Tag: Climate Change
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Auditor General’s report confirms suspicions about Ford government’s plan for Ontario Science Centre: OPSEU/SEFPO
This week, the Auditor General’s (AG) report on the planned move of the Ontario Science Centre, confirmed what workers, experts, and community members have been saying for months. The AG found that the decision to move the Science Centre was based on “preliminary and incomplete costing information.” Meaning the Ford government deliberately excluded costing information that did not work in their favour to mislead the public. In response to the report, OPSEU/SEFPO President JP Hornick…
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Gridlock in Transit Planning
Sitting on a Goldmine! “You’re sitting on a goldmine!” David Quarmby told a Toronto Region Board of Trade meeting barely a year after the Lac Megantic (Quebec) rail disaster. It gave the federal government a perfectly good reason to kick Canadian Pacific rail off their midtown Toronto freight-only corridor. As the head of Transport for London, Quarmby was referring to all the abandoned or underused GTA railway tracks. It was he who inspired the interconnection…
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Toronto Voters Reject the Right, Embrace a Vague Left Reformist
In the June 26 Toronto mayor by-election, former NDP MP and city councilor Olivia Chow ran as an independent. She won with the embarrassingly vague slogan “We can build an affordable, safer and caring city.” She captured 37.17 per cent of the votes cast, topping former city councilor Ana Bailao at 32.45 per cent. Chow enjoyed the support of the soft pro-capitalist left, and some unions, while Bailao was backed by prominent Liberals, former mayor…
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Tear Down the Gardiner to Reclaim Public Spaceand Fight Climate Change
The Gardiner Expressway has long been a feature of Toronto’ s transportation horror-scape. It blocks Torontonians from enjoying easy access to Lake Ontario and has become a blight on the waterfront. Its very construction was an environmental assault on then-existing parkland. It was a project first built in segments from 1955 until 1964 by the Metropolitan Toronto government to connect the city by expressway along the lake shore. The plan incorporated an elevated portion that…
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Windsor City Council Backs Natural Gas Power Plant Expansion Despite Opposition from Residents and Environmental Groups
On January 16, 2023, Windsor City Council supported a proposal from Capital Power to add two natural gas turbines to their existing facility, East Windsor Cogeneration Centre, located on Riverside Drive. This expansion will increase the power plant’s capacity from 92 megawatts (MW) to 192 MW. Capital Power advised City Council that its proposal responds directly to a call to action from the Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO). In October 2022, the Provincial Government mandated that…
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John Tory, Hands Off Cyclists
Earlier this month, the Twitter account of Toronto Mayor John Tory gave high praise to Toronto’s new automated speed enforcement cameras, which reported to have issued more than 43,000 tickets in June and July of this year. In the tweet, Tory stated ‘these cameras are one of the many ways we are working to make our streets safer for all and to further increase enforcement on speeding and reckless drivers across the city.’ Tory’s social…