Beena Ruparelia does not need to check a thermometer to know when heat has settled into her northwest Toronto home.

She can see it on her skin.

“You see me sweating,” she says while waving a handheld fan and placing a standing fan right beside her. The temperature inside the rental home she shares with her husband, Peter, near Martin Grove and Albion roads, reaches as high as 40 C during heat waves, including this past July.

The couple does not have central air conditioning. Beena says their home traps heat throughout the day.

“So even having a shower, coming out, you’re literally sweating,” she says. “It’s unbearable.”

At night, the heat rises to the second floor, making it difficult to sleep. Peter, who recently turned 65, says there’s no escape.

“The way the sun is directed in, the morning sun comes right into our bedroom,” he says.

The couple use portable air conditioners overnight, but the units cool only part of the home and increase their electricity bill by about $20 to $30 a month during the summer, Beena says.

When the heat becomes stifling, they retreat to the semi-finished basement.

“We go right down,” Beena says. “That’s the only other place to go.”

The temperature also dictates what they eat. Turning on the stove would add even more heat, so Beena says she relies on sandwiches, microwaveable food and other meals that require little cooking.

The Ruparelias’ experience sits at the centre of a growing gap between provincial and municipal housing rules and the changing climate.

The Ruparelias’ home was built in the 1960s. Like much of Toronto’s rental housing, it was built for surviving winter, when keeping heat in was a greater concern than keeping it out. But as the city gets hotter, low-income renters are among those most vulnerable to extreme heat. 

Renters also have no legal right to a maximum indoor temperature. The City of Toronto will likely take at least another year to institute a maximum indoor temperature by-law, while the Ontario government hasn’t committed to introducing one at all. 

As Toronto experiences longer and more frequent periods of extreme heat, the debate is shifting from whether cooling in rental units is necessary to who should be responsible for providing it — and who should bear the cost.

“Is it on working-class people or is it, in this case, on landlords?” Bruno Dobrusin, co-chair of the Toronto Tenant Union, asks. He has become all too familiar with renters’ stories of frustration and, in some cases, desperation.

“I feel like the main change in the last few years has been mostly the scale: how many more people are going through this and how much more often we hear of tenants just fighting to have some form of cooling in their apartments,” Dobrusin says.

Unlike Mississauga to the west, Toronto does not have a maximum indoor temperature by-law for rental units. Dobrusin says tenants have reported being denied permission to install an air conditioner or being told they must pay an additional $50 to $80 a month to operate one, he says, mostly due to the increased electricity needed to run them.

“Another $50 a month is quite a bit on your budget,” he says.

He says residents often go to Tim Hortons or TTC stations as cooling spaces because they are widely available, require little or no spending, stay open late and allow people to remain for long periods without being disturbed. But they can’t sleep there. 

The lack of cooling cannot be separated from Toronto’s broader housing and affordability crises, he says.

As rents rise, more people are sharing homes. During extreme heat, multigenerational and crowded households can face an additional burden as several people share a space designed for just a few occupants.

Dobrusin says working-class tenants may also spend their days in poorly ventilated or inadequately cooled workplaces before returning to apartments that offer no relief.

“What people are going through are multiple crises that are exacerbated by the climate crisis,” he says.

Toronto was built for a different climate

The city projects the number of days each year with temperatures above 30 C could rise from an average of 10 days between 1971 and 2000 to between 36 and 44 days by the 2050s. By the 2080s, Toronto could experience between 46 and 78 days above 30 C annually, depending on future greenhouse gas emissions.

Climate change is accelerated by greenhouse gases concentrating in the atmosphere from many sources, but primarily from the burning of fossil fuels like oil and gas.

Health Canada data shows 66.3 per cent of the heat-related deaths recorded in Canada since 1981 occurred after 2016. More than one-third occurred in 2021, the year of the Western Canada heat dome.

Extreme heat can cause dehydration, fainting, heat rash and heat stroke. It can also worsen pre-existing health conditions of the heart and kidneys, as well as respiratory diseases. 

Children, seniors and people with existing health conditions can be more vulnerable to extreme temperatures.

And outdoor temperature alone does not determine who is most at risk.

Pavement, concrete and buildings absorb and radiate heat, while neighbourhoods with fewer trees and less vegetation lack natural sources of shade and cooling. This creates what is known as the urban heat island effect.

Karen Smith, an associate professor at the University of Toronto’s department of physical and environmental sciences, helped develop what’s known as a heat vulnerability index for Toronto.

Smith says heat vulnerability considers residents’ sensitivity to high temperatures and their capacity to adapt. That includes whether someone can afford an air conditioner or travel to a cooling space. A resident’s age, health, income and housing conditions can also determine whether a hot day becomes dangerous. 

What the index shows is that the areas with the highest heat vulnerability are also among the city’s lowest-income neighbourhoods, and have high concentrations of immigrants.

Overall, she says, city blocks highly concentrated with apartment towers are more vulnerable to heat than the rest of the city. And while a public cooling space may offer temporary relief, it does not necessarily help a tenant who returns to a hot apartment at night.

Toronto Public Health wrote in an email to The Narwhal that it is continuing to work with the University of Toronto to update the heat vulnerability index with additional indicators and more recent data, but otherwise referred questions to the City of Toronto. 

Why Rexdale faces overlapping risks

The Toronto and Region Conservation Authority has identified Rexdale, the area where Beena and Peter Ruparelia live, as a community facing overlapping environmental and socio-economic vulnerabilities.

A 2023 resilience strategy found apartments account for about 61 per cent of the neighbourhood’s housing and most of its housing stock was built before 1980. Jennifer Taves, senior manager of sustainable communities with the conservation authority, says the community also has older single-family homes that have not been retrofitted for central air conditioning. 

The strategy flagged heat stress, limited tree canopy in some areas, food insecurity, transportation barriers and flood risk as additional concerns. It also found that Rexdale has a higher proportion of children aged 14 and younger than Toronto as a whole.

Because of these risks, the conservation authority decided to prioritize Rexdale for climate adaptation strategies, creating a Sustainable Neighbourhood Action Program with help from community stakeholders.

In 2024, residents in three towers received 47 climate-resiliency kits containing things like instant cold packs and temporary window shades, as well as portable air purifiers and purifying plants for days the sky is filled with wildfire smoke. Taves says there are no current plans to expand that program, but some bigger projects involve gardening, tree planting and engagement efforts. 

“We know that heavily shaded neighbourhoods are much cooler than neighbourhoods that don’t have that shade canopy. So investing in that natural infrastructure or [shade] infrastructure is a very important part of preparing for these effects,” Taves says. The official term is shelterbelt infrastructure, which is when a line of trees and shrubs are planted in one or more rows to help lower surface temperatures like at Rowntree Mills Park and areas along Kipling Avenue.

What is the province doing about heat vulnerability

This past July, a three-year-old amendment to Ontario’s Residential Tenancies Act finally kicked in: now, tenants have the explicit right to install and use a window or portable air conditioner when the landlord does not provide cooling.

The change addresses one problem Beena and Peter say they faced for years: being told they were not supposed to use portable units.

The tenant must notify the landlord in writing. The air conditioner must be installed safely and must not damage the property. If electricity is included in the rent, the landlord can raise it to cover higher bills — but rent hikes can’t exceed the actual electricity cost or stay in place when the tenant removes the unit or stops using it for the season.

But even when a charge accurately reflects electricity use, it may remain unaffordable for a senior or another tenant living on a fixed income, according to Dania Majid, a staff lawyer and director of the tenant duty counsel program at the Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario. 

Majid says her organization has heard concerns about lump-sum charges, administrative fees and installation requirements associated with air conditioners. Because the provincial provisions are new, many disputes have not yet been considered by the Landlord and Tenant Board.

She’s one of many tenant advocates that want Toronto to pass a legal maximum indoor temperature of 26 C that applies to all rental units, similar to the legislated minimum during colder months.

“We wouldn’t do that to them in the winter,” Majid says. “So why are we doing this to them in the summer?”

But the Federation of Rental-housing Providers of Ontario says a legislated maximum indoor temperature would raise significant logistical and financial questions.

The federation agrees tenants need protection from extreme heat, Marielle Hossack, the federation’s director of policy and regulatory affairs, says. That’s why it supported the  air-conditioner changes to the Residential Tenants Act, giving tenants the flexibility to buy their own. Even so, some older buildings may not have the electrical capacity to power an air conditioner in every apartment at the same time. 

Honouring a maximum temperature could require electrical upgrades, new mechanical systems and other major retrofits, she says. And that work would require time, planning, skilled labour and significant investment.

“Requiring landlords or housing providers to absorb the electricity cost is not a sustainable solution where electricity is included in rent,” she says.

Governments should instead provide targeted energy or income assistance to low-income or medically vulnerable tenants, Hossack says.

The Ontario Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing did not respond to questions by publication time.

The long, long road to a maximum temperature for Toronto renters 

Toronto does not currently have a maximum temperature that applies to all rental units.

When a landlord already provides air conditioning, it must be operated from June 1 to Sept. 30 and keep the unit at no more than 26 C. But if no air conditioner is installed when the tenant moves in, no maximum temperature applies.

As of June 1, apartment buildings that don’t offer in-unit cooling must keep at least one existing indoor amenity space at or below 26 C during the summer. This only applies to buildings that are three or more storeys and 10 or more units and does not apply if construction is needed to meet the requirement.

Toronto city council seems to be moving toward a broader maximum indoor temperature by-law, but slowly. In June, the city manager was instructed by council to report back by June 2027 on findings and key considerations for a by-law and implementation plan.

The city has also asked Ontario to establish a province-wide maximum temperature of 26 C and to prevent landlords from increasing the rent above the normal annual limit if the city does pass a by-law. Right now, landlords can hike rent if it’s meant to comply with municipal by-laws.

In an email to The Narwhal, a City of Toronto spokesperson wrote equity is central to the city’s Heat Relief Strategy.

“We continue to explore new ways to strengthen the strategy and help residents stay safe during periods of extreme heat,” it says. 

The city offers cooling spaces at libraries, community centres and civic centres, along with more than 700 park drinking fountains and mobile water trailers. Residents also have access to pools, splash pads, wading pools and supervised beaches, with some pools extending hours during heat warnings.

Toronto is also expanding programs intended to provide and install up to 2,400 air conditioners for low-income and vulnerable residents.

For Beena and Peter, organizing with other tenants has become part of that solution.

After years of feeling that she and her husband were dealing with the conditions in their home alone, they joined the Toronto Tenant Union. She says she wants governments to hear directly from the people living through extreme indoor heat.

“The first thing is that they need to come and speak to the landlords,” she says. “They need to fight on our behalf.”

Rajpreet Sahota is a community and policy reporting fellow. Her position is generously funded in part by the Canadian Race Relations Foundation. As per The Narwhal’s editorial independence policy, the foundation has no editorial input.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

This summer, Ontarians were warned to stay inside as humidex values climbed to 48 C in parts of the province and wildfire smoke made for some of the worst air quality in the world. But many migrant farm workers were told to keep working.

“I have had more than one heat stroke because there is no shade,” Alicia Anntamara, a migrant worker who is currently off due to an injury, told The Narwhal at a rally in front of Ontario’s Ministry of Labour. “You can’t take water in the field. You have no bathroom in the field.”

And the heat did not necessarily end when the workday was over, she says, with no indoor spaces available to cool down. Anntamara is her middle name, as she asked to keep her surname private. 

Several speakers at the demonstration on July 24 says migrant workers continued labouring in fields, greenhouses, wineries and packing facilities while other residents were advised to limit their exposure to outdoor conditions. And they demanded the province fix the Temporary Foreign Worker Program, which they say brings migrant workers to Canada but fails to protect them.

“There’s nothing natural about dying on the job,” Elizabeth Ha, an executive board member with the Ontario Public Service Employees Union and a member of Justice for Migrant Workers, said. 

“There’s nothing natural about collapsing in the fields. There’s nothing natural about working past exhaustion in extreme heat.”

About 50 people gathered for the demonstration, holding signs, lining the sidewalk and chanting, “No more deaths” as they called for stronger workplace protections and access to healthcare, especially during extreme heat.

Justice for Migrant Workers, an all-volunteer collective made up of current and former migrant workers, labour organizers, community activists and scholars, organized the rally.​

The organization says it learned through workers’ friends, co-workers and community allies that at least eight migrant agricultural workers have died across Ontario this summer.

The circumstances surrounding all eight reported deaths have not been independently confirmed, and they have not all been officially classified as workplace fatalities by the provincial Workplace Safety and Insurance Board.

The board told The Narwhal that from Jan. 1, 2026, to July 28, it had received less than five fatality claims involving foreign agricultural workers. The board did not provide a precise number, saying that figures below five cannot be released due to privacy considerations.

Chris Ramsaroop, an organizer with Justice for Migrant Workers and an assistant professor at New College at the University of Toronto, says the group had heard three deaths were connected to transportation incidents. The group also received reports of heart-related deaths and heard concerns about whether one worker received adequate access to healthcare, he says.

During the rally, Ramsaroop says deaths involving heart attacks, strokes and other illnesses should not be examined without considering long hours, extreme heat, chemical exposure, physically demanding labour and the stress associated with precarious immigration status.

Justice for Migrant Workers calling on the province to explain whether working conditions are considered when investigating migrant worker deaths and how heat-related injuries and deaths are tracked.

Ontario’s Ministry of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development did not respond to The Narwhal’s requests for comment by publication time.

For the rally organizers, the lack of complete information is part of the problem. They say deaths involving migrant workers can disappear from public view, particularly when workers are sent back to their home countries after becoming sick or injured.

“It’s a government system that promotes production and profit over the lives of migrant workers,” Ramsaroop said.

Working without water or shade

Anntamara says she is learning to walk again and regain the use of her hand after suffering an injury while working in Canada.

She stood in front of the crowd in downtown Toronto to speak for herself and for other workers who she says have been injured, silenced or sent home.

“We are not animals. We are not garbage. We have a name, and we come here with a name. Because you take our name and call us a number, that doesn’t make us less than human,” Anntamara told the crowd.

Anntamara has been coming to Canada from Jamaica as a migrant worker since 2014. She says she was injured in July 2020 after falling more than nine feet while completing a task she had not been hired or trained to perform. She hasn’t been able to work since.

As the primary breadwinner for her family, she says, her inability to work has affected her children and family who live outside Canada and depend on the money she earns here.

Before her injury, she says, a typical working day could involve long hours without reliable access to drinking water, washrooms or shade.

Anntamara says, after the workday, she would return to crowded bunkhouses without air conditioning or fans. Some of the accommodations are similar to shipping containers and became extremely hot in the summer and cold in the winter, she says.

“When it’s hot, it’s very hot to where you see warts on your skin, like water bubbles on the skin. And when it’s cold, you’re freezing, like you’re getting frostbite,” she said.

Some rooms contained up to eight beds, with so little space that workers had to turn sideways to move between them, she says.

She also described working long shifts without overtime pay or regular time off.

“You have to work every day. You have no day off. You have no time off,” she said.

Justice for Migrant Workers says such conditions make extreme heat more dangerous because workers may be unable to cool down or recover after a physically demanding shift.

The Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety says working in hot environments can reduce concentration and a person’s ability to perform skilled or physical tasks. Heat also places additional demands on the heart as the body works to cool itself.

Physically demanding labour generates additional body heat, further increasing the risk for people working in hot conditions.

Temporary foreign worker program empowers employers

According to Statistics Canada, more than 30,000 migrant agricultural workers were employed under Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program in Ontario last year. Workers are hired from dozens of countries, but the majority come from Mexico, Guatemala and Jamaica, thanks to agreements with those governments.

Many migrant agricultural workers enter Canada with employer-specific work permits, meaning they are only authorized to work for one named employer.

The United Nations General Assembly reports that this creates an imbalance of power because leaving an unsafe job can also mean losing employment, housing and, ultimately, the right to stay in Canada. As well, a 2025 research paper in the Journal of Environmental and Occupational Health Policy found their immigration status and dependence on individual employers can make it difficult to exercise rights such as refusing unsafe work, even though agricultural workers are covered by Ontario’s Occupational Health and Safety Act.​

“You’ve got an employer-driven program. Workers are tied to an employer and provincial and federal laws that work in the service of industry [are] at the expense of workers’ lives,” Ramsaroop said.

For years, Justice for Migrant Workers has been calling on the federal government to grant permanent immigration status to workers when they arrive in Canada.

In an email to The Narwhal, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada says the Government of Canada takes the safety of foreign workers seriously and they have the same employment standards, rights and protections under federal law as Canadian citizens and permanent residents. That includes requiring all employers to provide private health insurance except when workers are covered by their provincial or territorial health insurance system. The department also has a tip line and online reporting tool that allows individuals to anonymously report allegations of wrongdoing. As of publication, they had not provided data on the number of complaints received this year.

Employment and Social Development Canada told The Narwhal the mistreatment of temporary foreign workers is unacceptable and it inspects workplaces to ensure temporary foreign workers are protected. The department also funds the Migrant Worker Support Program, which helps workers understand and exercise their rights, access government and community services, and receive support such as healthcare navigation, language assistance, legal aid and emergency services when needed.

The spokesperson says the program is regulated by the federal government but provinces and territories are responsible for the administration and enforcement of these laws.

At the provincial level, Ramsaroop says agricultural workers need greater organizing rights, improved access to healthcare and stronger enforcement of occupational health and safety and employment standards.

Ramsaroop also criticized the absence of specific protections addressing heat stress and other risks in agricultural workplaces.

“There is little, very little, no protection for agricultural workers from pesticides and chemicals,” he said. 

Wendell, a former migrant worker from Trinidad who asked to only share his first name, first came to Canada in 1998. He says extreme heat made physical farm labour more exhausting, but did not necessarily lead employers to slow production.

Wendell worked on different farms, including vegetable operations where he harvested cauliflower and walked long distances through fields.

He says workers could face pressure from their managers to increase their pace when crops or other products needed to be moved quickly.

“When he’s pushing us like that, he doesn’t care if we get injured. We had to take safety for ourselves,” Wendell said.

He says workers understood that failing to satisfy an employer could mean losing future employment and the income their families depended on.

Wendell is no longer part of the farm worker program and has become a migrant worker advocate instead.

“This is how I feel a little more safe, knowing that these people are trying to protect us and have a way out for these officials to understand what we’re going through,” he said.

Rajpreet Sahota is a community and policy reporting fellow. Her position is generously funded in part by the Canadian Race Relations Foundation. As per The Narwhal’s editorial independence policy, the foundation has no editorial input.

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Table of Contents

• Fast-tracking development: how Ontario is changing the rules for development through Bill 5
• Climate action is no longer at the centre of Ontario’s environmental agenda
• Drivers continue to see cost reductions in Ford’s Ontario
• Water protections and wetlands face new pressures in Ontario
• Why Ontario municipalities are losing environmental powers
• The next chapter in Ontario’s battle over conservation and protected lands
• Ontario is betting big on critical minerals and energy growth
• Carbon capture and storage is also on Ontario’s agenda
• Transparency and public oversight are disappearing

In the summer of 2025, wildfires burned nearly 600,000 hectares across Ontario — an area more than twice the size of Ottawa. Thousands of people were displaced. This summer’s wildfire evacuations have already begun in the northern part of the province, while intense heat waves blanket southern Ontario, with temperatures reaching above 40 C at times. 

These extreme weather events are made more likely because of human influence on the climate, according to federal scientists. Yet as Ontario faces the growing effects of climate change, the Doug Ford government appears to be largely moving away from mitigation and adaptation in its most recent term, focusing on economic growth over environmental safeguards.

The Ford government expanded parks, invested in electricity generation, funded Indigenous participation in mining reviews and created Ontario’s first standalone Ministry of Emergency Preparedness and Response. 

But many critics, and lawsuits, still make the case that the environment is being sidelined in a bid to build.

Most notable was a proposal buried within the province’s 2025 fall economic statement to eliminate legal requirements for Ontario to maintain a climate plan and publicly report on its progress. Across Queen’s Park, ministers were advancing changes affecting everything from environmental assessments to municipal green building standards to conservation authorities. 

These changes followed Premier Ford’s third consecutive majority victory on Feb. 27, 2025, after a snap winter election dominated by concerns about affordability, economic uncertainty and the threat of U.S. tariffs. 

Since returning to office, Ford’s government has increasingly argued Ontario must move faster, building more homes, approving more mines, generating more electricity and cutting what it sees as unnecessary barriers to economic growth.

More than a year after Ford’s re-election and Bill 5’s march through the legislature, the question is no longer whether the province’s environmental agenda is changing. It is what the changes will mean for the land, water and communities.

Fast-tracking development: how Ontario is changing the rules for development through Bill 5

When the Ford government introduced Bill 5 in April 2025, it pitched the legislation as a way to speed up development, cut red tape and strengthen Ontario’s economy. Called the Protect Ontario by Unleashing our Economy Act, Bill 5 received royal assent in June 2025.

Changes under the bill affect everything from who signs off on major developments to how a habitat is defined for endangered species and when the public gets a chance to weigh in.

At the centre of that shift is a belief repeatedly expressed by the government: Ontario’s approval system takes too long.

The legislation created a new system, called One Project, One Process, designed to move projects through approvals faster. It gave cabinet new powers to designate special economic zones, where certain provincial and municipal rules won’t apply to projects deemed strategically important to Ontario’s economy.

Under the One Project, One Process framework, the Ministry of Energy and Mines became the central coordinator for designated mining projects. The province says the approach will cut review timelines in half by creating a single approval pathway and reducing duplication between ministries.

Several mining projects have already been designated under the system, including the Crawford Nickel project near Timmins and Frontier Lithium’s project near Red Lake.

For some First Nations leaders, however, the question is whether consultation can keep pace with faster approvals.

The Chiefs of Ontario has warned that speeding up development should not come at the expense of Treaty Rights and consent processes. Similar concerns have surfaced around the government’s special economic zone framework.

The Ford government’s 2025 budget included a commitment of $70 million over four years for an Indigenous Participation Fund, intended to help communities and organizations in areas of significant mineral development engage in regulatory processes related to mineral exploration and mine development.

But the debate has already moved into the courts.

Environmental groups have launched a constitutional challenge against Ontario’s Special Economic Zones Act, arguing the legislation is undemocratic, putting unchecked power in the hands of the cabinet. Several First Nations have also joined legal efforts challenging the law, arguing it threatens Indigenous Rights and weakens environmental protections.

There is no hearing scheduled yet but the law firm representing the case, Woodward & Company LLP, told The Narwhal it hopes for one to be scheduled in early 2027. 

One of the most consequential changes under Bill 5 involved Ontario’s approach to protecting species at risk.

For nearly two decades, the Endangered Species Act governed how threatened and endangered plants and animals were protected in the province. That changed with Bill 5, which proposed repealing and replacing the Endangered Species Act with the Species Conservation Act, a shift that happened on March 30, 2026, marking the most significant overhaul of Ontario’s species-at-risk framework in nearly two decades.

The new legislation narrows how a habitat is defined. Previously, habitat included the broader areas species relied on for feeding, migration and mating, among other things. The new definition focuses primarily on occupied dens, nests and similar dwelling places for animals, and immediately surroundings trees and plants. 

The government says the changes will create a more efficient and predictable system for project proponents, while continuing to protect species. But the narrower definition could leave important parts of ecosystems without protection, particularly for wide-ranging species-at-risk such as woodland caribou that depend on large connected landscapes to survive.

Climate action is no longer at the centre of Ontario’s environmental agenda

Climate policy has not disappeared altogether, but several decisions made since the Ford government’s re-election suggest it is not a driving force behind many of the province’s major policy choices.

One of the clearest examples arrived with the province’s 2025 fall economic statement.

Buried within the omnibus budget bill was a proposal to repeal portions of Ontario’s Cap and Trade Cancellation Act, legislation introduced by the Ford government in 2018 to eliminate the provincial carbon pricing system. The act had required the government to prepare a climate plan and publicly report on its progress — a law that, by the beginning of Ford’s third term, was one of the province’s few remaining climate accountability mechanisms.

The repeal came as Ontario and the rest of Canada continue to experience increasingly severe weather linked to climate change, including longer wildfire seasons, extreme heat and flooding. It also arrived at a time when national emissions reductions have largely stalled.

In its independent assessment released last year, the Canadian Climate Institute warned that Canada’s 2030 emissions-reduction target is now out of reach. While emissions have fallen since 2005, progress has slowed significantly in recent years. 

Ontario’s decision to repeal climate accountability legislation was part of a weakening of climate policies across the country, the institute noted, which is one factor making national targets more difficult to meet.

Ontario did elevate climate risk to cabinet level following the 2025 election, by creating a standalone Ministry of Emergency Preparedness and Response. It comes as Ontario experiences increasingly severe wildfire seasons linked to hotter and drier conditions. Last year, 643 fires burned nearly 600,000 hectares across the province, prompting evacuations in several northern and First Nations communities. 

It’s a necessary step, but questions remain about whether funding is keeping pace with growing climate risks. In March 2026, the government projected 2025 costs for the ministry to be $292 million, including emergency evacuations of Indigenous communities on behalf of Indigenous Services Canada. But the ministry’s operating budget was projected to rise to just $66.8 million in 2026, up $3.7 million from the previous year.

The Narwhal reached out to the Ministry of Emergency Preparedness and Response, but did not receive a response before publication.

Drivers continue to see cost reductions in Ford’s Ontario

Throughout his time in government, Ford’s Conservatives have regularly worked to reduce costs for motorists, including for fossil fuels like gasoline that emit heat-trapping gasses into the atmosphere. Transportation is the largest contributor to the province’s overall emissions.

The 2025 provincial budget permanently cut Ontario’s gasoline and diesel taxes to nine cents per litre, a move the government said would save households an average of $115 annually. The move made permanent gas tax cuts first introduced in 2022, which were extended four times. The province also permanently removed tolls on the publicly owned portion of Highway 407 East and introduced legislation preventing municipalities from implementing programs that disincentivize driving, such as road tolls or congestion pricing.

Ford’s Progressive Conservatives have consistently framed the measures as affordability initiatives, arguing they put money back into drivers’ pockets at a time of economic uncertainty. 

All of this came after a previous term punctuated with battles over bike lanes.

Water protections and wetlands face new pressures in Ontario

Twenty-five years after a fatal tragedy in Walkerton, Ont., transformed how the province protects drinking water, the Ford government is once again rewriting some of the rules governing water oversight.

One of the most significant changes came through Bill 56, the Building a More Competitive Economy Act, which received royal assent in November 2025.

Among its many provisions are amendments to Ontario’s Clean Water Act, legislation introduced in response to the 2000 Walkerton tragedy, when E. coli contamination in a municipal water supply killed seven people and sickened more than 2,300 others. The public inquiry that followed led to a layered approach to drinking water protection, including locally developed source protection plans designed to identify and manage risks before they could affect municipal water supplies.

In amending the act, the Ford government said lengthy approval processes and overlapping consultations on development projects had become cumbersome.

Under the new framework, the province standardized some drinking water protection policies and introduced changes intended to speed up plan amendments to allow for development. Government documents say the reforms could shorten approval timelines by as much as six months while providing greater certainty for municipalities, regulators and project proponents. The province has also argued the changes would maintain key protections while making the system more efficient.

But some observers see the reforms differently.

Ontario Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner has argued the changes transfer authority away from independent experts and local source protection committees. Currently, there are 19 committees — made up of conservation authorities, municipal representatives, agricultural interests and community members — that oversee 38 drinking water protection plans across the province. Schreiner told The Narwhal the local knowledge embedded in those plans was one of the central lessons of Walkerton and worried greater ministerial control could weaken that approach.

The debate over water governance extends beyond drinking water protection.

Another source of controversy has been the Water and Wastewater Public Corporations Act, first introduced in late 2025.

The legislation would allow the province to restructure municipal water and wastewater services through newly created public corporations. The government has said the changes are intended to modernize service delivery and improve efficiency.

But the proposal has sparked concerns among environmental organizations, labour groups and some academics, who argue it could open the door to greater private-sector involvement in public water systems. 

Some critics, like advocacy group Environmental Defence, have pointed to provisions that would allow water and wastewater services to be moved out of direct municipal control and governed through corporate structures, raising questions about accountability, transparency and public oversight.

The Ford government has rejected suggestions it intends to privatize water systems. After pushback, it introduced amendments to the act limiting ownership of the corporations to governments and government agencies. It says there are no plans to privatize water systems and emphasized that ownership of the proposed corporations would remain in public hands.

For many critics, the debate is informed by Ontario’s own history.

In 1994, the City of Hamilton transferred operation of its water and wastewater system to a private company as part of an effort to create what city leaders hoped would become a model for private water management. 

Just over a year after the deal was signed, roughly 180 million litres of untreated sewage spilled into Hamilton Harbour and Lake Ontario. More than 100 homes and businesses were flooded. In the years that followed, experts pointed to staffing cuts, cost overruns and repeated changes in ownership as evidence that private management, with its focus on profit over service, had failed to deliver on its promises.

Why Ontario municipalities are losing environmental powers

For years, Ontario municipalities have tested environmental policies that go beyond provincial requirements. Cities encouraged electric vehicle infrastructure, required tree planting and experimented with ways to reduce emissions from new development, including through green building standards. 

In Toronto, green roofs became mandatory on many new buildings. Other municipalities began developing their own climate-focused standards as they prepared for rapid population growth.

Over the past year, however, the Ford government has increasingly moved to limit how far municipalities can go.

One of the first major changes came through Bill 17, the Protect Ontario by Building Faster and Smarter Act, which received royal assent in June 2025, days after the Ford government was re-elected.

The legislation targeted municipal green building standards that exceed the Ontario Building Code. In Toronto, that raised questions about the future of the Toronto Green Standard, a framework that has shaped development in Canada’s largest city for more than 15 years.

The standard required developers to incorporate features to reduce emissions and improve resilience to climate change. It included requirements for bicycle parking and electric vehicle charging stations in new buildings over four storeys. Developers also had to take steps to mitigate flooding and extreme heat, for instance, by building rooftop gardens and planting trees. 

There are also financial incentives to take on even more ambitious climate-friendly features. 

The province concluded Toronto’s mandatory requirements could exceed what municipalities are permitted to require under its new law. It also argued that creating a consistent set of provincial rules will help accelerate housing development and increase housing supply. 

The Toronto Environmental Alliance, a not-for-profit advocacy organization, countered that municipalities are often better positioned to understand local environmental challenges and should retain the flexibility to address them.

That debate intensified in 2026 with Bill 98, the Building Homes and Improving Transportation Infrastructure Act.

The legislation prevented municipalities from requiring a range of environmental features in new developments, including electric vehicle parking infrastructure, bird-friendly design standards and tree planting on residential properties. Provincial analysis of the legislation acknowledged the possibility of “unintended environmental impacts” and noted that the changes could shift sustainability-related costs from developers to municipalities.

The implications extend well beyond Toronto.

Municipalities including Hamilton, Ottawa, Waterloo Region, Oshawa, Clarington and Guelph have either implemented or begun developing their own green building standards. In Durham Region, local governments have been working toward a goal of net-zero emissions for new housing by 2030. Ottawa officials have warned the legislation could prevent them from requiring electric vehicle infrastructure in developments, even where local planning work has already been completed.

Some municipal officials worry the changes could create new costs in the future.

Buildings account for roughly one-quarter of Ontario’s greenhouse gas emissions, largely because of fossil fuels used for heating. If new developments are built to lower environmental standards today, municipalities may ultimately face higher costs retrofitting those buildings in the decades ahead.

The next chapter in Ontario’s battle over conservation and protected lands

Over the past year, the Ford government has expanded park access, announced new protected lands and invested millions in outdoor recreation. In May 2026, Ontario announced plans to expand Uxbridge Urban Provincial Park by 23 acres, adding ecologically significant lands within the Oak Ridges Moraine. The government has also committed nearly $60 million toward what it describes as the largest expansion of Ontario Parks campgrounds in more than 50 years, including dozens of new campsites at MacGregor Point, Killarney and Driftwood provincial parks.

But the Ford government has also moved ahead with major development projects that cut through environmentally sensitive areas and launched the most significant restructuring of Ontario’s conservation authorities in their 80-year history.

Perhaps no project better illustrates that tension than Highway 413.

A cornerstone of Doug Ford’s re-election campaigns, the proposed highway would connect York, Peel and Halton regions and, according to the province, reduce travel times — by 30 minutes for those driving the entire stretch.

Critics have long argued the slight time savings come at a significant environmental cost.

Environmental assessments have identified impacts on Greenbelt lands, prime farmland, waterways and habitat used by species at risk, while environmental groups argue mitigation measures remain insufficient for several threatened species.

In August 2025, Ontario awarded its first construction contracts for the project, marking the beginning of a development the government says would contribute more than $1 billion annually to the provincial economy.

In Wasaga Beach, the province has removed roughly 60 hectares of Wasaga Beach Provincial Park, handing the land over to the municipality, which is making an effort to redevelop the waterfront and boost tourism. The government says the project would improve public access and support economic activity while maintaining public use of the beach.

Conservation groups and local residents have questioned whether lifting these protections sets a precedent for future development on provincially protected lands. Some have also raised concerns about piping plovers, as Wasaga Beach is one of the most important nesting sites for the endangered bird.

Similar concerns surfaced in Port Hope.

In 2025, the Ministry of Natural Resources altered the boundary of the Garden Hill Area of Natural and Scientific Interest, a designation that recognizes the unique qualities of an area, removing land that had previously been protected. The boundary change meant a planned subdivision could move ahead.

The biggest change, however, may be taking place behind the scenes.

In 2026, the Ford government formally launched plans to consolidate Ontario’s 36 conservation authorities into nine larger organizations overseen by a new provincial agency. Conservation authorities were created over 50 years ago in response to flooding disasters and the environmental impacts of a growing population.

Officials say consolidation would improve efficiency and ensure resources are distributed more evenly across the province. 

Jonathan Scott, a councillor for the town of Bradford West Gwillimbury and chair of the Nottawasaga Valley Conservation Authority board, previously told The Narwhal the local environmental expertise in each individual authority is essential. “Merger of that scale could create a larger, more distant bureaucracy that is less responsive to local municipalities, developers and farmers,” he said about the move to consolidate. 

The province has already directed conservation authorities to pause major staffing, land acquisition and governance decisions while the transition unfolds. The restrictions are expected to remain in place until at least early 2027.

Ontario is betting big on critical minerals and energy growth

If the Ford government’s environmental agenda has one clear area of investment, it is energy and resource development.

In December 2025, the province officially launched its $500-million Critical Minerals Processing Fund. The fund is designed to help expand mineral processing capacity in Ontario, so that what’s mined here is also refined and processed within the province, rather than shipped elsewhere.

The government has described critical minerals as essential to Ontario’s economic future, pointing to growing demand from electric vehicle manufacturing, battery production, aerospace and defence.

At the same time, Ontario is preparing for a dramatic increase in electricity demand.

The province estimates electricity consumption could rise by as much as 90 per cent by 2050 as new homes, manufacturing facilities, electric vehicles and data centres place greater pressure on the grid. In response, the government has launched some of the largest electricity procurements in Ontario’s history.

Over the past year, the Independent Electricity System Operator, the Crown agency charged with balancing supply on the grid, has approved more than a dozen new energy projects, securing massive amounts of additional supply and storage capacity. The province says the projects would provide enough electricity to power hundreds of thousands of homes while helping maintain reliability as demand grows. Many of the projects also include First Nations partners that hold more than 50 per cent ownership stakes.

The government continues to pursue new nuclear generation, including small modular reactors and potential large-scale nuclear generation facilities. In April, the operator awarded contracts to a dozen wind and solar power generating projects, a major departure from the Ford government’s 2018 move to cancel a slew of renewables projects.

At the same time, officials have repeatedly emphasized the role natural gas will continue to play in maintaining reliability and cost efficiency as electricity demand increases.

Carbon capture and storage is also on Ontario’s agenda

The government has opened the door to commercial-scale carbon storage through Bill 27, legislation that allows companies to pursue projects that capture carbon dioxide emissions from industrial facilities and store them underground. The Ford government argues the technology could help reduce emissions from sectors such as cement manufacturing, steel production and power generation. 

But critics argue carbon storage allows for the continued burning of fossil fuels, rather than transitioning away from them. 

There are other pressing concerns — carbon storage is proposed for southwestern Ontario, where there are an unknown number of old gas wells that Ontario can’t afford to properly plug. As The Narwhal reporter in September, some worry carbon storage could heighten the risk of leaks from these wells of poisonous hydrogen sulfide and planet-warming methane.

In June 2026, the province announced additional funding to help municipalities address abandoned oil and gas wells scattered across southwestern Ontario. 

Transparency and public oversight are disappearing

Alongside environmental changes at Queen’s Park, another debate has emerged — one focused not on what decisions are being made, but how they are being made, who gets to know about it and who gets a say.

In 2025, the Ford government exempted aspects of the redevelopment of Ontario Place from consultation requirements under Ontario’s Environmental Bill of Rights, a move that reduced opportunities for public input on one of the province’s most controversial redevelopment projects. Similarly, the Species Conservation Act eliminated the requirement that property owners, developers or industry whose actions could harm threatened species make a posting on the public environmental registry, as was previously required under the Environmental Bill of Rights.

The most recent flashpoint came in April 2026, when the province passed Bill 97.

Among its many provisions were significant changes to Ontario’s freedom of information laws. Now, records held by cabinet ministers, parliamentary assistants and the premier’s office are exempt from public access requests. The changes were made retroactively, applying to records dating back decades.

The Canadian Association of Journalists and Canadian Journalists for Free Expression warned the amendments could significantly reduce the public’s ability to understand how government decisions are made. They argued the changes would shield records such as emails, phone logs and other communications that have historically been used to uncover information about government decision-making and public spending.

For environmental reporting, freedom of information requests have often provided a rare window into internal government discussions.

The Narwhal’s investigations into the Greenbelt scandal and Ontario’s relationship with Enbridge Gas relied, at least in part, on records obtained through freedom of information laws. 

As opportunities for public participation and access to government decisions degrade, it limits who gets a hand in shaping the future of Ontario’s environment and the people who depend on it.

Rajpreet Sahota is a community and policy reporting fellow. Her position is generously funded by the Canadian Race Relations Foundation. As per The Narwhal’s editorial independence policy, the foundation has no editorial input.

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Ontario’s public service employees are back in the office this month, a change from a pandemic-era policy that offered flexible workday structures. That could have big impacts on commuters, especially around Toronto. And where do the Ford government’s highway plans fit in? What about emissions from all these extra cars on the roads? I spoke with The Narwhal’s Ontario reporter Fatima Syed about what it all means for our latest explainer video.

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For 15 years and counting, my commute from Mississauga to Toronto has been mired by everything imaginable — construction, cancelled buses, traffic jams, frozen tracks and train delays with no explanation at all. It’s likely about to get worse, or at least more crowded. 

There are more than 60,000 public servants working in the Ontario government. Starting next week, they’ll head back to the office five days a week, even as provincial politicians take an extended break from the legislature until March. 

The province issued that directive last August, changing the pandemic-era policy that first ordered everyone to work from home, then continued to allow for flexible work schedules. The directive was a far cry from Premier Ford’s thinking only five years ago, when he said working from home was “the way of the future.” 

On social media, people who said they were public servants were upset at the change. 

“Hope every single driver knows that I am clogging up traffic unnecessarily because of Ford,” said one person on Reddit. 

“I am reminded I am now paid not to be at my most productive. But instead, it is now also my job to use more gas, contribute to ridiculously congested traffic and emit more pollution,” said another on the same platform. 

The greatest concentration of provincial government offices is in Toronto, including the legislature. But not all government workers live in the city, so bringing them all back five days a week is going to strain southern Ontario’s already stressed and overpacked roads and transit system — and its air.

Transportation is already the single greatest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions in Ontario, a province where the quality and quantity of transit leaves much to be desired. As provincial workers join the employees of big banks and other companies that have ordered everyone back downtown, there will inevitably be more people in cars, increasing traffic pollution. 

It already happened in Ottawa when federal workers returned to the office for just three days a week in 2024. A Carleton University study, conducted on 1,500 federal bureaucrats, found remote workers produced a quarter less emissions than those who went into the office. The researchers found the difference was even more drastic in Quebec, where remote workers with the federal government produced 64 per cent less emissions. 

The report’s conclusion was that working from home — even just part of the time — does cut emissions, as well as easing congestion. 

This would all look a lot different if our transportation infrastructure could handle tens of thousands more people. But it can’t, and little has changed in that regard over the Ford government’s seven and a half years in power, for either drivers or transit users. 

The long-promised Highway 413, which would cut through the Greenbelt and connect the suburbs north and west of Toronto, and the Bradford Bypass farther north, have yet to be built, even though the government has passed legislation after legislation to enable construction. 

And even if they were built, they almost certainly wouldn’t ease traffic congestion — even the province’s own modelling says so. 

More lanes simply means more cars on the road — a concept known as induced demand that is best illustrated by the fact that when the Ford government lifted provincial tolls off sections of the usually quiet Highway 407 last June, those stretches soon became busy. Meanwhile, there’s still no shortage of traffic on the 401.

But lifting those tolls was moving in the opposite direction of a proven solution for crowded streets: charging drivers through tolls and congestion pricing has worked in New York, reducing traffic congestion by 11 per cent since 2024. Instead, Ontario has killed several tolls and outlawed congestion pricing in its most recent budget. 

Transit-wise, if you’ve taken a GO train or TTC streetcar at rush hour you know there’s often no room for even one more person to make their way back to the office in January. 

The government says it’s investing in “the largest transit expansion in North America” and the “largest subway expansion in Canadian history.” Cool, but how long is it going to take? 

Toronto and its neighbouring communities remain trapped in decades-long construction mazes for light-rail transit and subways whose end dates are aspirational at best, as is their effectiveness. The city’s newest line since 2002 is Finch West, a $3.7-billion, 10.3 kilometre light-rail transitway that runners can outpace, as several people have demonstrated. 

If nothing else, maybe Ontario’s lagging transit upgrades and lack of real solutions for congestion will make walking to work the commute of choice — even if it means marathon distances. Otherwise, and more likely, we’ll continue down this road, which may involve paying another $120 billion in health costs associated with air pollution across the country, particularly in the most densely populated regions like the Greater Toronto Area. And more air pollution means more global warming and more extreme weather events like flooding and wildfires. 

But that shouldn’t be the cost of going to work — nor should the void of human interaction from working at home be a better solution.

Here’s to hoping the ever-elusive Goldilocks option of better transit and less traffic is on the table one day, for public servants and the rest of us.

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We all eat and drink. And some time later, the excess must come out the other end. But where do you “go” in Toronto, especially if you’re in the city’s parks? 

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the lack of public washrooms in the city. Cafés and libraries were closed and so were their washrooms. More businesses put up door or window signs stating their washrooms are for customers only. When nature called the options for excreta depended on sex. For women it usually meant holding it. Men had it easier due to their plumbing — with a bush or the side of a building offering enough cover. 

“Clean washrooms make parks accessible and inviting for immigrants,” my colleague at University of Toronto, Ambika Tenneti, said. Her PhD research looked at strategies to engage newcomers in urban forests. In other words: how to increase the connections between people and nature for new Canadians. “In my focus groups the women said we need more washrooms for females. The lines are too long. In multi-generational families, the women often have to take the children or the elders to the washrooms. Men don’t have to do that. There is never a lineup for the men’s toilets. Clean washrooms also make the parks feel safe for immigrants.”

Public washrooms in the city’s parks are maintained by Toronto’s Parks and Recreation division. Some of the washrooms are seasonal, opening from spring to fall each year. Some of the washrooms are more than 50 years old, are not winterized and thus closed to prevent frost damage to pipes and wiring. Where are people supposed to “go” in the winter when the bladder or the belly needs relief?

The lack of public washrooms was emphasized in a report by Toronto Public Space Committee. This volunteer collective of people are “passionate about public space,” including public washrooms. In 2021 the group published “Gotta Go TO: A Public Washroom Strategy for Toronto.” The report called for the city to invest in public washrooms, not just for health and hygiene reasons but as a basic civic service. 

The same year the city launched the Park Washroom Enhancement Program, with the goal of upgrading or rebuilding 125 park washrooms over a decade. This work is now underway, but it can’t come soon enough — or in enough places. The new washrooms will be open year-round. What a relief it will be for park users. “Washrooms are one of the top five priorities when planning a hike,” said Laura Strachan, the board chair of Let’s Hike T.O., a “hiking community in Toronto open to everyone with a focus on people of colour, newcomers and young adults.” 

“We could do longer hikes and have more events in the parks all year if there were open washrooms,” Strachan said. “Now we have to limit our hikes to five kilometres. We could increase it to 12 kilometres or more if there were washrooms. You can tell where the good spots are for washrooms in the parks because you see the used toilet paper or Kleenex there. It’s gross.”

Public washrooms in Toronto have always been a delicate subject. Toronto the Good — an old moniker from when the city was stuffy, monochromatic and presumably godly — didn’t plan for where to expel the excreta. The first public washroom opened in the city in 1896. It was for men only. Women had to fight to get a public washroom. There was a brief interest in building more public washrooms but this ended in the 1920s, thanks to NIMBYism — or “not in my backyard” enthusiasts — from businesses and residents, and lack of interest from politicians. 

Park People, a non-profit agency that advocates for public parks in Canada, noted in its 2023 Canadian City Park Report that public washrooms were the top amenity its survey respondents said they would like to see more of in parks.

In Toronto, Park People partnered with the city to launch the InTO the Ravines program in 2020. This aims to get more under-served communities to know, enjoy and therefore protect the ravines — the wondrous necklace of green river valleys in the city. Whether it’s picnics for a birthday party, barbecues with friends or guided winter walks along the nature trails, it is easier for community groups to like and appreciate the ravines when the public washrooms are open, clean and safe.

“You have to strategize before you even go out to the park. Don’t drink a lot before you go. When organizing events, it becomes even more complex as the group of people literally have nowhere to ‘go,’ ” said Minaz Asani-Kanji, a co-founder of Good Futures Collective, a consulting group that specializes in environmental and community-led research.

In 2012, Canada signed a UN agreement that affirmed access to washrooms was a basic human right. The UN has since clarified that the right applies in public spaces including parks. The City of Toronto is doing a series of public consultations to review its Parkland Strategy — the long-term planning process for the city’s parks. The review includes community engagement sessions to gather feedback from various users of the parks. I went to one held by Black Environmental Initiative, a non-profit agency.

“I am not surprised that toilets came up in the conversations,” Muzamil Gadain, the project leader at Black Environmental Initiative, said. “It’s one of the most pressing issues that people have with the parks and their facilities.”

Washrooms need to be functional, but the design does not have to be Toronto’s usual brand — utilitarian and about as graceful as a pig on ice skates. Thankfully, the city seems to be coming around to this. Toronto Public Space Committee recently picked three top designs in its TO the Loo!: Toronto Toilet Design Challenge. The designs ranged from the elegant to pop-art inspired. Public washrooms in parks can be both useful and beautiful. Most importantly they must be open, year-round.

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Premier Doug Ford is gearing up for a fight after a judge pumped the brakes on his government’s plan to remove some Toronto bike lanes. 

On Wednesday, Ford left open the possibility of invoking the notwithstanding clause to ensure his government retains the authority to remove bike lanes it disapproves of. 

“Let’s see what happens at the Court of Appeal, and then we’ll go from there,” he said at an unrelated announcement in Thornhill, Ont. 

Ford criticized Justice Paul Schabas’ decision as the “most ridiculous” he’s ever seen. 

“You talk about the Charter? It’s trampling on the democratic rights of Ontarians that elected a government, just a few months before … that said they’re going to move, not eliminate … bike lanes from the main arterial roads,” Ford said. 

Ford, however, struck a confident tone and said he has confidence the Court of Appeal will rule in his government’s favour. 

Using the notwithstanding clause would allow the government to push through the removals, regardless of what the three-judge panel at the Court of Appeals says. 

In his July 30 ruling, Justice Schabas wrote “the evidence is clear” that “restoring a lane of motor vehicle traffic … will create greater risk to cyclists and to other users of the road.” 

Schabas’ decision didn’t hinge on whether he thought citizens had a right to bike lanes. Instead, it revolved around whether the government’s arguments for removing the lanes — and causing harm to non-driving road users — was based in fact. 

The government’s central point was that removing the bike lanes on Yonge Street, University Avenue and Bloor Street would reduce congestion. That, according to Schabas, was predicated on “weak anecdotal evidence and expert opinion,” which was “unsupported, unpersuasive and contrary to the consensus view of experts.”

He wrote that “there is no evidence that the government based its decision on data, manuals or expert ‘highway engineering,’ or that its decision would ‘contribute to highway safety.’ ”

“Rather, the evidence is to the contrary,” he wrote.

Ford is no stranger to using — or threatening to use — the notwithstanding clause, a constitutional provision that was previously taboo in Ontario politics. 

He was the first premier in the province’s history to invoke the clause, which has been in place since 1982. 

In 2018, he threatened to invoke the clause to reduce the number of Toronto city council members from 47 to 25. Doing so was ultimately unnecessary because the Court of Appeal upheld Queen’s Park’s authority to make the council change.

In 2021, the Superior Court struck down Ford’s attempt to extend third-party election spending limits to 12 months, up from six months. Ford recalled the legislature and passed the bill with the notwithstanding clause — marking the first time in provincial history the clause was actually used. 

Then, in 2022, Ford used the clause to ban education workers from striking after contract negotiations broke down. That sparked intense public backlash and Ford repealed the bill days later.

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The province said the newly-passed Bill 17 will take away the city’s authority to enforce key parts of the Toronto Green Standard for buildings — though the city continues to deny the law will have any impact.

A spokesperson for Rob Flack, Ontario’s Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, said in a statement that the act — which aims to speed up housing and infrastructure development by doing away with many local planning rules — would render mandatory parts of the standard unenforceable.  

“Our government’s legislation, the Protect Ontario by Building Faster and Smarter Act, standardizes construction requirements and provides consistency, clarifying that no municipality has the authority to enforce a by-law that supersedes the Ontario Building Code,” spokesperson Alexandra Sanita wrote. 

“Through these changes, the City of Toronto’s Tier 1 of the Green Building Standard would not be allowed as they mandate requirements for new development planning applications that go beyond the Ontario building code.” 

The Toronto Green Standard are a set of city rules that require housing developers to implement eco-friendly design features in new buildings. 

The standard consists of four tiers, with Tier 1 being a mandatory list of assets developers must incorporate within new developments. This includes adding bicycle parking and electric vehicle charging stations to new buildings over four storeys, and taking steps to mitigate flooding and extreme heat, for instance, by building rooftop gardens and planting trees. 

Tiers 2 through 4, while not mandatory, provide developers with financial incentives to take on more ambitious climate targets. Developers can get a portion of the development charge fees they pay to the city refunded for achieving these higher targets. 

According to the provincial spokesperson, Tiers 2 to 4 “will not be affected” by Bill 17.

City pushes back on province’s interpretation of law

Despite the province’s statement, a spokesperson for the City of Toronto denied that Bill 17 will have any impact on the municipality’s ability to enforce the Toronto Green Standard, reiterating findings from a staff report earlier this week. 

“City staff have reviewed Bill 17 and determined that there is no impact to the City’s ability to continue to apply the [standard] to new development,” the spokesperson told TorontoToday. 

Last week, the city released an assessment of the impact of Bill 17, which pushed back on the idea that local authority over the standard could be restricted. 

“Recent media reports have suggested that Bill 17 has impacted or restricted a municipalities [sic] ability to apply the [Toronto Green Standard],” the report read, going on to deny there would be any impact. 

The city’s executive committee received the report on June 16. 

Experts previously raised concerns over Bill 17

Before the bill was passed on June 3, experts speculated a provision that updates the Building Code Act of 1992 could bring an end to the Toronto Green Standard.

The provision says municipalities do not have the authority to “pass by-laws respecting the construction or demolition of buildings.” 

Some legal professionals interpreted this phrase to mean that Ontario cities would no longer have the authority to enforce sustainable design standard.

“This would appear to make green building standards obsolete and ensure that the same standard (the [Ontario Building Code]) apply province wide,” lawyers from Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP wrote in May. 

Environmental experts had also raised alarm that Toronto Green Standard would be “deeply undercut.”

Additionally, the president of an organization representing Ontario’s residential construction industry argued the law was intended to override the standard. 

“No municipality has the right to choose not to implement legislation irrespective of how unappealing it may appear to them,” Richard Lyall, president of the Residential Construction Council of Ontario, wrote in a letter to the city’s executive committee last week. 

Lyall referenced comments made by Minister Flack in the Ontario Legislature, when he spoke about the need to make building standard across the province consistent. 

“It’s bureaucratic; it’s red tape; it isn’t working,” Flack said during legislative debates in early June, adding that green standard are “part of the slowness of getting houses built.”

“That is why we brought Bill 17 forward; that is why we are going to have one code in this province, not hundreds of iterations,” Flack said.

The Residential Construction Council of Ontario is also currently engaged in a legal battle with the city over the Toronto Green Standard. In December, the industry group asked the Ontario Superior Court of Justice to block the city from enforcing construction standards that go beyond the Ontario Building Code. 

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Last summer, southern Ontario was rocked by massive floods that led to more than $1 billion in damages.

It was the type of disaster that unfortunately could become increasingly familiar as the risk of flooding rises with climate change.

But there are solutions at hand. I caught up with Ontario reporter Fatima Syed — who “literally watched water come up through the drain” in the parking lot of her Mississauga residence — to learn about how we can better plan for a world with more severe weather events.

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Ontario developers have launched a legal challenge against the City of Toronto, questioning its authority to impose construction “green standards”— rules to ensure new buildings are energy efficient, minimize emissions and accomodate pedestrians and bikes. 

The Residential Construction Council of Ontario — a non-profit industry association representing residential builders — filed the challenge at the Ontario Superior Court on Nov. 19. In it, the association argues the City of Toronto is overstepping its powers by enacting rules over “the manner of construction and construction standards.” 

The association is asking the provincial court to prohibit the city from imposing those standards and any others in the future that would dictate construction requirements beyond the Ontario building code. Close to 30 municipalities have instituted such standards in recent years, as the Doug Ford government has delayed introducing them provincially in its push to speed up housing development.

Richard Lyall, president of the Residential Construction Council of Canada, told The Narwhal the green standards are making building housing “more complicated” at a time when the province is facing a housing shortage. 

“This [legal challenge] was a last resort,” he said in an interview. “We’re pro-green buildings but let’s have a common set of standards. We don’t need each municipality cooking their own system and forcing builders to follow it.”  

“It’s frustrating, believe me,” he added. “We don’t want to do this. We don’t want to take the City of Toronto to court and get a judgment, but we feel we don’t have an alternative and things are getting crazy enough.”

In an emailed statement to The Narwhal, the City of Toronto said it would respond to the legal challenge “in due course,” adding the Toronto Green Standard is updated every four years, with the next update scheduled for next fall. 

Two sources familiar with the matter but unauthorized to speak about it publicly told The Narwhal the lawsuit took city and industry officials by surprise.

The sources said representatives of the construction council and city officials have been in “semi-regular conversations” about the next iteration of the Toronto Green Standards for the past several months, which the sources characterized as “productive.” In addition to creating climate-specific requirements for all new developments in the city, the current standards offer financial incentives to developers to encourage energy efficient, low emissions buildings. 

Buildings are the third largest source of carbon emissions in Ontario, with heating, cooling and other daily functions accounting for 24 per cent of the province’s total emissions. In 2020, the province’s auditor general found the government wasn’t doing enough to address building emissions, noting various ministries “do not … effectively oversee, evaluate and improve the performance of programs to support and encourage reducing energy use in buildings.” 

Lyall described the auditor general’s findings as “an argument without any basis in fact,” saying he “did not agree.” In his opinion, Ontario’s building code is “one of the greenest in the country.”

Many cities had a different response. Since the auditor general’s report, Toronto and close to 30 municipalities — including Ottawa, Brampton, Ajax, Whitby, Pickering, Halton Hills, Markham, Richmond Hill, and most recently, Mississauga, Brampton and Caledon — have filled the provincial gap by instituting city-specific rules for climate-resilient construction that go beyond Ontario’s building code.

Over the years, developers have pushed back against these rules, which they argue increase construction costs at a time when the province desperately needs more housing. The tensions came to a head in April when the Residential Construction Council of Ontario threatened legal action, questioning whether cities have the legislative authority to create municipal conditions for building permit approvals.

That threat seemed idle — until now. Conversations between the construction council and the City of Toronto “seemed fine,” one of two sources who spoke to The Narwhal about the issue said. “There appeared to be progress,” the second source said. Both said the council didn’t express specific concerns about the Toronto Green Standards, just general worries about the challenging environment they work in, and the need to be able to build without red tape. 

The lawsuit came “out of nowhere,” both sources told The Narwhal. 

Lyall said the conversations have been “frustrating” for the council because of a “difference in the realities.” He said developers face a series of challenges — including rising development charges, taxation and construction costs — that make it difficult to build housing. Green standards add to that burden by specifying mandatory building materials and moving heating and cooling systems away from natural gas and towards electricity, he said. 

“The biggest problem is we are falling off a cliff,” he said. “This [legal challenge] is just one of many things we’re trying to address.”  

The lawsuit is the latest attack on municipal green standards. In 2022, the Doug Ford government tried to remove city authority to impose green standards, saying it would help speed up the construction of homes. The government reversed this move after pushback from city staff. At the time, a group of 50 engineers said green standards have “been successful in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and stormwater runoff from new buildings, as well as reducing the urban heat island effect” — the term for how concrete and asphalt trap heat, which can be offset by natural features like trees, water and unpaved areas. 

The two sources told The Narwhal the developer association’s lawsuit could have a chilling effect on local climate action, making Ontario cities hesitant to propose new green standards or strengthen existing ones.  

If successful, the lawsuit “will set us back in our ability to address climate change in Ontario cities,” one source said. “If Toronto Green Standards go, they all go.”

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When I first started riding my bike in Toronto eight years ago, it was because I had no other choice.

I was entering my third year of university, desperate for a way to get around after spending the first half of my undergrad rationing transit tokens. There were times when I couldn’t afford the $3.25 it would cost me to get on the subway to visit family. When I got a job that paid a bit better, it was farther away and I couldn’t pay for the monthly transit pass that would allow me to commute there. 

So, bike it was. Even when I fell while riding in a blizzard, even when I narrowly avoided getting run over on roads without protected bike lanes, I pedalled on. It was the only way I could afford to get around.

I’ve been thinking about those days a lot this month, in the wake of news that Premier Doug Ford is looking at limiting where cities can build new bike lanes, a move he claims will improve traffic. He cited two existing bike lanes as examples, the ones on Toronto’s University Avenue and Bloor Street West. He passes by them regularly, commuting from his home to Queen’s Park. Full disclosure, so do I — just on two wheels instead of four.

“We want to make sure that all forms of transportation move quickly, and that’s what it comes down to — making sure you aren’t putting bike lanes in the middle of some of the busiest streets in the country,” Ford told reporters last week. He added that bike lanes should go on side streets instead, a plan that critics say will not work in most areas, and backed up the proposal with justifications that don’t stand up to a fact check. 

Restricting new bike lanes is obviously a bad idea in terms of public safety: there will always be people who, like my 20-year-old self, have no choice but to cycle on main streets. Forcing them to ride in car traffic can have deadly consequences — we’ve seen it in Belleville, Guelph, Elora, Niagara and Toronto in the last month alone. 

It’s also not going to make Toronto’s god-awful gridlock any better. One look at the bike lanes on Bloor will tell you it probably isn’t the cyclists zipping by in a narrow lane that are causing the issue. It’s the cars filling the vast majority of the space. Bikes may be an easy strawman, but blaming them without evidence just inflames tensions on the road — and distracts us from finding real solutions. 

This isn’t a matter of bikes versus cars, it’s fact: we know from decades of research that more car lanes encourage more people to drive, which makes traffic worse in the long run. It’s the same reason Ford’s other ideas for relieving traffic congestion — most recently a tunnel under Highway 401 that would likely cost billions, and two highways running through Ontario’s Greenbelt —  won’t help either. 

We also know the same concept works in reverse. If you take away a lane of car traffic, it will encourage people to leave their car at home and find different ways to move around. With improved public transit options or safe bike lanes, they wouldn’t have to look too far.

Every cyclist on the road means one less person in a car, taxi or rideshare — or one less passenger on public transit, which is more crowded and less reliable than it used to be. 

It’s also pretty obvious that fewer vehicles on the road means fewer emissions spewing into our air that are bad for our health and the climate. 

There will always be people who need to drive to get around Toronto. But the roads and our air will be clearer for everybody if those of us who can use other options do. 

Ford does understand the importance of bike lanes, or at least he used to: “You’re nervous when there’s not bike lanes, at least I was,” he told TVO in 2017 after trying out cycling near Queen’s Park. He also campaigned on promises to put money back in people’s pockets, and biking is one of the cheapest ways to get around, requiring no fare or fuel. 

So why is Ford doing this now? Maybe it’s because bike lanes have become an ideological wedge that he hopes will win him another election. Maybe because real solutions to traffic are complicated and often unpopular — like congestion pricing, which is proven to work. 

Either way, the truth will be clear in a few years, when few new bike lanes are in sight through the gridlock. 

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.