Dale Duncan heads to City Hall

Spacing‘s managing editor Dale Duncan is now writing a weekly column for Eye Weekly on the soap opera that is known as City Hall. Each week we’ll post her columns on the Spacing Wire.

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Everyone in green

This column is dedicated to Gord Perks. In his Enviro column in Eye Weekly last year, Perks penned a warning of environmental disaster to come and what all levels of government weren’t doing about it. Now that he’s city councillor for Ward 14 (Parkdale-High Park), I’d like to think that his influence is already being felt at city hall, though to be fair, the freakish 10 degrees Celcius weather this January may also be having an effect.

Climate change wasn’t a hot button issue leading up to the November election, but a surprising number of councillors say it’s one of their top priorities in 2007, and they speak with Perks-like intensity about the need for the city to take charge. “Clearly, we are living in an energy crisis,” Councillor Paula Fletcher (Ward 30, Toronto-Danforth) said over the phone last week. Fletcher is chair of the Parks and Environment Committee, a position that would suit Perks well were he not so green — council experience-wise. “We now need to run every decision through a secondary filter,” Fletcher says. “We now have to ask: what’s the environmental impact? It should become second nature.”

Joe Mihevc (Ward 21, St. Paul’s) says he’s planning to start a project to get homes to use solar energy. Deputy mayor Joe Pantalone (Ward 19, Trinity-Spadina) speaks of expanding the urban forest. And Mayor David Miller has pledged to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 20 per cent. “Reducing greenhouse gases is the issue of our time. Maybe of all time,” said Miller in his inaugural speech to council Dec. 5.

With everyone singing from his songbook, Perks hasn’t changed his tune. “When you stop and think of all the initiatives we’ll have to bring forward in terms of climate change, it’s vast,” he warns. “It’s a problem unlike any problem any generation has ever faced.”

Looking to a higher power

Voters, take note: a double whammy of federal and provincial elections this year could make or break Toronto. Public transit, affordable housing, the environment — our ability to truly tackle such important matters will depend on the feds and the province making urban issues a priority. With 22 seats up for grabs at both levels, no party can afford to blow off the urban agenda — and it will be up to us voters not to let them. As Brian Ashton (Ward 36, Scarborough Southwest) puts it: “The city’s top three priorities are money, money, money. The city and the mayor face a big challenge to correct this fiscal imbalance. If we fail to do this,” he says, “our quality of life is going to diminish.”

Nothing like a dose of optimism

On the flip side, there’s maverick Ward 2 (Etobicoke North) Councillor Rob Ford, who promises to continue “the fight to save taxpayers’ money.” He says he’ll propose close to 100 money-saving motions come budget time, “not that I think council’s going to vote for any of it,” he says. “They never have before.”