Mayoral candidate Sarah Thomson tried positioning herself this week as the person most likely to turn Toronto into a city "the world looks to for environmental inspiration."
While saying her environment policies aren't "extensions of the past," Thomson praised what she called great work by mayors David Miller and Mel Lastman, who Thomson said both "planted the environmental seeds that put Toronto on the world stage." She also said her environment platform, released Thursday, Aug. 5, at a downtown pub, answers criticisms by the Toronto Environmental Alliance she "misses key lessons" on her proposals for a greener city."I think it covers each one of them," Thomson said during a Jarvis St. press conference of the group's recent comments about her. "They may not agree with every one of them."And indeed Thomson stuck to her argument subway-system expansions - which TEA's executive director Franz Hartmann calls "a recipe for delay" - are greener and more responsible investments than the province's Transit City light-rail network plan.Thomson said subway tunnels are more attractive to riders and will last longer than new surface-rail routes she argued will increase traffic congestion and therefore vehicle emissions.Her platform includes keeping the city's plastic bag fee and calls for creating more community gardens and mixed-zoning areas. Taxi companies would be encouraged by a one-time incentive to switch their fleets within five years to hybrid vehicles, which could cut taxi emissions in half.Local environmental groups, who Thomson said "are achieving much more collectively than our municipal government could ever do on its own" would be asked to share their resources and expertise with small businesses, in return for more municipal support.Thomson also said she "will work towards" placing green bins in all apartments by 2014, working with landlord and tenant groups to remove any obstacles to reaching the city's waste-reduction goal of 70 per cent.Hartmann, however, said he finds Thomson's completion date puzzling because the city is already planning to have green-bin recycling in all multi-residential buildings in 2011.But Hartmann said he believes Thomson cares about the environment and that she is "bang on" in saying the city can help its local green manufacturers by buying their products when possible. TEA has met with Thomson as well as with her rivals Joe Pantalone - who got the best marks in a mid-term campaign report card on environmental issues the group released last month - George Smitherman and Rocco Rossi to discuss green issues. Rob Ford, another contender for the mayor's job, has not agreed to a meeting, Hartmann said. "We've out the request in and we're still awaiting a response."