Toronto lacks the leadership to address effects of climate change

Toronto had two “once in a century” storms this summer. If you are bothering to read my column, I can only assume you understand the cause—climate change. I know there are still corporate lap dogs licking oil men’s boots and denying its existence, but for the most part, the era of denial is over, except for the those whose money solidly depends on infinite oil and those suckers who believe them. Sadly, for us, the former group is highly influential, and the latter group is stubbornly numerous. 

After two damaging storms in a summer, I’d like to think that the bulk of Torontonians have woken up to the fact that not only do we need to cut back on fossil fuel use, we need to think long and hard about our infrastructure and how we can reasonably survive the next “once in a century” storm next summer. 

This will make me truly unpopular, but this is going to take money, and that money needs to come in the form of tax increases; nobody is coming to help us. We can’t have nice things if all we are worried about are imaginary gravy trains driven by drug-dealing political leaders. We will need higher taxes, more robust infrastructure, and  free public transit. This will not fix our problems, but will make life far less miserable for a lot of people, including people who had to walk through sewage to get back to their flooded homes. I am sure they don’t want to do it again during the next “once in a century storm” next summer. 

There’s a lot we can learn from our neighbours in Mississauga. While Toronto cowardly shelved their plans for a storm water charge, Mississauga went ahead with theirs. It funded projects to protect flood susceptible lands including projects that were key in mitigating the impact of all that flood water within the city. 

Did anyone else notice how much worse residents in Etobicoke were compared to their neighbours in Mississauga? There was no magic involved. It was good planning and politicians with enough foresight to not cave to the few whiners about taxes. They actually did something. 

While Mississauga has stormwater infrastructure worth an estimated $7.6 billion, we have constantly flooded streets and basements. In 2024, Mississauga allocated $33.7 million for stormwater improvements that include erosion control initiatives. Since 2016, they have invested over $231.5 million in stormwater infrastructure. 

Their 10-year plan includes an additional $340 million for ongoing upgrades and maintenance to enhance their resilience against future storms. All of this is made possible because they had leadership that did the right thing and implemented a stormwater charge, something that Toronto still has not done nearly a decade later. We are an absolute embarrassment, and we will have no choice but to go crying to other levels of government because we insist on keeping taxes for those rich enough to own property. If this is starting to sound absurd, it’s because it is.  

Next summer’s storms are coming whether we prepare for them or not. We can either do something, mitigate the risk and damage, or just whine about how terrible it was at the end of the summer. I would  rather pay higher taxes than have us all get dysentery as our infrastructure fails bit by bit. Climate change is coming for us and we need real leadership that will do something about it.

Terri Chu is an engineer committed to practical environmentalism. This column is dedicated to helping the community reduce energy use, and help distinguish environmental truths from myths. Send questions, comments, and ideas for future columns to Terri at terri.chu@whyshouldicare.ca.

READ MORE BY TERRI CHU:

• GREENINGS: Paris can do it, why can’t we? (Summer 2024)
• GREENINGS: Greater density along transit hubs is good for all of us (May 2024)
• GREENINGS: A lament for the tree inventory (Mar. 2024)
• GREENINGS: Our trees are in crisis (Feb. 2023)
• GREENINGS: It’s time for climate truth not trinkets (Dec. 2022)
• GREENINGS: Vote this election (Provincial Election 2022)
• GREENINGS: The disproportionate impact of inflation (Jan. 2022)
• GREENINGS: Avoid the stress of stuff at Xmas (Dec. 2021)
• GREENINGS: More greenspace, fewer cars (Apr. 2021)
• GREENINGS: Urban agriculture has many environmental dividends(Mar. 2021)
• GREENINGS: May you find your xingfu in 2021 (Jan. 2021)
• GREENINGS: What happens if we don’t want to go back to the “before” times? (July 2020)
• GREENINGS: Capitalist truths exposed (May 2020)
• GREENINGS: Reflecting on who actually matters (Mar. 2020)
• GREENINGS: Short-term gains lead to long-term losses (Feb. 2020)
• GREENINGS: Emergency climate calls to city met with busy signal (Jan. 2020)
• GREENINGS: Moral cowardice fuels our failures (Dec. 2019)
• GREENINGS: Unpacking the winning bling (Nov. 2019)
• GREENINGS: Another election, another round of disappointing platforms(Oct. 2019)
• GREENINGS: Addiction to capitalism will lead to overdose (Sept. 2019)
• GREENINGS: Sing the same tune, PLEASE (August 2019)
• GREENINGS: Not sure what’s worse, climate crisis or denying it? (Summer 2019)
• GREENINGS: Plastic ban born of necessity (May 2019)
• GREENINGS: Confronting consumption (Spring 2019)
• GREENINGS: Preventing chaos, mass starvation (Dec. 2018)