PHOTO BY NATHALIE RODRIGUEZ/GLEANER NEWS: Taddle Creek Park’s planters enhance its natural beauty. Exemplifying the best of community green spaces, the park earned top marks for being a relaxing oasis in the heart of the Annex.

Some parks still suffer from litter and disrepair

Grading our Greenspace returns this month in the first of a three-part series. For this popular feature, we assess many of the parks in and surrounding the Annex considering factors like functionality, safety, cleanliness, seating, and shade. As in past years, our grades are widely varied: after a significant renovation, Christie Pits earned top marks for variety and improved play equipment. Other parks, meanwhile, suffer from lack of maintenance, litter, and general proximity to fast food garbage from Bloor Street West. What’s your favourite local park? Email gleanereditor@gmail.com to let us know, and tell us how we did on our assessments.

Compiled by Geremy Bordonaro and Nathalie Rodriguez

Doctor’s Parkette/College-Brunswick Parkette

15 Brunswick Ave.

Time: 11:30 a.m.

Grade: B (last year: none)

Reason to go: This parkette is barely recognizable from its former self. What was once a dirty and unpleasant patch in the middle of the stretch of College Street between Spadina Avenue and Bathurst Street is now a stylish and clean place to relax during the day. The area has a lovely modern design with ample seating and light postings. Plants and trees are still young and need some time to grow, but show promise. We have our doubts, however, that the park will remain in this condition for much longer, as its past still looms: graffiti has already started to appear around the edges of the seating area.

Overheard: “Hey Mom, check out this sweet jump!”

Did you know: The medical facilities that are close to the park inspired the name.

Euclid Parkette

711 Euclid Ave.

Time: 2:00 p.m.

Grade: D- (last year: D-)

Reason to go: There is no rational reason to come to this park. The only reason this place does not fail is that it does have something resembling seating and trees. The only changes Euclid Parkette has seen have been for the worst: flower and plant life are snuffed out and have long since died, benches are still slowly degrading, and a myriad of interesting types of garbage litter both the path and nearby greenery. The smell is the worst possible part: a scent of all the garbage receptacles of nearby stores mixed with the awful deep-fried smell of the local KFC/Taco Bell. Don’t come here.

Overheard: A nearby parked car blasting Migos’s hit rap anthem “Bad and Boujee”.

Did you know: There is some evidence to speculate that the nearby Korea Town used to be Greek Town.

Christie Pits Park

750 Bloor St. W.

Time: 2:15 p.m.

Grade: A+ (last year: B+)

Reason to go: Last year Christie Pits found itself in the unfortunate position of having an endless amount of construction going on. Now it is back to being an excellent park. The sheer amount of space and things to do, all kept in excellent condition, is frankly staggering. There are beautiful flower beds, many different types of trees, rolling hills, basketball courts, ping pong tables, and a new and improved play-set for children. The key draw of Christie Pits has always been the baseball fields. These baseball fields are excellent and usually full of determined players during the afternoon. Overall Christie Pits has become a great park once again and we look forward to whatever changes await it in the future.

Overheard: “I’m hitting all dingers today!”

Did you know: Officially called Willowvale Park until 1983 when the city just went with the name everyone else uses: Christie Pits.

Seaton Park/Albany Parkette

Albany Avenue, north of Bloor Street West

Time: 2:30 p.m.

Grade: B (last year B)

Reason to go: Albany Parkette is just on the south side of Bathurst Station. The place is filled with graffiti art on walls, garbage bins, checkered tables, signs, and the fence surrounding the space. As for the checkered tables, the seats along them are destroyed, with some missing the wood placed on top of the brick seat. Plant-wise there isn’t much, but there was tons of green aside from the grass being dry. Generally people just stop by the park for about five minutes to take a call or organize their belongings when exiting the subway. It’s a decent area to stop by for a bit although it could use some renovation to create a more comfortable seating place.

Overheard: Screeching from the train coming from the nearby subway grating.

Did you know: The parkette was built in the 1960s, and was constructed after the subway was built.

St. Alban’s Park

Barton Street and Albany Avenue

Time: 3:00 p.m.

Grade: A (last year: none)

Reason to go: St Alban’s is a gorgeous park with a pathway marked by young trees. Once the trees have fully grown it will add a green canopy to the park. There are plenty of seats for when people who choose to sit on benches rather than setting a blanket on the grass, along with plenty of cool shade. There is more than enough room for a dog to run.

Overheard: “Good boy!” said a man belly-rubbing his dog.

Did you know: The Jane’s Walk festival often passes by St Alban’s Park.

Gwendolyn MacEwen Park

Walmer Road and Lowther Avenue

Time: 1:30 p.m.

Grade: B+ (last year: none)

Reason to go: Gwendolyn MacEwen Park is lovely. It’s a gorgeous little space for members in the community to have some alone time. The set up is very basic: six benches and a couple of flowers here and there. The only down side is with certain benches there’s no shade causing the hot sun to strike right into your eyes. Despite the lack of shade, the park’s elegant simplicity makes it a unique beauty.

Overheard: The rustle of the wind blowing through nearby trees.

Did you know: Gwendolyn MacEwen received the Governor General’s Literary Award twice: for The Shadow-maker in 1969 and for Afterworlds in 1987, which was awarded posthumously.

Sally Bird Park

194 Brunswick Ave.

Time: 2:15 p.m.

Grade: B- (last year B)

Reason to go: Sally Bird Park is just a ten-minute walk from Harbord Collegiate Institute, making it a hangout spot for high-schoolers, which has its pros and cons. Pro: students have a place to ramble on about their high-school drama. Con: students taking up most of the space when there’s barely any space to begin with. As a result no one else in the community has the opportunity to use the workout equipment, which just lies there untouched and rusted. No one wants to work out surrounded by teenagers spitting onto the grass. The park is in decent condition, with enough shade for hot summer days, and a water fountain. But there could be more benches as there is only one. Overall the park would be better if it provided access to all with a larger green space.

Overheard: “Yo bro!”

Did you know: Sally Bird Park once contained a playground, but was it renovated by request of the community, which wanted to have workout equipment for those in the area to easily access a free workout structure.

Taddle Creek Park

Bedford Road and Lowther Avenue

Time: 2:00 p.m.

Grade: A+ (Previous year A+)

Reason to go: Taddle Creek Park is busy with people of all ages coming to this location for various reasons. Whether they’re just walking by, going to the playground, having a chat with a friend or just need a place to sit and relax, this is the place. It’s peaceful and contains enough seats to serve all, including metal benches surrounding a fountain sculptured as a pot. The fountain provides a peaceful sound as the water hits the floor and birds chirp in melody, and gorgeous pink tulips surround the area, making it more lively during the spring and summer. Since this park is more populated than others it’s hard to maintain, but so far the well-maintained garbage bins are well used, as evidenced by the lack of litter.

Overheard: A nearby neighbour mowing his lawn mid-afternoon.

Did you know: A river used to flow through the park. It had a variety of names in the past, including Brewery Creek, Little Don River, Goodwin Creek, University Creek, Wolz Creek, but the park is named for the one most commonly used: Taddle Creek.

Ed and Anne Mirvish Parkette

In front of Bathurst subway station

Time: 1:20 p.m.

Grade: D- (last year D+)

Reason to go: This small parkette located in a busy and noisy street could’ve been used as a spot for people to sit down for a bit. But the park has nowhere to sit, only a single bench under a dying tree that is covered in bird droppings, a dirty napkin, and peanut shells. Little effort is made to maintain the plants. The flowers planted off to the side were dry and so was the grass. Until it gets cleaned up, this park will remain a poor legacy to the Mirvishes.

Overheard: Man outside Bathurst Station begging for change.

Did you know: With Honest Ed’s transformation soon coming, the nearby sign on Markham and Bloor streets has been moved to be refurbished and possibly hung at the Ed Mirvish Theatre.

Joseph Burr Tyrrell Park

Brunswick Avenue, north of Bloor Street West

Time: 3:00 p.m.

Grade: C- (last year: none)

Reason to go: Joseph Burr Tyrrell Park, down Dalton Road, is quite small and in need of renovation. The playground has a decent amount of equipment including slides, swings, a rock climber, and a seesaw, all of which are rusted and covered with graffiti. It’s a feature that extends to the fence surrounding the park, a picnic table, and a bench that lies just outside the fence. On the good side people walking by get to view lovely red roses in planters, but of course there’s graffiti on the flower planters to ruin the sight.

Overheard: “I learned middle C all by myself,” said a young girl while on the swings.

Did you know: The sign of the park incorrectly spells Tyrrell as Tyrell. Joseph Burr Tyrrell was a Canadian geologist, cartographer, and mining consultant.

Huron Street Playground

495 Huron St.

Time: 1:15 p.m.

Grade: B+ (last year D+)

Reason to go: Huron Street Playground is a calming, clean park with tons of people biking by. After last year’s renovation it’s now the perfect location to enjoy the outdoors. It has a small playground for children to enjoy with new equipment, including a net climb and swings. The atmosphere is clean, with a pathway going through the park and plenty of benches in fine condition, along with logs placed in various spots for seats. Although the fence surrounding the park is rusted, it is overall a peaceful setting in which to relax and eat lunch or read a book. Not worth travelling a distance to, but great for members in the area that are just a walk away.

Overheard: A family of three singing along to One Direction while walking by the park.

Did you know: Approximately 7 to 8 years ago students at University of Toronto fixed the playground by fundraising and planting.

Huron Washington Parkette

Huron Street and Washington Avenue

Time: 2:30 p.m.

Grade: B- (last year A-)

Reason to go: Just by University of Toronto lies Huron Washington Park, mostly a place for children with benches for parents to watch over them. Other than that there isn’t much else to do, as there are picnic tables, but they are torn apart, cracked, and not very clean. It’s hard to imagine who would enjoy eating there. Plenty of trees provide shade, but there’s very little grass, just some dry soil.

Overheard: “Look at that one!” a middle-aged women said to her husband, pointing to a pigeon.

Did you know: The nearby University of Toronto Schools was intended to be two separate schools when founded by the University of Toronto in 1910.

Correction (June 28, 2017): The print version misspelled Greenspace in the introduction, and stated that Gwendolyn MacEwen received the Governor General’s Literary Award for The Shadow-make, instead of The Shadow-maker.

READ MORE:

GRADING OUR GREENSPACE: Meet our parks supervisor (August 2016)

Part two of our 2016 parks review (July 2016)

PART ONE: Green sanctuaries in the heart of the city (June 2016)

Grading our Greenspace (2015)

PARA AGM focused on Mirvish Village development

By Geremy Bordonaro

Westbank Projects Corp.’s Mirvish Village development was the focus of the Palmerston Area Residents’ Association (PARA) annual general meeting last month.

“There have been dozens of meetings and literally thousands of hours poured into this so that it could be made better in each and every iteration,” said Roy Sawyer, a Markham Street resident and member of PARA’s Mirvish Village Task Group. “The volunteers who have helped out with this really deserve the highest praise.”

The group’s main goal was to keep residents informed on the project’s progress and represent the neighbourhood’s interests. The work included an unprecedented number of meetings and a huge amount of research by the community volunteers. The sheer amount of input has redefined how the city had to look at how development cycles work.

“We don’t measure development by years,” said Mike Layton (Ward 19, Trinity-Spadina). “But with this one we did just because of the huge amount of community involvement there was throughout the process.”

Layton presented his thoughts on the development and what he and his office were hoping to accomplish in their dealings with Westbank. A large part of his goal was to make sure that the area was still livable for those who are slowly being priced out of living in the Annex.

“One thing we heard, more than anything else, was making sure that our neighbourhood was still affordable. Affordability was a different question thirty or forty years ago or even ten years ago. I bought my first place five years ago and it was much more affordable even then. Looking at that offer to create affordable, or more affordable, housing in our area was seen as one of the top goals of ours.”

Ward 19 is home to a lot of development projects, but Layton was especially concerned about working with the community on the Mirvish Village project.

“We hear the rhetoric down at city hall. ‘Oh they’re just doing it for all that money. People are buying off those city councillors!’” Layton said. “But we want the planning to work and we want the community to work. We want the development to work regardless of what we get out of it in the end.”

Making this development work is particularly important to PARA as the community will certainly feel the impact of more residents and businesses in the neighbourhood.

“At this pace this is probably going to be the biggest change that will happen to our neighbourhood in a century. We need to ask fundamental questions that we don’t normally think much about,” said Paul MacLean, chair of PARA, in his opening statements. “What will these changes mean for our community? What is a good neighbourhood anyways? Questions like these are changed by this Mirvish Village development.”

And questions like these will have to be answered when the development takes place, but for now, in the words of Jonah Letovsky of Westbank, the site is going to see the first stages of development very soon.

“We anticipate being able to start site activity within the next two months. That means the demolition of Honest Ed’s, along Bathurst Street, and the small retail along Markham Street. Headway on the next site activity will likely start in the fall.”

READ MORE:

NEWS: Development dominates discussion (May 2017)

PHOTO BY EMILIE JONES/GLEANER NEWS: Seaton Village’s Karma Co-op celebrates 45 years on June 24.

Co-op creates community through food

By Emilie Jones

In our fast-paced, busy world, Karma Co-op has managed to stay true to its philosophy of creating a tight-knit community built around sustainable food. Although there have been changes since it was founded 45 years ago, Karma’s ideals continue to revolve around the people: their wants, their needs, and their produce.

As Joe Cressy (Ward 20, Trinity-Spadina) notes, “We started as a community connected to food, then became disconnected, and now we are returning to our roots in recent years.”

This is what Karma prides itself on. Its members see food as more than simply something we eat. While Karma’s focus used to be on selling bulk products to reduce packaging and associated waste, it has progressed to accommodate a variety of different dietary needs including organic, gluten-free, and vegan.

“Karma is a celebration of food,” explains Jennifer Hunter of the Seaton Village Residents’ Association. “[You] go there not only because you care about your own well-being, but other people’s well-being, and the planet’s well-being. Food is purchased responsibly, grown and harvested with respect and acknowledgement to the people who created that food.”

She adds that “Karma has never just been about the food. It brings together people who share similar philosophies and a mindful way of living.”

That philosophy is underscored by its co-operative nature. To be a member of Karma, people must volunteer to work two shifts a month in the store. This leads to a real sense of community, where shoppers and customers are interchangeable.

“l like the idea that everyone knows each other and works with each other,” said Karma employee Alex Molina, “it’s a common theme for employees and members alike.”

Similarly, James Byrne chose to work at Karma because he likes the feeling of community and getting to know members, who in turn help to determine what the store sells and how it works.

Since Karma is much more than a store, the people who shop there are hardly customers. Everyone is equal, and everyone helps one another. Being part of the Karma co-op means having stimulating conversations about the politics and ethics of food consumption, and a variety of other topics. These conversations can happen one-on-one while getting groceries, but also at guest lectures that are open to the wider public. It’s very much at home in the active community of Seaton Village, a hidden location of sorts that is not without some challenges.

“[The location] is both a blessing and a curse,” says manager Talia McGuire. “It is a hidden gem, so people feel like they’ve discovered something awesome, but there is no walk-by traffic.” However, as McGuire notes, gross profit is not what Karma is after.

Nonetheless, Hunter explains that Karma does struggle with “how to stay true to its vision and still be commercially valuable”.

This is why Karma has made some changes in the 45 years since it was founded, such as the different tiers of membership types. Instead of volunteering hours, people can pay a fee to shop at Karma. There are also trial memberships, which allow people to access Karma as a member for one month before deciding if they would like to continue. There is also parental leave, vacation leave, and pay per quarter. In other words, Karma does its best to be flexible and not make members feel permanently obligated.

“In a super crazy, busy world that can be intimidating, where we don’t stop to smell the roses, Karma is a moment where you can take a breath,” says Hunter.

And on June 24 the community will gather to celebrate the co-op’s forty-fifth anniversary. Various co-ops will be in attendance, including Together We’re Bitter, the brewery providing beer for the occasion, and Urbane Cyclist, which will offer free bike tune-ups. Speakers will include Karma’s founding president and Cressy.

PHOTO BY GEREMY BORDONARO/GLEANER NEWS: Attendees at the third public consultation on the Bloor Street Pilot Bike Lanes annotated a map with comments on the pilot project. The annotations devolved into a war of words, in which one resident found himself battling another over the viability of businesses and bikes.

Economic impact of bike lanes still unclear

By Geremy Bordonaro

When it comes to bike lanes, business owners along Bloor Street West are evenly split: about half support them, and about half don’t. It’s a rift between business owners who think the lanes are a boon and those who think they are a bane.

“The feedback that we’ve got back from business owners so far is split,” said Joe Cressy (Ward 20, Trinity-Spadina). “For some businesses we’ve been told that it’s bringing more customers into the area and in to their shops. For other businesses we’ve heard concerns over issues like delivery and loading. What we are trying to do is understand the concerns and find a way to address them.”

At the heart of the debate is whether or not the bikes have had a positive impact on sales.

[pullquote]“I feel like some of my customers would try to murder me if I said anything against [bike lanes]”—Miranda Black, Theodore 1922[/pullquote]

“What we’ve seen [in other areas] is when bike lanes come in to downtown environments business goes up. It brings more customers in. I hope that’s the case,” Cressy said. “Our economic impact study will tell us whether that’s happening or not. In the meantime we want to improve things to mitigate any impact.”

One of the street’s shop owners who is definitely in favour of the lanes is Brent Robinson from Sweet Pete’s Bike Shop.

“[Our sales are] marginally better. It’s tough to say because we are a very weather-specific business. Even with the bike lanes if it is rainy or cloudy out people aren’t necessarily going to bike to work or going to buy bikes. We’ve not had the best spring on record. We’ve not noticed a huge increase but there is an increase.”

But for other shops, the opposite is true, as in the case of Risque Clothing, which owns two shops on Bloor Street West.

“I have been very busy trying to get my businesses back on their feet due to the very negative effect of the pilot bike lanes,” said Ondina Carvalh, owner of Risque. “My business has declined terribly since the start of the pilot.”

While quite a few business owners say they have been negatively impacted by the bike lanes, many are reluctant to speak out against them for fear of retaliation.

“I feel like some of my customers would try to murder me if I said anything against them,” said Miranda Black, owner and manager of Theodore 1922.

That’s where the Toronto Centre for Active Transportation (TCAT) comes in. An advocacy group that works to make streets more inclusive for walking and cycling, TCAT is conducting an economic study aimed at finding and addressing the concerns of business owners.

A comprehensive survey of consumers and merchant owners along Bloor Street, it will compare statistics from before and after the bike lanes were installed to assess whether there has been any change in the area.

“It’s been mixed. We are getting both support and some concerns expressed,” said Nancy Smith Lea, director of TCAT. “What we’re going to be doing is read each response, and categorize it as being either positive or negative. If there are concerns we note what they are. Once we’ve done that work we’ll release a report that will be openly available.”

Cressy hopes the study will lead to a good outcome for all the parties involved.

“If we were to get the outcome of the economic impact study that showed when you looked at retail trends in the city of Toronto and found that compared to other main streets, Bloor [Street] is doing well, I would say that would be a big win. I believe that bike lanes can be a win-win for business and commuters. I’m hopeful and optimistic that this will be the case.”

READ MORE:

CHATTER: Preliminary data on Bloor Street pilot bike lane released (March 2017)

CHATTER: Ground-breaking bike lanes launch on Bloor Street (August 2016)

NEWS: Bikes blessed for another season (June 2016)

FOCUS: An early advocate for bike lanes (June 2016)

NEWS: Bike lanes for Bloor Street (May 2016)

The faster we lower speeds, the more lives we save (October 2015)

Early brewer the basis for Bloor Street’s name (May 2015)

A mediated settlement has been reached regarding the future of 316 Bloor St. W. Representatives from the City of Toronto, the Annex and Harbord Village residents’ associations, and State Building Group (which owns the building) met for two days to address concerns about the developer’s original proposal to raise a 42-storey building on the site.

It was to have consisted of 535 single bedroom or bachelor condominium units. The proposal — derided by some as a “vertical rooming house” — was loudly opposed at a community meeting in April 2015, and since then has been subject to several appeals at the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB). In opposing the development, the city argued that it did not meet the criteria set out by the Bloor Block Plan, passed by Toronto City Council in January.

The settlement includes lowering the number of storeys from 42 to 29, adding community space, and changing the unit mix so at least 30 per cent of the units are two- or three-bedroom condominiums.

In other OMB news, the University of Toronto has taken its application to build a student residence at the corner of Spadina and Sussex avenues to the provincial body. The application includes an appeal of the city’s decision to list the building that houses the Ten Editions bookstore. Meanwhile, community consultations continue on the university’s proposed application to revise and update its secondary plan. Essentially an exemption to the Planning Act, the application would allow the university to build any structure in a 108-hectare area so long as it is consistent with what the school calls character areas.

—Geremy Bordonaro/Gleaner News

READ MORE:

NEWS: Tall tower before OMB, as city battles back with block study (August 2016)

NEWS: “Vertical rooming house” rejected (May 2015)

Catching up with history (May 2014)

Flea markets are coming to two of the area’s most historical neighbourhoods. The Kensington Market Flea Market will launch June 25 and run every last Sunday of the month from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. until October 29.

“I’m a part of the Kensington community and I always thought a flea market would be a good addition, and Kensington has got a flea market feel to it already,” said organizer Brock Sheppard.

The flea market, which coincides with Pedestrian Sundays, will offer a diverse array of goods in keeping with the market’s multicultural flavour. Shoppers can expect repurposed and handmade artisanal items like accessories and wooden carvings. There will also be a variety of foods and an ice cream maker serving coconut-based ice cream. Vendor spots are still available; contact kensingtonflea@gmail.com for further information.

Running the last Saturday of each month from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. at 252 Dupont St. is the Madame Boeuf Flea Market. Organizer Desiree Kotnala envisions the market as a place to “engage with the neighbourhood and have a place where the neighbourhood can pass by and get fresh baked goods, cups of coffee and have a really great afternoon.” The market will run until October.

—Nathalie Rodriguez/Gleaner News

Cycle Toronto has launched a new program aimed at boosting business on Bloor Street. Pick up a “Bike and Buy: Tour de Bloor Passport” from Cycle Toronto and have it stamped every time you eat or shop at one of 73 participating businesses between Avenue Road and Shaw Street. Passport-holders will be entered in a draw for discounts and prizes, including a Simcoe Bike valued at $850 from Curbside Cycle. The program will run until the end of the September. Passports are available at Curbside Cycle, Sweet Pete’s B-Side (Annex), and bloorlovesbikes.ca.

The program is a “win-win for everyone”, says Albert Koehl, one of the founders of Bells on Bloor. “If businesses are happy, they will support bike lanes.”

The program is supported by all local residents’ associations, the Bloor St. Culture Corridor, Trinity-St. Paul’s United Church and Centre for Faith, Bells on Bloor, as well as councillors Mike Layton (Ward 19, Trinity-Spadina) and Joe Cressy (Ward 20, Trinity-Spadina). Cycle Toronto is a not-for-profit advocacy group that promotes cycling, cycling infrastructure and policies.

—Annemarie Brissenden with files from Nathalie Rodriguez/Gleaner News

At 150, Canada has much to celebrate. We are, relatively speaking, an open, democratic, tolerant, and welcoming nation set amongst a vast, beautiful landscape that has few peers. Indeed, called upon to describe Canada, many among us may point to our pristine lakes and rivers. But such an image may yet prove to be a mirage, for a recent nationwide assessment of Canada’s watersheds found significant disturbances to their quality and sustainability.

[pullquote]“With just 0.5 per cent of the world’s population Canada has jurisdiction of 20 per cent of the global freshwater supply.”[/pullquote]

Canada has 25 watersheds, each made up of 167 sub-watersheds. And, according to a WWF-Canada study released this month, all of the watersheds are under threat. The first national effort of its kind in decades, the report chronicles how pollution, habitat loss, fragmentation, alteration of flow, climate change, and invasive species are having an impact on the nation’s freshwater supply.

This isn’t just a national issue. With just 0.5 per cent of the world’s population Canada has jurisdiction of 20 per cent of the global freshwater supply. In an increasingly thirsty world, it is incumbent on us to understand the impact on our population, our industries (including transportation and energy production), and climate change is having on our finite resource. We have a duty to be stewards of our planet — something that strikes us as downright Canadian.

Pollution remains the most serious threat to our water resource, with wastewater effluent, industrial discharges, and urban runoff being the largest contributors. In the Prairies and in southwestern Ontario, agricultural contamination includes pesticides, phosphorus, and nitrogen. Pipeline incidents and pollution from transportation accidents affect water far outside areas of population density. The Canadian National Railway Company was recently fined $2.6 million for spilling 90 litres of diesel fuel into Edmonton’s North Saskatchewan River. The fine was higher because the company failed to report the spill, and only admitted to it after authorities traced its source back to CN, whose name is now on the list of the federal Environmental Offenders Registry (oh that it had the same weight as the Sex Offender Registry).

Alteration of flow — installing large dams and reservoirs — disrupts the flooding cycles and variations that are natural to all river systems. The Churchill River in Labrador was highly altered to permit the Muskrat Falls hydroelectric facility. The largest such installation in Canada is located in the La Grande sub-watershed in Quebec.

As Canada tries to find ways to meet its greenhouse gas emission goals, we must be cautious about developing more hydroelectric power projects, as they will no doubt have a commensurately higher impact on our waterways and the ecosystems that they support.

The WWF-Canada report also attempted to identify the quantity of water used for drinking, mining, and manufacturing (except for oil and gas production). Significant habitat loss was found in the 167 sub-watersheds as natural habitat adjacent waterways have been converted to farmland or cleared for lumber extraction, both of which add to the polluted run-off.

What may have started as a four-year long comprehensive analysis of the state of our water may soon yield a realization of the massive depth of our data deficiency: we only have data on 67 of our 167 sub-watersheds. Of the 67 we do have data on, 42 have poor or merely fair water quality, not exactly a promising predictor about the health of the rest. And, we are still ill equipped to understand the wild card effects of climate change more broadly.

We lack a national standard for measuring various stressors and a need to bring existing data to a common place that is open to everyone. Data collection, analysis, sharing, and updating should be an initiative that is bolstered. It’s not that provincial, regional, and municipal authorities should stop doing what they are doing, but it should be a coordinated effort led by the federal government.

The watersheds themselves transcend boundaries and Canadians need to work together to make informed decisions about how we use and protect our freshwater ecosystems and wildlife.

Imagine that as a legacy to the next 150 years: a freshwater monitoring system.

READ MORE

EDITORIAL: Revoke U of T’s unchecked “licence to build” (May 2017)

EDITORIAL: Westbank’s positive precedent (April 2017)

EDITORIAL: Foreign buyers tax a necessary cliff jump (March 2017)

EDITORIAL: Clement’s petulance diminishes parliament (February 2017)

EDITORIAL: Pot a remedy in opioid crises (January 2017)

More how nice!

EDITORIAL CARTOON: TCHC (May 2017)

EDITORIAL CARTOON: The Grand Tory (April 2017)

FORUM: Celebrating 20 years of cartoonist Brett Lamb (April 2017)

EDITORIAL CARTOON: A second chance! by Brett Lamb 2037 (February 2017)

EDITORIAL CARTOON: Not really! It’s actually nice! by Stumpy the Subway (January 2017)

All levels of government must take responsibility

By Joe Cressy

Some people measure the progress of a city by the speed of its transit systems or the quality of its public parks, by the number of schools in a neighbourhood, or by the number of potholes filled each year.

These are significant factors for a city’s livability, but I believe that one of the most important measures of a city’s progress is how well it cares for all of its residents, especially those who are most vulnerable.

I will be blunt: Toronto is experiencing a crisis in affordable housing. There are currently 181,000 people on the Toronto Community Housing (TCHC) waiting list. In 2018, money for capital repairs to address the over $2 billion backlog at TCHC will run out.

This not only means that we cannot complete the necessary repairs that make our neighbours’ homes livable, but it also means that when the funds run out, units will be in danger of closing.

This is not acceptable. We cannot let that happen.

All levels of government have a responsibility to invest in our social housing system to ensure that units are safe, affordable, and livable. All levels of government have a responsibility to ensure that all residents of Toronto, regardless of income, have access to a safe place to live. Closing units, with more families being denied access to safe housing, should not be an option.

What are the other levels of government doing? The federal government has promised funds, but details are yet to be confirmed. And the provincial government is absent — they have made no commitment to provide any funding for these desperately needed repairs within TCHC. They must come to the table and fulfill their obligation to all the residents of Toronto.

Let me be clear: even without the partnership of the federal and provincial governments, we cannot let a single TCHC unit close in 2018. We must do more as a city if our government counterparts do not step up. The situation is too serious, and the consequences of inaction are too dire.

We must all continue to push the federal and provincial governments strongly and loudly to help TCHC. I will also fight to ensure that not a single unit is closed in 2018 — I hope you will join me.

Please write to your local member of Parliament and member of provincial Parliament to advocate for the desperately needed funds for our social housing system and to Mayor Tory to let him know that closing TCHC units in 2018 is unacceptable.

Joe Cressy is the councillor for Ward 20, Trinity-Spadina.

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