlessly across channels. They start with a public chatbot seam seamlessly move to the phone call with an agent to then receiving updates without missing a beat. We're planning on delivering the same effortless, familiar, and nimble experience at 311. So over customer, our customers at the center of everything we do and we put them in the center. So, we're dedicated to understanding their needs, challenges, and expectations. We now have a dedicated customer research and engagement team, ensuring insights are built in every improvement we make at the city. Over the past year, we heard more than 350 customers, our residents, the public through over 1,700 hours of interviews, focus groups, and online sessions. The key insights from this customer research are displayed at the bottom of the slide. But our biggest takeaways and hitting the high nose is customers want modern digital options while still feeling the same level of support and ease they do when they interact with our 311 agents. Our goal is to bring those strengths together so resin feel equally supported online and the phone and leverage tools like AI to give customers that same experience regardless of the channel they choose. And we're choosing to use AI thoughtfully and intentionally. We're also reviewing and learning our approach with other jurisdictions, our partners in New York, and including many other 31 websites, but most importantly, benchmarking with the private sector. Launching an app is only the starting point. Its real success depends on continuously evolving, improving, and staying ahead of the customer experience. So, we're revamping that, and that's our commitment here today. Over the past year, we advanced this vision by improving access, expanding services, and increasing clarity around 311. We la we launched an internal AI pilot at 311 to support our agents. In January, and this will help them navigate 650 services, over 4,000 knowledgebased articles so that they can provide customers accurate information live. In addition, we reduced our upfront messaging. So when you call 301, you no longer hear three minutes of messaging. We went down to 40 seconds, helping customers reach agents faster. We integrated parks and recreation services to improve access and were to date tracking over 8,000 requests since last July. We launched service request submissions by email. We had 27,000 requests in the last year. We've also strengthened data transparency and we're really proud of this work moving from static to interactive dashboards and we had a thousand views in the last month on our data. We continue to improve customer communications by working closely with communications division and engaging directly with the public to ensure this information is timely, relevant, and accurate. So this year we've launched two other enhancements with a known closing the loop initiative to help customers better understand how their services are being handled and how they look forward to sharing on our improvements to communications. It has been a year of strong momentum and we're excited to keep working in the next year. So let's look at 2026 and 2027 focus areas and our accountabilities. The rest of the year and in into 2027, we're focused on modernizing how customers connect with us, strengthening followth through on service requests, and improving accountability and transparency. We know 50% of our customers abandon online submissions with many turning to phone or email to complete their request. Redesigning our online experience will reduce drop off by making it easier to find information and submit requests, not to mention many other efficiencies. This includes online features such as public-f facing chatbot, account functionality and an updated facelift to our website and app. It also includes better status updates for customers with tools like milestone tracks, photo sharing, similar to experience they expect from online shopping companies like Amazon. We're also continuing to strengthen our business intelligence, providing city residents and elected officials with better data to support informed decisions. These innovations are transforming the ways we interact with customers. And we wanted to give this committee a sneak peek of how they work through a quick video demonstration. Right now at the city of Toronto, 311 is the front door to city services, helping customers access services through multiple channels and in more than 180 languages. As customer expectations evolve, we're transforming the 311 service experience to make it simpler, faster, and more connected from start to finish. The journey begins when customers need information or want to submit a request online. We're creating a new digital front door for 311, making it easier to find the right service through smarter search, simplified categories, and more intuitive navigation. Finding the right service from more than 650 available services through 311 can sometimes be tricky. We're leveraging artificial intelligence to help customers get faster answers using a familiar conversational experience that makes it easy to access city services from a trusted source. Once customers find the right service, submitting a request should be simple. We're simplifying the design, reducing unnecessary steps and repetitive questions, using plain language, and leveraging technology to make it easy. After a request is submitted, customers need to know what happens next. A new 311 account experience will let customers securely save information, see the requests in one place, and follow progress through milestones and status updates. When a request is completed, customers should understand the outcome. We're closing the loop with clear closure reasons, staff notes, and photos where available, strengthening accountability, and building confidence. Together, these improvements are transforming the customer journey from end to end. Grounded in customer research and feedback, we're designing around the needs of Toronto residents. So stay tuned for the new and improved 311 customer experience. So this is a look at some of the timelines associated with the enhancements just highlighted on our demo. By the end of this year, we'll have launched a pilot to test photo sharing with customers, a public-f facing AI chatbot, and the first version of our new 311 homepage and improved search. In 2027, we'll be delivering introducing real-time dashboards with our Toronto data platform, scaling closing the loop features across more services and divisions, and starting work on our 311 account and new 311 app. As we close, I wanted to extend a sincere thank you to everyone who has partnered with us on this journey, including our residents. Getting to this point has been truly a teamwork effort. Thank you to our partners across integrated divisions, technology services, and communications for your continued collaboration in moving this work forward. We also want to thank our elected officials and especially the service excellence committee for your leadership in driving customer experience improvements across the city and for your feedback throughout this journey. We're excited to continue this work together. Thank you. >> Thank you. That was an excellent presentation. from 3 minutes to 40 seconds. Wow. I've listened to that three minutes. And I thought, whoa. Um, and closing the loop. That's really really So that once I submit something, I know what happened. That's great. And this is night and day. A few years ago when I tried to submit something online, it was you almost need a PhD in order to get through. This is so much simpler. So, thank you for your good work. Um, so questions to our staff. >> Yes, we do have deputants. Uh, let me get the deputants first and then we'll ask you questions. Um, Miguel, are you here? There you are. >> Good morning. >> Good morning. How are you? years. >> Put your mic on. >> Oh, yeah. Microphone. Okay. >> So, I'm here to talk on EX uh 32.1 simplifying the 311 intake experience. Um, let me connect my iPad. Nope. >> Okay. I'm going to >> give you your hand. No, you got it. >> It's HDMI >> should work. It's not working yet. >> What's that? >> Oh, there you go. >> Correct. I'm speaking on city counsel uh recommendation number two. City council request executive director municipal licens and standards to prioritize noise complaints in subsequent 311 intake improvement initiatives. All right. So for the for the last 16 years I have called 220 Oak Street my home. 16 years out of those the last three years has been held to to live and sleep in my unit is because what we have is called something the rehoming housing strategy. So we bring people from the streets. Bravo. Congratulations. We are resolving the issue of people living in incumbents. Correct. I agree. But you are bypassing by bypassing um a very important component transitional housing that will help a lot of the residents who are having real drug problems, real mental health problems before joining to live in a building where people are aging in place at 220 Oak Street. Dear mayor, 58% of the residents are over the age of 55 and we want just our sleep at night. However, we can because we have residents who are awake all night long. This is the way how constant noises affect the lives of residents, myself included. I have lost hearing in both ears. Uh so for the last three years I've been trying to have this problem uh deal with 311. So TCAC has a policy. You hear noises in your unit at night time. You have to call the dispatch service for the community service the community service unit so that they can come and investigate nosis in the building. Most of the time they come three hours later and the noises are gone by the time. So why don't we allow the professionals the 311 service to investigate the noises? The lander says to me, they don't have no obligation on calling the 311 service. If if I have heard noises for the last 10 years, they will not call 311. So why don't we just move ahead with something better? If you have no if you claim to have noises, there are two wonderful things I have in my in my in my hands. This is two microphones that collect data, noises, high level, decibb, low decibb, what you hear at night. And it validates you complain because my good friends of the community ser unit do not have equipments to to collect data at night like the good friends of the 311 service. They have something similar which is displaying on the on on the screen. That instrument collects data noises. I have collected up to 85 dB in my unit at a random time. Anything above 30 decibb is dangerous. I need to have under 30 dB. we have to go to uh discuss this issue at the landlord and tenant tribunal and I I took my landlord and we have a very nice uh mediation service. We agree that Miguel we were moving into into a soundproof unit, the first soundproof unit of Toronto Community Housing. But guess what? They forgot the floors. They forgot to do the walls. And now I had to go back to the land and tenant tribunal to ask them hey what's happening my English is my English says some proof the order some proof the unit not to do whatever you think is sound proof they did a ceiling but they they forgot the floors and the walls. So, Mayor Chow, I wish I can talk this matter with your team that is sitting at the corner at the far right because we need to help TCAC to fund this project. It appears that there is no money. In the meantime, I'm creating a vacancy loss in my building because I haven't been able to move into my unit. I'm still in my unit. I can't move to another unit that is supposed to be soundproof walls, ceilings, floors, but it hasn't happened. So, Mayor Chow, I'm bringing you this issue and it's important that TC tenants, I know all of you city councilors have TC tenants in your words. I have spoken at the police services board. I have talked to I have spoken to councelor Mley. I have spoken councelor Carol and thank you. I'm sorry. And they know about it. Thank you so much. >> Thank you, Miguel. Any questions about >> Those are interesting. Okay. Didn't know about them. Thank you. Uh no questions to Miguel. Thank you. >> 24 hours. >> Okay. Uh Nicole, are you here? >> She's online. >> You're online. Uh can you turn? Go ahead. >> Yes. Thank you. I would like to talk about the online new 311 service improvements. People in Toronto love animals and one of the things I was happy to see in your video and could only see part of it because I was watching from a phone. But one of the things it looks like you switched animals and pests which was terrible that the old app used to lump animals and pests together. It looks like now they're just categorized as animals with a photo of a dog. Then there's a category called plants and there's other categories. That's far better. Nobody Nobody thinks of of most people in Toronto do not think of of animals as pests. Thing I was going to So I thank you for that for for having animals be their own category as they should be and they should be the first category alphabetically but also they're living beings. The other thing is that people call in about animals, but it says there's only service updates for dead animals. Well, people know that if an animal or dead animal pickup, people know the outcome of a of a dead animal, the animal's dead. But what people really want to know is if they call in or if they fill in a report that their cat or dog is missing or that they found a cat or a dog or they found an injured animal or a sick animal and they want the animal rescued, they're going to want to know the outcome of that animal. Now, the income and outcome data is already in the shelter system, but the person who calls in the request to to find an animal or to rescue an animal is going to want to know the outcome of the animal and they're going to they're going to want to know progress. So I I would suggest that instead of just giving progress reports about the dead animal pickup, you give progress reports about living animals because that's what people really want to know about. They want to know how is the city is the city skewing animals. They want to know if they're lost pet is found. They want to know if a an injured or sick animal is is f is rescued and they'll want to know did they did they survive? Are they getting better that people want to know those kind of things. So, I would highly suggest that you have animal service updates be be something that's prioritized the city of Toronto and not just be focusing on on the service requests, but looking at at this actually as a a shelter system. Plus, the other thing I would another suggestion I would make is that you add um pets available for fostering, pets available for adoption. So, as soon as there's say a stray animal intake and the animal isn't claimed, the animal can go to a foster home right away. The animal doesn't have to be sitting in the shelter. Now, that's another thing I would suggest that you have a you have you have more more stuff that you have a you know when on the 311 app that you have pets available for adoption and available for fostering. Hey, >> thank you Nicole. I think you are um Thank you. Any questions? Nope. Hey, >> it's always good. >> We've lost you. Probably because you're walking and >> you're being cut off. >> Still there. >> I'm still there. >> Keep going. You have one more. That's >> I pretty much that's all I was going to say is that I think that 311 should allow people to be able to report a lost pet online and be able to to uh access animal services better because that's what people really want to know about the outcome of live animals. They're not interested in in just stuff about, you know, dead animal removal. They want to know about the outcome of animals. And they they also Yeah, that's all I was going to say. >> Okay. Thank you, Nicole. We hear you. Thank you. Um any seeing no other uh deputation which any questions to our staff? Uh Deputy Mayor Malik. >> Uh thank you very much for the presentation and the report. I know that in my community uh will be um will be it will be very appreciated. And I just wanted to ask a couple of questions related to some of the requests that we get most frequently um to my office around the interaction with 311. The first is around the pickup of of sharps, especially in in downtown neighborhoods and and um in parks and public spaces. I often hear from residents that it's hard to find where to report things like a needle um in the park for pickup. And this is important because it is a relatively urgent issue. Um, how will the redesign help us prioritize uh urgent issues like this one? >> Through the chair, we're working with MLS on closing the loop to ensure that um anything that needs to be prioritized uh we can prioritize um as part of the closing the loop so that the divisions um as we work with divisions on priority levels that is something that we we're focused on. Um, and I guess the first part of that was just making it easier to actually report things like needles because currently um that is not uh clear or um easily understood with the way the app is designed. >> Sorry, I'm having problems turning on my mic. Um, so as part of the closing the loop and the front-end redesign, our new app, we'll have new search and categories to make it easier to find and submit the requests and track it. >> Thank you. Um, that's encouraging and we'll look forward to uh to being able to see that operational. Um, and second, I have the a question just about the amount of per personal information uh that users will be required to give. Uh, can you speak a little bit more about how to make it easy to report um and to track and to assure residents that um their privacy and the information that they want to share is is appropriate to what what they what they feel comfortable with >> through the chair. So for those that want to keep their information and and and have multiple service requests, we are working on a city login so that they don't have to put in their information more than once. From a privacy um perspective, customers don't have to report their names or their privacy information if they don't want to. Um but we also have options for those that want and don't want to redo it. >> Deputy Mayor, uh Council Bravel. >> Uh thank you. Um Mayor, uh my question has to do with the a closing of a ticket. uh we hear from residents and I think it's um something that's been brought up before uh by uh counselor's offices with staff. Um can we receive some kind of guarantee or or a process to get to a guarantee uh where we know that the ticket won't be closed until the um the resident, the customer, whatever you want to call them, um has received notification and an answer. >> That is the main focus for closing the loop. So we're working with all divisions to enhance that process so that we are not a black box and we actually provide clear information and build customer trust throughout the process. We are working with our our partners in technology as well in some service requests where we need more information or need a little bit of enhancements and that is part of the closing the loop that we're delivering in the next uh 2026 and 2027. So once the the loop is closed, there won't be a situation where uh someone phones in uh and then the the ticket says it's closed, but we don't know what action was taken or if any. And that's something that ends up pretty regularly in the counselor's office and we don't know then how to answer. So is that is that that that's something that you're working towards and um you heard clearly from counselors and it'll be it this kind of situation won't be repeated in the future. Is that right? That's correct, counselor. There are 650 service requests. We're focusing on high impact, high volume service requests first, so we can't boil the ocean, but we're focusing especially in seasonalities. We got ready for the summer. Um, now seasonality, we're focused now for the next winter, but we are making sure that a lot of these closed cases are because it was submitted incorrectly to the wrong division by the resident online. So re rest re streamlining how we intake the questions, how we prioritize, we need to make it easier for it to get to the right division so that it can't be closed. These redirects in the future with technology updates will be automatically sent to the right division and the customer will be updated as it's sent to a different division. That's fantastic. >> We will be fixing it. Thank you. Thank you. Deputy Mayor Ashley. >> Thank you. Uh through you, Madame Mayor. Um Daniel, I want to ask about the So, thank you very much for this first of all. Um this is amazing. Um huge progress. Thank you so much. I know everybody's really going to appreciate it. The call in not having to listen to a threeminute Toronto advertisement and all of the upgrades to the app. Um, I did want to ask about the chatbot uh and how how staff will be monitoring the chatbot and um upgrades to it. Will there be ongoing like monitoring of it to make sure it's working properly and how will that roll out? >> Absolutely. Uh through the chair, we're working very closely on on testing our AI with any AI. We're being intentional about how we deliver it. We're also learning from different jurisdictions that had some best practices for us to learn so that we don't make any mistakes. Uh we are teaching our bot right now. Uh it will that's why we're taking a little bit more time. We're still with within the timelines of Q3 and it's an ongoing the same with the app. It's ongoing any chat any innovation tools is just as good as yesterday. So we are making sure that we're constantly updating and monitoring the progress. >> Okay. And then the AI, all of the AI component of it in the chart, it's kind of in between third quarter two 2026 and fourth quarter 2026. Is your goal to roll it all out in the third quarter? >> So our goal our goal is to to have it by the end of Q3 by the end of September. We are aiming hopefully by Labor Day if possible depending on testing and quality of testing. >> Okay. All right. Thank you. Much appreciated. Thank you, Madame Mayor. >> Thank you. Um, councelor >> Shan, >> thank you, Madam Mayor. Um, thank you for all the work and it's exciting to see all the changes coming through. Just wanted to ask a question around the and on milestone. I I particularly like the milestones being available for people to see. Um, I see that um there was examples of potholes, but how soon do you think we'll get through? uh what is the timeline for getting through those milestones um incorporated for what most of the divisions that you provide services for at least maybe top 10 or top 20 issues that that uh that community calls for. >> So for milestones we launched eight high volume requests last May May 28th to be exact uh where we introduced more detailed milestones for the eight high priority service requests. We're now working with all the other divisions to ensure that we can um give milestones. Not every SR service request out of the 650 will get milestones is for those that are needed. Um but we will be working towards it will be iterative is phased approach but eight have already been launched last May. >> Thank you. And my question about the uh I guess the the app is not currently being used as much and and it's being revamped to make it more user friendly and once that's done uh would there be a consideration to look at um certain areas where there's lower uh participation um to prioritize marketing and and um pilot testing or doing something more specific to areas that have under reportported using the current mechanisms if you may >> through the chair we we are definitely going to be looking at that with the launch you you are correct our app adoption is is quite low we have 10,000 downloads only so it's it's not as user friendly once we do have a better product and we start marketing with communications and launching we will make sure to have the data points that we need to ensure it's equitable across all ws and we have the right information and we can drive communication for those under leverage wards. >> Thank you very much. >> Any other questions? Uh councelor. Okay. Councelor Holiday and Deputy Mayor Cole. >> Thank you, Madame Mayor. Um thank you, Mr. Saraphim, for the the presentation. And I wondered if you could remind the committee how many people call or contact the city uh every year through your division. >> It's in the presentation uh earlier. Councelor Holiday, it's 1.3. >> I know, but I want Exactly. How many of those Thank you, mayor. How many of those are seeking information as opposed to asking the city for something? over 60% of our calls are seeking information out of the 1.5 interactions we get annually. >> Okay. And and you know, of those interactions, many sit on the phone uh because that's the way they're used to or uh maybe they couldn't find the information. Is that a fair observation? >> That's correct, counselor. Um I think the the key here in any contact center and operations like this is to ensure our agents are focused on the high complex service requests. So those general inquiries making it easier for the public to self-s serve is a priority we're having that chatbot should support with that and we're looking at other future tools in the future to improve that as well like IVR AI and things like that. So our approach to good customer service is to get people the information as quickly as possible and in in the most self-s served way because they can get online, they can get what they want and they can go. But the double impact is if my right is that not only is it good customer service, but it's also a cost-effective way for us to to solve these issues so that your call agents can spend their time dealing with complicated matters. >> That's correct. and the app would support us with that adopt digital adoption to support in this strategy. >> So the information that people ask your call takers or your agents um do you do you come up with that information or do you rely on partners within the city to provide accurate information about the city services or conditions or events or things that are going on in the city? >> All contact information is provided by the integrated divisions. They own the the priorities of the service request, the information, the timelines based on their budget and approvals. We are in charge of communicating that to the resident in the best customer experience focused way. >> So in an ideal world, what your agents convey to the residents and what might be available online as a self-s serve option or through the various technologies really would be the same thing. Um and if somebody chooses to call, they choose to call. But um do I understand that you rely on the partners within the city to have the most up-to-date information? >> That's correct. >> Okay. And just one other thing I wanted to ask about because I one of the other counselors brought it up and I know we've talked about it at the service excellence committee is this idea that sometimes tickets get closed and people find out uh whether it's the milestone uh update or just they find out that their ticket was closed and the the item wasn't done. Could you tell me a little bit about how the notes feature might uh demystify or make things better with that and what the future holds for the capabilities of the notes feature? So, um our goal is that all our service requests will receive more information on the outcome of their request. So, some service requests will receive detailed written notes and we launch in April with parks. So we have staff on the ground in operations in the parks division writing notes that are being sent to to customers. >> So we're starting small with that and starting with one service because it's very labor intensive. Is is that correct? And and you know it's one of those free form things that um it's not a computer giving you information. It's a human at the other end that puts the notes in. Is that correct? >> That is correct. And in in the parks yeah that is correct. So, if we're able to expand the notes to other things, uh maybe images become part of that. Um when a ticket's closed, do I understand this that a citizen will be able to see that information and understand why it was closed? Um you know, one of the various reasons that could lead to that. Is that a a fair um understanding of where we're headed with notes? >> That's correct. Um, not all service requests will receive notes, but the most meaningful ones will. Um, in the case of parks, and we are also, um, to your earlier point, we're also launching photos for those service requests that need photos to complete the service requests, for example, potholes. We will be submitting photos of the potholes that have been fixed. And just the final question is could you tell us a little bit about the peer municipalities that you look at to see how we are in relation to them uh with the technology and with the modernization of their 311 services and maybe even the private sector. Um other people have call centers or service centers and what inspiration do you draw from those that can be brought to the city of Toronto? >> Thank you counselor. We have in the last year looked at 30 different jurisdictions not only in Canada but we also focus with big partners that are similar in size to us like our friends in New York. Uh we have almost monthly calls with them. We had a call with them last last week to understand what they're doing so that we are uh understanding and we can benchmark accordingly and learn from best practices between each other. >> Thank you. Thank you, counselor. Uh, Deputy Mayor Cole. >> Yeah, I want to thank uh 311 for the incredible uh work and the incredible presentation today. Very very uh informative uh and impressive. A question I had is uh um what's the most common uh complaint or call in to 311? So, we have um multiple service requests. I'm just pulling the exact ones for for you, counselor. Road pothole has been the top one. Sidewalk, snow clearing, road plowing, property standards, and maintenance. And residential bin lid damaged. >> Residential what? >> Bin lid damaged. >> So, the garbage bin lid >> garbage. >> Okay. How many uh u uh contacts or calls or emails does 311 get uh a year? >> We have to be exact a,580 contacts as of last year. >> Okay. And uh in terms of uh the uh languages, how many languages uh are you able to give service in? >> We have 180 languages that we support 247. >> How was that done? Today we have we we work with a a translation vendor, the same one used by 911, so that we can um have translation at all points and we pay by translation. >> How often is that translation service used? Uh any idea? If you don't have it now, I can get it later. >> I'm happy counselor to share that with you after this. I don't have it handy right now. Okay. And how do you let people know that uh they are able to uh uh get help from 311 uh in 180 languages? How do we let people know that that's available? >> There's multiple ways counselor. We have our website that it's it's there. Uh if people call, we would ask if they they they normally tell us. Um I listened to a call recently and it was in Spanish and they said Spanish. So we automatically translated. >> And the last question is what are the most common uh language request? Uh Spanish uh expect be one. Mandarin would be another. What are some of the most uh language uh requests? >> Councelor, I don't think I have that handy right now, but I can provide it with the the previous information to you after this. Okay, thank you very much. That's all. Thank you. Okay, excellent. Um, any speeches, comments? Whoa. Councelor Bravo. >> Yes, I Oh, sorry. Councilor Holiday first. Council Holiday >> came from your committee. It's good work you folks. >> Um, thank you, Mayor. Uh, and I I actually thank you to everyone involved, including the committee. I I'm it's a point of pride, I think, the work of the committee and uh the work of Toronto's public service in what they've done with customer experience. Um, there's a couple of thoughts that I wanted to leave the the committee about how we've tilted in the right direction and the momentum is great. The first thing is the amount of transparency that the changes have provided to the city. You can go online and you can look at the dynamic dashboard. You can go internally if you're a counselor uh or a member of the public service uh that's concerned with this and and look up the information in a really sophisticated dashboard that really tells the story of the city or the pulse of the city and you can see patterns over time. You can see what's important, what people are focused on that day. It could be event or seasonally driven. Uh but all of this leads us to have a better understanding of our city. Uh a reflection of what we ask of our city and you know those 1.5 million sample points a year of what citizens are calling us about and it it tells a fabulous story and it allows us as counselors to think about where we're headed in the future. So I think that's great. But we wouldn't have the 1.5 million calls if we weren't making it easier for people to connect with the city. And I think that really is the point of today's presentation is all of the improvements that have made um life better for citizens to call in or write in or access online. And the process that people use to interact with the city has become better uh as is the information that goes back and forth between people. And and finally um something that's drawn really from the expectations of the public's interaction with the private sector banks utilities online sales companies and how they uh provide updated information about your request of the organization that you're working with. So I think this is all really really exciting and you know I hope u other members uh share in my excitement and seeing those changes for the better and I think uh we have that experience in getting those calls in counselor's offices where a citizen wasn't satisfied with how something went and we'll always get those calls but hopefully this information and this process has made that a little bit better. So, um, you know, the last thing again, a a thank you to all of the hands, uh, on deck that have contributed to these changes and I look forward as we incrementally add to the process and we got a sample today of some of the leading edge changes and I think over time we'll see this continue to grow into the other divisions and it was important to start small and with some of the basic things of the top requests and then work our way down the list. So, um, much appreciated, uh, for the opportunity to comment on this and as you can tell, Madame Mayor and the committee, um, I am excited about this and I think we all should be. >> Thank you, Councelor Holiday. I want to thank you for that impressive transformation. I do share your excitement and gratitude to all the staff involved uh, and your team, the service excellence committee. And yes, when I first time three years ago tried to talk about garbage bin in my neighborhood trying to get on the web, I tore my hair out and uh now it's really quite incredible the improvement. And they're not done yet. There's many more steps to come. So keep up the good work folks. Um, and I have a few other speaker, councelor Bravo and yes, councelor Bravo. >> Yeah, thank you. Uh, I want to thank staff um and the service excellence committee and the work that they've done together. I particularly want to thank staff for being so open to meeting with counselor offices and hearing the experiences that we've had. We have so many interactions with residents and are out in the community speaking to people constantly about city services and this is such a visible emblem and such a visceral, you know, connection for people being able to make a 311 a service request, understanding what is happening with it, understanding uh what it means to have the ticket closed. Um and I also should add that I was my questions were reflecting also my colleague um uh councelor Carol who wasn't able to uh sign in probably to WebEx right now. So this is something that I think we all share. The improvements that have been made uh this is my first term but the improvements that are being made in this term and particularly uh right now uh what's being brought forward is really outstanding outstanding effort and the question about focusing on the volume on uh ensuring that we're um attending to the the greatest number of calls very well um and then moving into the more complex areas. I think really shows a commitment to delivering results and that's what we need is resultsoriented um ensuring that we're building on success and I just want to add my thank my congratulations and gratitude and the the way that the information is being uh shared here is something that's uh comprehensible to anyone and I think that reflects also uh you know very uh shrewd uh understanding of how um to do so this kind of like popular education not just for the public but for ourselves as council offices as well. >> Thank you councelor Brafo. Um councelor Shen before you start by the way the out the the increase of volume is not by accident. The uh 311 folks set up tents at all the street festival to get people to know that this is what the kind of service they have. So they actively do outreach. Council Sha. >> Thank you very much. Uh, Madame Mayor, I just want to thank the staff um the the leadership at uh at um customer service excellence as well as the service excellence committee. I I just think that you know um I was there as a counselor in 2017 2018 and at that time 311 was being uh you know promoted heavily and and the volume was starting to increase and we now have gotten a significant amount of volume of people using uh 311. Uh but as the mayor mentioned you know some of the experiences uh maybe five years four years even couple of years ago um now we are at a point if we don't revamp and restructure and and and increase the type of efficiencies and communication and transparency uh it'll be a hard thing to bring back people to call uh 311 events once they get turned away. Um and and so this in uh um interjection if you may uh with with the fresh leadership and looking at um looking at uh models that are out there in the private sector in other places and looking at um major changes in how we look at how we interact with uh the community through the multiple formats is is critical. So I'm very excited about this. I'm also very excited about the uh two parts. one, the transparency part where you have the milestones and the being able to track and see how things are happening just like how we would do with uh Uber or some sort of a uh you know package that is traveling and other things to be able to see a little bit more of a progress themselves and uh I do feel that um there's a lot of people in in in um in the new generation that would prefer to not have to talk to somebody and be able to resolve issues in a way that through an app or something and and help their family members doing that as well at odd hours they will be able to do that without having to you know be talking to somebody in the in the midnight time. So I think I think looking at diversification of these options and and strengthening those options and creating more transparency and then the last part I would say is the communication part. I think when when three when we had meetings with um with the staff uh the the important part is also part of the customer service is how we communicate not what we communicate and and the explanation of how a case is closed or how how a file is closed and maybe that that empathy and that kind of personal touch to touch to resolving an issue is critical as well even if it's in a in a written format it makes a big difference and so uh I'm I'm looking forward to these changes and looking forward to seeing uh once the app is ready to be used to be able to uh look at areas that have traditionally under reportported or un underutilized 311 the generations not just geographical area but also generations and age categories and so on and who is actually uh calling us and who is not and we can probably look at some more data to kind of uh fine-tune our marketing strategies as well and um and so very excited thanks to all the staff and counselors who worked on it and I see a major improvement from the time I was there earlier to now but I think uh the best is yet to come from these plan and these plans and I'm hoping to see that happen next year. Thank you. >> Thank you. The best is yet to come. Okay. All um councelor deputy mayor Malik is moving the recommendations in front of us. Uh all those in favor post carry. Thank you. Uh you also want to release item seven. Can you move the recommendations in front of you? That is, I believe, the annual report on city loans and loan guarantee. Uh, councelor Fletcher said she is fine with it. Thank you for moving it. All those in favor? Oppose. Carrie. Thank you. Item 10, summary of city's donation activities. We have a speaker, George Bell. George, are you here? Are you online? online. >> George Bell, uh, if you're online, can you open up your mic? We can hear you. >> No, >> you are not online. Are you here? George Bell, if you're not here, we have item 10. Um, may I have someone move the recommendations in front of us? >> Mayor Angley. >> Uh, Deputy Mayor Aninsley. All those in favor of the recommendations in front of you, oppose. Carry. Thank you. Item 12, human rights based guidelines for hosting future mega events. We have Norat uh Brousad at the Harm Reduction Advocacy Collective. Norat, are you here? You're online. Open up your mic, please. After you is Megan White, Shireena Perie, and Diana Chen McNal. Nor >> Hello. Can everybody hear me? >> Yes, we can. >> Hi there. Good morning. Yes, my name is Norad Boozide. I'm a member of the harm reduction advocacy collective. Uh I'm also somebody who is coming to you today with much lived experience uh being unhoused both in the shelter system and in encampments. So uh today being uh one of the days during Pride Month, I want to wish everybody a happy pride. Um but I want to question a happy pride for who? Um, according to a report on the 2SLGBTQ plus people's experiences of homelessness in Toronto, uh, an analysis of the 2021 street needs assessment survey conducted by the city of Toronto and the Toronto Shelter and Support Services, up to 40% of our homeless population identify as queer. Some of the uh factors that are contributing uh contributing to this are existing public systems, racism, unstable employment, and poverty. Additionally, black and brown and indigenous people who are queer or trans experienced homelessness at disproportionate rates. And among those who identified as queer and homeless, 64% of those surveyed were racialized. I also want to note that these numbers are conservative uh as many participants may not have wanted to come out or identify. So these numbers are numbers that the city of Toronto uh itself uh produced. I also want to acknowledge these numbers were produced in 2021 uh pre- pandemic or during the pandemic. Since the pandemic uh homelessness in the city of Toronto has doubled. However, because of a lack of appropriate infrastructure to address the needs of the homeless people in the city of Toronto, the number of people actually living outdoors is closer to uh tripled. Now, I want to pivot to uh the preparations that were taking place in the city of Toronto uh for the FIFA World Cup. The Toronto Underhoused and Homeless Union, otherwise known as TUHOU, found that 90% of the uh people that they surveyed around Union Station had experienced firsthand brutality uh at the hands of TPS or uh security systems. Uh and many testimonies uh talked about being dragged out of bathroom stalls. uh Tu who uh went and independently verified the property damage where um these allegations were made and noted the damage to uh the property at Union Station. Um our homeless population in preparation for FIFA, many of them reported being given an ultimatum uh to move to accommodations or face jail time. Now, I want to acknowledge uh that not just uh disproportionate homelessness, sorry, disproportionate uh queer people experience homelessness, they also experience a disproportionate violence uh when interacting with uh police. Um I also want to acknowledge that relocation uh removes homeless people from services that are essential to them. Uh, and this again is especially important for queer people as many uh many of the accommodations that are provided to people are far outside the downtown core where services that uh cater primarily to queer people and racialized people exist. So, I'm speaking today not just in support of uh Diana Chan McN's uh uh recommendations, but I also have a recommendation or a request of my own that uh when dealing with homeless people that the city of Toronto acknowledge the systems of harm it has continued to perpetuate against queer and trans people. Thank you. Um, all right for your submission. Any questions? The deputton? No. Megan White, you're online also? >> No, not online. >> Okay, Megan, are you here? Uh, Serena Perie, are you here online? Go ahead, Serena Perie. >> Thank you. Hello. I'm Serena Perie and I ran in the recent federal bi-election. I'm completing a PhD in policy studies at U of and I'm a resident member of Friends of Kensington Market. Thank you to the executive committee for the opportunity to speak on this matter. Over the last few weeks, every list that has come out about what to do when visiting Toronto during FIFA has listed Kensington Market first as a mustsea destination. For Toronto, we are a theme park with a global restaurant. We are also historical memory and conscience. We're a home for people no matter where they come from. I was recently asked why I use the term unhoused or displaced instead of homeless. I do that because many of the people who come here and stay in the area do so because Kensington Market is not is is the only home they've known. I will never tell someone that just because they're unhoused, unsheltered, or precariously sheltered, they have no home. Their home is here. I want to take a moment to acknowledge the importance of the framing of this motion as a human rights based uh motion and prioritizing unsheltered unhoused people. I am however concerned that it reads like a plan to have a plan. We knew FIFA was coming. We know from international data that it and other mega events often result um in forced evictions and displacement that disproportionately affects our unhoused neighbors. In 2020, I joined other prominent advocates for housing, shelter, and encampment justice in the dep a deputation to city council on the inadequacy of the shelter plan at the time. We called for a moratorium on encampment evictions, the opening of at least 2,000 more shelter hotel units with trained harm reduction workers on site and located in the downtown core, as well as critical survival supplies and indoor access, including bathrooms for encamped neighbors. In 2024, we ran the House Them Awareness Campaign with a slogan, "If you don't want to see people living on the street, house them to redirect the frustration that people had about the ongoing crisis away from the encampment residents and toward the people who actually have the power to fix it. You, because it was very clear that not all city councilors acknowledged that it was their responsibility to do so. Whether you recognize it or not, it is your job." Since then, year over year, we've seen record-breaking numbers of unhoused increasingly among our senior population, but the tents are largely gone. I spoke with an outreach worker who said that his job had become much more difficult because instead of sleeping in tents, they're sleeping in doorways. I've seen a disturbing practice of offering housing in shelter spaces that don't exist and then reporting that space was offered as though to suggest that the spaces were turned down. I have seen a culture of city staff abusing even the smallest amount of power over shelter residents. I have seen shelter residents given food that wasn't fit for human consumption and denied even the most basic disability accommodations. We have seen an alarming increase in patients being discharged from Toronto Western in a state where they don't have sufficient capacity to function, walk, make decisions, or are inadequately dressed for the weather. First responders are increasingly visibly exhausted. I fought to keep my friend Maria, a precariously housed senior, on the RGI weight list. She was on it for 12 years and died waiting. Now, we need um more than a plan to make a plan. We can't keep creating a housing policy that relies on cutting red tape and taxes for developers. We need to build more affordable and deeply affordable, supportive housing at scale that is equal to the need. We need to not just acknowledge the rights of the unhoused, sheltered or unsheltered. We need to materially improve their conditions. This past week, I found a woman outside my door. She had collapsed face down in a puddle and was unresponsive. Her name is Michelle and she's in her 70s. She was drawn to the water from a down spout because she was severely dehydrated. When her clothes got wet, she had so little food in her system that she didn't have enough calories to stay warm and her body temperature dropped rapidly. We were able to revive her and get her medical assistance, dry clothing and food. When I told her she was going to be okay, she crumpled, looked at me, and asked, "Am I?" She sounded broken. She was living outside because her husband left her. Afterward, a bystander who saw what happened thanked me and said, "Not everyone would have done that." And I asked myself, what kind of person wouldn't take a step outside their front door to help someone? We know at least one member of this city council who wouldn't. Instead, they would prefer to criminalize Michelle and people like her and feed fear and prejudice instead of food. To our mayor, deputy may mayor and counselors present. What kind of person are you? What kind of worldclass city do you want Toronto to be? And what real steps will you take to implement solutions that are equal to the problem and lifts Torononians out of poverty instead of punishing them for it? Good luck in the upcoming municipal elections. Thank you. >> Thank you, Serena. Any questions to deputents? Seeing none, uh, Dana Cheni. Thank you. As mentioned, my name is Diana Cham McN and I am a longtime frontline worker and homelessness advocate. If you have not read the safety for whom report released by the Toronto underhoused and homeless union, I strongly urge you to do so. Through their independent outreach efforts to people sheltering at Union Station ahead of the FIFA games, they've both documented and directly witnessed egregious actions taken against unhoused people. These are primarily being executed by Metro Links security personnel as well as private security officers. They are taunting people. They are beating them with batons. Someone, as was mentioned, was violently dragged out of a public washroom stall in full view of everyone naked from the waist down. Their bathroom stall door was kicked in, and there is, of course, photo evidence of this. I am deeply, deeply upset by what I have both seen and heard, and we should all feel ashamed that people are being treated like this in our city. My Toronto is one of care and I know at our core that is who all of us in this room are. But these enforcement actions we are seeing are targeted, vicious, deeply unnecessary and unbecoming of our city, especially while we are hosting the world. And while I am fundamentally aware that Metroink security officers as well as private security present at Union Station are not city workers, they are nevertheless intervening in the city's ability to provide appropriate human rights compliant care to people as per the city's own interdivisional protocol on encampments. This contradiction between city workers providing care and enforcement personnel violating people's fundamental rights is profoundly harmful. Again, there is significant evidence of this harm and contradiction being gathered by the Toronto underhoused and homeless union. But on the ground, people sheltering at Union Station are not discerning between who is beating them, shaming them, and displacing them. And I can say from my own experiences working front line for over a decade that when even one institution or worker enacts abuse, it can lead to mistrust of all institutions and workers. And this in turn can lead people to not receive the care and support that they unequivocally deserve. FIFA has shown us a fundamental gap in the treatment of people who have nowhere else to go. And again, while the city cannot direct Metro Links or security personnel in this moment, we can do better for future mega events like FIFA to ensure that the city remains committed to the welfare of all of its residents, whether or not they actually have housing. So last June, and you would know this, the auditor general released a report recommending updates to the city's major events bidding and hosting strategy. This includes strengthening of the city's governance and oversight over such mega events. Given what has been happening at Union Station, again, there is copious evidence of this. This should specifically include strengthening the city's human rights commitments to unhoused residents to ensure that all stakeholders including metro links and private security are in alignment with the city's own interdivisional protocol on encampments. This is official city policy. We all know this in this room. It must apply universally and with a special attention and care during major events like FIFA which historically across the globe and this was mentioned by the previous uh deputent have resulted in displacement. Uh if you were present in Vancouver in 2010 for the Olympics then you also know that this was very much the case in that city. But in order to do this the city should understand the human rights impacts of FIFA on Torononians including and especially residents who are homeless up to one year after the event. We need to understand the harms and the gaps generated by FIFA to develop a comprehensive response and protocol. And for this reason, I support the motion in front of us urging the city of Toronto to conduct an audit of these impacts to ensure better planning for mega events in the future, including executing a safety net like providing additional shelter and restites ahead of such events to minimize potential harms. Major events should not exacerbate disparity and harm to our most vulnerable residents. And I'm confident that all of us in this room are in agreement on this. We want everyone in our city to both participate in and benefit from when the city hosts major events. This should be a source of joy for us. And this is the best I can do for wearing a soccer jersey, but it's what I got. and ensuring an audit of the human rights outcomes from FIFA and codifying support not displacement in our policies will help to get us there. Thank you. >> Thank Thank you. Any question to the deputent? >> Okay. Thank you. Question to councelor Perks. >> Yes. Uh thank you. Uh to the city manager. Um, I just want to make sure I got three things I want to look into. First, uh, council has directed you already to, uh, start developing citywide principles for large major events. Is that my memory right, Mayor? >> Yeah, mayor, that's correct. And and it was determined that that timing of it would be after FIFA. And so, it's coming in 2027. >> Okay. Would you agree with me that the issues raised during these deputations should be part of the consideration there? >> Absolutely. >> Okay. Uh second, uh we've also asked you to prepare uh a review of how FIFA went. Um would this also be part of that review? >> Yes, it would. >> Okay. Um and finally uh you know when uh FIFA was being considered I had a number of concerns but one of them was uh the impact that this might have on unhoused people. I remember how terribly it went when uh G7 G20 came. Um do you uh and so as a result of that I arranged to have briefings with uh city of Toronto staff and and FIFA staff and the Toronto Police Service and they all assured me that the operating principle for city of Toronto staff was the human rights informed encampment protocol. Is that your understanding as well? And not only my understanding, it's been the direction throughout and it's been it actually was reinforced that the uh when we activated our emergency management approach which is taking us through the duration of the 39 days uh we reiterated again that um the approach we're using the city's approach is follows the uh interdivisional protocol that we've uh established and council has endorsed. >> Thank you very much. >> Other question? Yes, Deputy Mayor. >> Yep. Thank you. Uh through you, Madame Mayor, to I think Gourd Tanner's back there. I thought I saw Gourd. Gourd, um could you explain a bit? So, for myself, as a regular user of the GO Train and the TTC through Union Station and Union Station's a very complex, I'll call it a complex building. There's certain areas that Metro Links has jurisdiction over and the city of Toronto has jurisdiction over and then there seems to be gray areas. And I'm just trying to understand so people that are homeless people that are in Union Station. I'm trying to understand because I see police that look after areas or interact with homeless people. Metro links has customer service agents. There seems to be two or three security guard companies I'll say in Union Station. And I'm just trying to understand how they all interact together and to deal look after people that are homeless in Union Station. So to you uh Madame Mayor, >> do we interact? >> I can comment on sort of our line of sight and the work that we do down at Union Station. I mean, we have been uh uh deployed on the TTC transit system now for probably 2 years with outreach workers, connecting with individuals experiencing homelessness and doing our best to connect them to service including shelter. uh in April of this year uh and based on direction from council to better coordinate and integrate across city divisions uh we piloted some work and continue at Union Station um with additional teams to connect with and support individuals experiencing homelessness. Um, and since that time, working with my colleagues at Social Development and Toronto Public Health, uh, as part of that work, we've been bringing stakeholder uh, members together, including Metro Links, um, Union Station staff, the various security teams they meet with. Uh, you're right, it's a very complex uh, you know, large urban station with many, uh, different owners. uh our work is focused on the whole campus if you will uh across jurisdictions. The goal is to connect with individuals that we see who are experiencing homelessness. And so the work continues since that time. We've we've connected with 145 unique individuals and intake them into our system who are looking for some support. Uh we've referred about 25 individuals to shelter. uh connected with a bunch more working on housing and one person in fact has since been housed since we've been down there. So I can tell you we're connected to many of those stakeholders in the environment but it is uh a multi-jurisdictional location um in the center of of the city. >> Okay. And do you have any idea I know you know how our support staff are trained. Do you have any idea the support train this training that like a Metroink's customer service agent gets or you know there the sec different security companies that are in there? I know we don't have control over them but I would think there' be some type of connection or understanding of how to assist people that are identified as homeless in Union Station. Uh so t chair I can't speak to the specific training that the various stakeholder security companies would undergo. What I can tell you is since April we have been there trying to create awareness around our interdep departmental protocol and the way that the city works with people experiencing homelessness. Uh and that really is to take a people first approach and to to find out what their needs are and do our best uh to support them. So, um, we're trying to raise awareness around that in terms of the the base training that that the variety of those folks would get. I I I can't comment on >> Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Mayor. >> Thank you, Councelor Bra. >> Thank you. Um, Madame Mayor, uh, to pick up some of the, um, questions that were asked by my colleague, the I believe what you're saying is that while you don't have the authority to tell other like jurisdiction, other or guards or staff who are accountable to um, governments, different governments in this case and Metroinks being an agency, provincial government, you are exercising your functions under the interdep departmental protocol on encampments and thereby potentially modeling or sort of socializing an approach that's human rights informed. Is that correct? >> Uh that's correct. Um, we'd like the first call to be to us to respond to and support uh an individual who might be experiencing homelessness or in turn our partners at social development who are uh you know supporting the crisis teams in that environment to be a first call to them. Is this the first um intentional collaboration between social development and the Toronto uh shelter services and supports to have you know in the all of city approach that was directed by council for adoption in which we uh look at the whole person and and draw on all of the the tools and resources available at the city. Is that correct? >> Yes. So to you chair, this is the first very intentional location where we are piloting the integrated work across multiple divisions and in fact later today as part of this work we are launching a what we're calling a health escalation table with health leaders from around the city that will also support the work in in trying to find long-term health solutions for some folks that may have very complex needs. And ideally would it mean that because we're here and finishing where municipal government has powers even through public health now we're interacting directly with uh provincial system which is the health care system there is an opportunity here to learn something correct >> to you madam mayor yes I think there's an opportunity to to work on the individual level for cases but also identify what are system gaps that we can all be working on for the betterment of folks that might be experiencing homelessness in the city of Toronto. And finally, from an evaluative point of view, is there there's significant um val potential here to learn uh through the social development uh Toronto shelter division and public health collaboration about interacting with different jurisdictions and um you know can in terms of what has been built through the pilot uh phase that can be carried forward and uh that perhaps can inform um the where the the city manager will take this work in the future. >> So through you mayor uh the evaluation is a key component of our work together. Uh we've in integrated some key questions both in terms of the experiences of the individual who's being supported but also more broadly system uh coordination opportunities identifying gaps and potential investment priorities for council to consider in the next budget cycle. >> Thank you. Um any other questioners? If not, Council Perks will speak. >> Thank you. I want to start by moving a motion. >> Yep. >> I'm moving that the executive committee refer item EX3212 to the city manager and request the city manager in consultation with the deputy city manager, community and emergency services to include in the report back on lessons learned from FIFA World Cup 2026 contemplated in the FIFA World Cup 2026 Toronto Human Rights Action Plan. And in followup to item AU9.9, additional measures to support people experiencing homelessness in planning for future large events, steps to ensure future planning of major special events continue to promote the progressive realization of the right to housing and measures to ensure continued compliance with human rights law. I was just seeing how long a run-on sentence I could generate and I think I did quite well. Um, first of all, I I I want to express deep gratitude to uh frontline workers who've gone out and done some very important work to make this council aware of a very serious problem taking part happening in the city of Toronto. uh it's it's only through uh people who actually you know have lived experience or directly are working with people who have lived experience that we can learn uh what life is like actually on the streets right now. Um, and I'm glad that the city manager has agreed that these are essential parts not only of how we evaluate how we did on FIFA, but also uh what bar we set for participation in future events. Uh, council would have been very well served if we had principles like this in place. uh when the previous mayor uh went ahead almost without consulting council and committed us to the the FIFA event. I'm also uh pleased that city manager is is reinforcing with city staff that we take a human rights informed approach to dealing with people who are unhoused or vulnerable. The area of concern of course is that while the city of Toronto particularly in the last two or three years has made great strides forward here, not all governments have. Certainly the record of the province can best most charitably be described as mixed. I just, you know, it it's amazing to me. Every time I go on YouTube now, I get an ad from the provincial government demonizing homeless people. and that's infuriating. On the other hand, uh staff in the city working uh around housing uh finally managed to bring the province to the table to talk about providing supports when we build supportive housing through Dunhouse phase 2. And I'm hoping that that shows a window that we can continue to open. So I'm going to hope we stretch things a little bit and when we do the review, we also review how the interjurisdictional work went. We cannot uh we don't have the authority of course to tell uh people who are ultimately provincial employees, Metroinks employees, uh what their job is. But we can certainly model better behavior. We can certainly have conversations and we can certainly evaluate how different jurisdictions did during an event like FIFA and we can certainly make part of our price of admission in future events that there be uh interjurisdictional agreement on issues like this. So with that uh you have my motion. I'm happy to take any questions on it. >> Any questions to councelor Burks on the motion that's in front of you? No. Uh, further speakers? Anyone? Nope. Thank you, Councelor Brooks. Um, all those in favor? Opposed? Very. Thank you. See if there's any other items. I think that's it. Okay. Uh thank you folks for being here. >> Uh move uh no no. Okay. >> Okay. Uh we are journ. Thank you.