Solar energy can create a healthier city

Toronto has a gas problem -- natural gas that is. We use it for space and water heating and it is the second largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in our city (after transportation). Thousands of gas-fired water heaters and furnaces release thousands of tonnes of carbon dioxide and smog pollution, pretty much at nose level.

If we want a cleaner, greener city, we need to take a cleaner, greener bath or shower. One solution is solar water heating. On warm spring and summer days, the sun will provide all the hot water you need – zero emissions. In the winter, a solar water heater can still give freezing city water a big temperature boost before it hits your conventional water heater, so you use much less gas or electricity. Over a year, a solar water heating system can halve the average Toronto home’s gas or electricity use for producing hot water.

The technology is pretty simple and it technically works: millions of solar water heaters are in use around the world. It would work practically if solar hot water were made a priority. Unfortunately, the federal government cancelled the ecoENERGY incentives (the provincial incentive is still available for now) and with currently low electricity and gas prices (which don’t take into account the real costs of generation or pollution costs), purchasers of solar water heaters now face a long payback on their investment for doing the right thing.

Compare that to the situation for solar hot water’s cousin: solar electricity generation, also known as solar PV. Recognizing the need to get rid of dirty coal power and reduce emissions, the provincial government has established a farsighted program to pay a premium for zero emission solar generated electricity. Called a “feed-in tariff”, these special rates are jumpstarting the creation of a new solar industry in Ontario and driving the cost of components down as demand heats up.

The same approach is needed for solar hot water. Because solar hot water panels actually produce more energy per area, a feed-in tariff rate of less than half of what is currently being paid for solar PV reduce solar water system payback to 10 years, a reasonable investment time frame.

The Solar Neighbourhoods pilot in east-end Toronto -- now the largest community-based solar water heating project in Canada with 100 panels on residential roofs -- proved that installing a solar water heating works for Toronto homeowners; see www.solarneighbourhoods.ca In Germany, Japan and China, the value of using the free energy of the sun to heat their home’s hot water is accepted and the technology is rapidly being adopted.

It’s time we stop questioning investments in clean, renewable energy and instead get moving to deploy a proven emissions reduction technology that can help us meet our emission reduction obligations – and create a healthier city.

About Julia Langer

$40 million on Nathan Philips?

Toronto has a spending problem. You know it, I know it. Even our mayoral candidates know it.

“Toronto doesn’t have a funding problem. It does have a spending problem” - George Smitherman
“Toronto has a spending problem, not a revenue problem”- Rob Ford

It seems as if Smitherman and Ford have been drinking the same Kool-aid.

The biggest challenge for our new mayor is definitely going to be handling that beautiful budget of ours, but that’s a given. How they are going to do it is actually what we should all be worried about.

Ironically enough, today an article on some improvements to Nathan Philips Square caught my eye. I took a closer look and what I thought was just a minor enhancement turned out to be anything but.

Can someone please explain to me why we are spending $40 million to give Nathan Philips a facelift?

Alright, so it’s not the most modern or technologically impressive of places, but it’s not supposed to be either. Apparently the upgrades are going to make it a more inviting place. Well, I walk through it every day and the last thing I’m thinking is that it’s empty and cold.

Once the cold Toronto winter passes, the place is packed. It’s full of tourists taking a break from walking under the sun, kids running around playing and even couples enjoying a quiet romantic moment near the water.

There’s beauty in simplicity sometimes.

How will building yet another restaurant (that we don’t need) and creating a fancier landscape really benefit Torontonians? This multi-million dollar project is coming right out of the city’s capital budget too. Just what we need.

But hey – I’m all for an information and tourist Kiosk on Queen Street.

Let’s hope our new mayor can put this city’s money to good use because this sure isn’t a good way to start.

About Alexandra Orlando

Idle thoughts on red lights, traffic flow and pollution

While I applaud the city for recently making their anti-idling bylaw more stringent (decreased permitted idling time from three minutes to one minute) to help reduce pollution. I wonder if there are other ways that the city could make changes to help reduce pollution from cars.

I was driving down Bathurst St. last week at around 1 a.m. and somehow I had to stop at every traffic light from Steeles Ave.all the way down to south of Lawrence Ave.

As I was sitting there idling my car at each of the red lights I kept thinking about the amount of pollution that I was creating. I could understand having to stop and start if I was driving in rush hour traffic, however, I was coming down Bathurst at one in the morning!

There was no more than a handful of other cars on the road and I waited at a number of lights where no other cars or pedestrians crossed my path. I think if we could figure out some way to reduce the amount of unnecessary stopping and starting on major streets when traveling straight in one direction, we would be able to probably reduce our pollution by even more then the savings in emissions from reducing the amount of time one can idle their car.

I understand that if I'm driving along and making a number of turns and stops it will be inevitable that I will get some red lights, but when traveling down a major road with two lanes of traffic in each direction, there must be some way to set the traffic lights so that once you get a green light you can continue to get green lights after that if driving at a continuous speed.

I think the city, its councillors and civil servants should be looking at every way to reduce the amount of pollution we emit when driving as the way our city and region has developed often makes it necessary to drive places instead of walking or taking public transit, the ideal, less polluting alternatives.

About Adam Zendel

Of cops and blocs

Here's the rub, there are no villains in the room. Not among the police officers and brass gathered at the far side of the auditorium, not among the activists and lawyers on the other.  Not even in the middle, where a scattering of Toronto Police Board members prepare for a long afternoon of accusations and demands for accountability.

The usual suspects have signed up for their five minutes before the board -- five minutes is all each will get, and in most cases that's a blessing, because really, nothing new is being said, and the tone some employ is so annoying and superior and over-the-top, it makes me want to rip up my activist card and go sit somewhere else. For these, it's about scoring points, posturing, while some of the others, to their credit, show a lot of reflection, pain and angst. 

Chief Bill Blair is present, but is ostentatiously displaying passive-aggressive behavior by leafing through manuals, chatting to those on either side of him, or staring at the ceiling. Only a few times does he look at presenters, and those times have to do with people who bring some balance to their remarks.  Even so, it clearly distresses him, having to sit and take these hits. And not just him, but the chair and the members as  well, who are quick to take offence.

When your life and your identity have been defined by fighting the good fight, for progressive policies, for inclusion, for fairness, finding yourself the target of finger pointing and blame and outrage leaves such a disconnect in people's heads that they can barely believe this is happening to them, never mind find the wherewithal to accept the onslaught with good grace and hard self-examination. People like the chair, Alok Mukherjee, members like Adam Vaughn and Hamlin Grange, these are not right-wing stooges, these are folks who've walked the walk and fought the fight, dramatically changing the tone since the days of the pistol-packing Norm Gardener. 

That's what's so damn sad about all this, that good people were put in a circumstance not of their making, much like a lot of those rounded up at Queen St.and Spadina Ave. during the G20, and in one weekend lost so much trust, so much credibility, that its difficult to know if they can rebound successfully. 

The police service needs to stop denying that bad things occurred.  They did.  It was clear to anyone watching the coverage (as I did, not wanting to risk the streets) on CP24, not exactly a bastion of left leaning ideology. 

The Officer Bubbles fiasco, the over-enthusiastic take-downs, the collective punishment meted out for hours to those caught up by the kettling tactic, these are not illusory things, there are tapes, there is testimony. 

To deny is to refute everything the Service and the Board has gained over the last number of years, the sense of a new day that Blair brought with him when he talked about the reality of racial profiling by the cops.  This isn't the time to throw up barricades, but that's what's happening.  And in this Chief is wrongly supported by the board, even as they vote to do a very limited investigation of themselves, and by city council, which unanimously voted their support before any public hearing was conducted.

And activists need to stop calling thugs- those who smashed windows, terrified store employees, they need to stop calling them political prisoners and demanding their release.  Violence, whether employed by the cops or by those using black bloc tactics, is wrong and should be punishable, surely we can all agree to that.

I left the meeting four and a half hours after it began, depressed and angry at what the feds have done to us, and what we're doing to each other. 

Mostly, how we're failing our city.

About Pat Capponi

City services: Something's gotta give

Recently I've been chatting with friends about how tax money is spent on city services. Torontonians expect the city to operate smoothly, and when glitches occur, we notice. Whether it's the efficiency of garbage pick-up, the quality of TTC service, the condition of our city streets, the presence of public libraries and public health services, or the cleanliness of our parks and attractions, we expect a lot from our city.

My husband and I own our home and the property taxes we pay are not insignificant. I understand the principles of give and take - living in the city is expensive, but we have beautiful parks, many public services for children, families and the elderly, a world-class public library system, and decent roads. The city water I drink is clean and tastes good. The TTC, for all its recent troubles, gets me to where I need to go. Those of us who commute by bike are fortunate to be able to do so fairly safely.

But of course, there is never enough money for everything. Specifically, not enough tax money is generated to support the wide range of city services we want and expect. You can see at a glance what I mean when you take a look at this chart illustrating city expenses vs. city revenues provided by the City of Toronto web site.

So, what's a city to do? The answer is, we must compromise. But how, and on what?

In upcoming weeks and months, the mayoral candidates will be ramping up their campaigns. When listening to the positions and promises from the candidates, consider framing their arguments through a different lens: rather than focusing on what you want from your city, consider what you'd be willing to give up.

In a world of limited resources, where are you willing to compromise? Would you trade improved TTC service in exchange for reduced health resources for families and seniors? Would you pay more for public child care in exchange for more frequent garbage pick-up? How do you compare the need for affordable housing with the demand for clean water?

I certainly don't have the answers, but it's a different way of thinking about the candidates, and it's a perspective I'm going to try. At the very least, it will provide me with a new way of evaluating the campaigns as we get closer to Election Day on October 25.

About Kimberly Silk

Niagara ads should be a wakeup call for Toronto

The recent controversy surrounding the Niagara Parks Commission ad campaign promoting Niagara by exploiting the negative stereotypes of big city’s like Toronto has struck a nerve with some Toronto residents and politicians.

This overblown reaction by Toronto is based on a deep-rooted insecurity and arrogance that highlights the need for Toronto to do more to promote itself within the GTA and neighbouring regions.

I was planning to write about the need for Toronto to do more to promote itself to the 905, but this recent controversy has added a new aspect to my position.

The depiction of “the big city”, (which is perceived by most to bear a striking resemblance to Toronto) in the Niagara ad campaign is reasonable. Although the characterization of Toronto as crowded, dirty and unsafe is exaggerated, the ads do play into a stereotype that some GTA residents have of Toronto.

Let’s not forget that although Niagara is a friendly cousin of Toronto, it is a competitor when it comes to tourism. As such, this ad campaign is fair game in the battle to attain more tourist dollars. Tourism is a competitive industry by nature. You can either promote your city based on its strengths, or by exploiting another city’s weaknesses, however exaggerated that may be.

It is slightly amusing and somewhat ironic that the backlash from Toronto regarding the ads has actually helped Niagara tourism through additional earned media. It was a crafty decision on Niagara’s part to include this controversial slant to their ads because of the prolonged exposure that it is receiving from the media. And with some politicians wading into the issue, the results will be that much more lucrative for Niagara.

Toronto’s response to the Niagara ads should not be that of anger or offence. It should be a wakeup call that Toronto needs to do more to compete with Niagara and other regional municipalities that are fighting for increased tourism market share.

Toronto is a world-class city that should not be insecure about its strengths, neither should it take these strengths for granted. We have so many attractive features of this city that most would want to experience. We just need to start focusing more of our attention on promoting our strengths, as opposed to complaining about our perceived weaknesses.

About Dan Bordonali

Arts platforms: Two down, many more to go …

The dog days of summer may be upon us, but at least two mayoral candidates have taken time out from the BBQ circuit to reveal their arts platforms.

 

Joe Pantalone was the first to publicize his plans for the arts – the Cultural Capital Plan.  His three point plan covers:

 

- Phasing in over five years an increased investment in arts and culture to $25 per Torontonian

- Developing a Cultural Access Pass Program for new Canadian residents in Toronto

- Marketing Toronto as a screen industry leader throughout the world, and developing local screen industry jobs

 

Pantalone also endorses the Toronto Arts Council’s “Creative City: Block by Block” plan and Neighbourhood Arts Network initiatives.

 

I hope someone will point out to “Mayor Joe” that the Institute for Canadian Citizenship has been running a very successful Cultural Access Pass program in Toronto (and, in fact, elsewhere across Canada) since 2008.

 

Over in Rocco Rossi’s world, his Creative City Plan vows “major new role for the arts” by including an immediate 39-per-cent increase in per capita funding (also to $25 per Torontonian), the appointment of an Arts and Culture Commissioner and a commitment to match what other major North American cities invest in the arts.

 

For those who are interested in learning more about candidates’ arts platforms, Business for the Arts in association with ArtsVote, the Art Gallery of Ontario and the Toronto Arts Council will host The Mayoral Arts Debate on Wednesday, Sept.29 (7 p.m. at the AGO, Walker Court). 

 

Let’s hope the other candidates will put pen to paper to craft their platforms well before then …

About Gillian Hewitt Smith

What's the return policy on mayoral candidates?

If we don't like any of our options, can we "return" our mayoral candidates? You know, post them back on the shelf in whatever backroom they came from and find another option?

Don't get me wrong, our candidates are decent people, but I'm looking for something a bit better than "decent". After all, a "decent" mayor can't help Toronto forge into the future, can they?

A few nights ago, I was speaking to a friend about my recent travels to New Orleans and New York City. Like most conversations with 20-somethings who travel abroad ready to become consumed by a life that is similar but starkly different from their own, the conversation found its way to that inevitable path- Toronto vs. *insert cosmopolitan city here*

No, Richmond St. isn’t Bourbon Street and High Park will never be Central Park, but what about the cultures? The people? The spirit of the city?

Make no mistake that New Orleans and New York City are possessed by the spirit of innovation, creativity and resilience. After all, New Orleans is the birthplace of jazz and New York is the birthplace of hip hop. Both genres of music were created out of very oppressive, classist and even racist realities that forced people to turn lemons into lemonade.

Toronto lives in a 21st-century reality where we have, as my friend put it, “an embarrassment of riches”. Decent housing, decent social safety net, decent culture and entertainment. What more do we need? As a city, we have the means to maintain a decent standard of life.

And herein lies our problem.

We are too satisfied with “decent”. We’ve been afforded the luxuries of the first-world modern economy: free public education, health care and a city that would never tolerate the kind of discrimination that was once tolerated our (yes, I’m implicating Canada in this) country's history. My goodness, we can even protest and demand inquiries into the misuse and abuse of power without a death threat or public execution in sight.

Sarah Thompson can hop on the political bandwagon under the tattered banner of second wave feminism because she has a decent business track record. George Smitherman can walk away from a provincial fiscal fiasco and run for mayor with decent chance of winning because he’s a warm, engaging and decent guy (nice to speak to too). Rocco Rossi is a decent fundraiser and influencer, which appears to be all that you need to run a decent city like Toronto. Rob Ford has spent a fair number of years on city council and is the only candidate who can speak to the the inner-workings of the city most intimately, which, combined with his ability to reach the common (wo)man makes him a decent alternative. And Joe Pantalone... well he’s just a decent guy, but that’s about it as far as the mayoral race is concerned.

So with all of this decency, what are we left with with? Forgive me for saying this, but this complacent satisfaction with decent has only resulted in a mediocre mayoral race. A few friends have said that I should hold my judgement until late fall, but dammit I'm tired of watching Smitherman kiss babies, Rossi lap it up at barbeques and Thompson's tweets about days at the cottage. It's a race for goodness sakes. RUN!

It didn’t take long for me to realize that both New York and New Orleans are cities that will not settle for mediocrity. Instead, people demand more. They fight. They create. They resist. They innovate. They push the city to its limits by challenging what was once considered decent rules, decent laws and decent regulations. The people did not settle.

For those of us who are less than satisfied with the selection of mayoral candidates, who do we blame for the lack of selection? Big business? Educational institutions? Ourselves? By living, working and playing in this city, we shape the legacy of this city for the future. If our legacy is one of mediocrity, then expect mediocre leadership.

Next election, we should get candidates to complete a "Are you decent?" questionnaire. Those who score as "highly decent" will be returned. And by returned I mean that they will be immediately thanked for their time and encouraged to stick to their day jobs.

However, those who make it past the questionnaire will be invited to a three-day political ironman/ironwoman challenge created by the people of Toronto. It would include all kinds of challenges like the budget challenge ("find $100M in 48 hours"), a safety perception challenge ("to fund or not to fund: increase police budget or increase grants to communities?"). We could even have a popularity contest on Twitter (how many new followers can you get in one day?). That would certainly push our candidates out of the prosaic box of mediocrity, wouldn't it?

Yes, the ideas are wild, ridiculous even. But we need something to ensure that we don't ever have a mayoral race that leaves me and my well educated peers more inclined to follow Kevin Clarke Twitter feeds than get civically engaged.

About Tonika Morgan

Ontario Place just one part of a revitalized western waterfront

With news breaking that a long overdue makeover for Ontario Place is finally going to happen, it’s time focus shifted to how this fits into the waterfront revitalization plan and how it can change the western end of the waterfront.

The west end doesn’t have the abundant space the east end has but had a fun and unique history with the old Sunnyside Amusement Park. The park was unfortunately torn down to make way for the Gardiner in 1955. 

The parts that remain have seen better days and, in some cases, haven’t seen an upgrade since the 1980s.

It’s time for the city, with help from the province, to do a complete update of the west-end starting with Ontario Place and revive the area’s rich history.

This area has a lot going for it. It has a few beaches and parks, the renovated Palais Royale building, the Humber Bay Arch Bridge and part of the Martin Goodman Trail. Unfortunately, all of these feel cut-off from the rest of the neighbourhood even though the area is busy on weekends. 

Any redevelopment should reintroduce the beach to the neighbourhood. Longer-term planning would probably see the entire neighbourhood around Jameson Avenue redeveloped much like Regent Park has been and Lawrence Heights will be.

It’s a challenge, especially with the Gardiner and Lake Shore Boulevard in between, but I’m sure something can be done to repair this situation. Here are my suggestions on what can be done in the immediate future.

Ontario Place would be the crown jewel in the makeover. It should offer more open spaces and places to sit. There should be more opportunities to get out onto the water. 

Attractions should bring people of all ages to the park to enjoy, not just kids, and get away from some of the Expo ’67 architectural look and design that partly plagues the park today along with high admission prices.

It should also allow for some kind of innovation not seen anywhere else in the city but not become similar to Toronto’s other amusement park, Canada’s Wonderland.

There should be less reliance on driving to get there with beefed-up TTC streetcar services with, at the very least, if it is to be a 365-day-a-year attraction, an extension of the 509 Harbourfront route from the Exhibition to the new park. 

The extension of the 509 should extend from Ontario Place further west connecting the beaches and the condos built in the area and eventually merge into the 508 Lakeshore route to Long Branch.

The beaches in the area are, by the looks of it, well maintained throughout the year but could use an update. 

Toronto has some recent success with beaches. HTO Park and Sugar Beach are a hit and manage to bring back some of that old-time fun to the beach while maintaing its modernity. Could this not be done in the west-end as well?

Walkways connecting neighbourhoods to the beach could be updated and improved by making it easier for people to walk or bike over to the beach. 

The smaller buildings and huts around the area should be redesigned to reflect the past and tie them into the remaining structures to offer visitors, young and old, a pleasant ‘blast from the past’. 

More benches and open areas should be added along with things like bocce and horseshoe lanes.  

Ultimately, there are many possibilities to redeveloping this area of the waterfront. I’m only offering one possibility. I hope a new and improved Ontario Place sparks development west.

The opportunity to do this couldn’t be better as the whole city is undergoing a major makeover. It’s time to bring back the history we lost when the city redesigned the neighbourhood for the sake of 1950s and 1960s modernity.

About Robert Kirsic

Poverty is not just about the money

Last week Catherine Porter wrote an excellent column in The Star titled “Playground politics are unfair” where she explained how Thorncliffe Park lacks a playground despite having the largest child population in the city. Actually they had one, which “was ripped out in 2006 after it was deemed unsafe by city inspectors.” Its replacement is slated for: 2015. Yes, 10 years to get a replacement playground.

By coincidence, this week as part of the work that I do leading the non-profit 8-80 Cities, we had presentations, workshops and interviews with the Thorncliffe Park community. Not only was I able to confirm this sad reality, but also visited an elementary school which has over 600 students in JK classes; how can you provide personalized education in that environment?

Parks and small schools are becoming a luxury that only the rich neighbourhoods have access to and this is wrong. It seems very Canadian to pride ourselves on being an egalitarian society, but the social and economic divide is growing in Toronto and across Canada. More than one in five households in Toronto lives under the poverty cut-off, in Thorncliffe Park it is 47 per cent, almost one in two, and there are poorer neighbourhoods.

Next door, Flemingdon Park does not even have a grocery store. Both are terrible places for pedestrians, cyclists and transit is proportionally extremely expensive. The bus stops are dirty and deteriorated.

Who wants to live in a neighbourhood if you take your children to the park and you find out that there is no playground and its replacement will be installed in 10 years? How about in a place with no grocery stores, which means that you need to travel long distances just to buy eggs or milk, probably paying more for transportation than the milk itself? No wonder we found most people in a transitory mood, as if wishing to get a bit of money to get out of that neighbourhood as fast as possible. And this is very wrong.

Now the news is that the Harper government has decided to purchase 65 war planes at $160 million each for a total of $9 billion, which added the maintenance contract totals $16 billion. This is in the middle of an economic crisis and done by a government asking the citizens for austerity.

When we spend $16 billion in war planes and over $1 billion in security for the G20 meeting but does not have $120,000 for a playground in the neighbourhood with the highest rate of children in the city, we have a problem with our priorities. By the way, the money spent in one fighter plane could buy 2,051 playgrounds.

Last year the City of Toronto, the government of Ontario and the federal government joined forces to spend $2.6 billion to build 8 km of subway in Vaughan, which will not solve any major transportation issue in Toronto. A Bus Rapid Transit could have been done for 10 per cent of that cost or a Light Rail for 20 per cent, satisfying current and future needs and leaving money for all the pedestrian and protected bikeway infrastructure in the entire GTA.

Wouldn’t it be nice if they joined forces to end poverty in Toronto? They might not be able to provide housing for all in the short term, but relatively quickly they could provide magnificent public parks for all, as well as state of the art schools, safe and beautiful sidewalks, crosswalks, a grid of protected bikeways linking all places of origin and destination in the city.

This would certainly contribute to really having a more egalitarian city, with healthier and happier residents, who would strengthen their sense of belonging, for new and old Canadians alike. Along the way, they would also improve the transportation system, end up with a cleaner environment and have a more vibrant Toronto.

Ending poverty is NOT a technical or financial issue: it is political.

About Gil Penalosa