August 15, 2024, at 1:00 PM

Original link

The meeting is called to order at 1:02 PM; it being noted that Councillors S. Stevenson and P. Van Meerbergen were in remote attendance.

1.   Disclosures of Pecuniary Interest

That it BE NOTED that no pecuniary interests were disclosed.

2.   Consent

2.1   City of London Community Grants Program Grassroots, Innovation and Capital Funding Allocations (2024)

2024-08-15 Staff Report - (2.1) City of London Community Grants Program Grassroots

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by E. Peloza

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Neighbourhood and Community-Wide Services, the report dated August 15, 2024, titled “City of London Community Grants Program Grassroots, Innovation, and Capital Funding Allocations (2024)” and the revised Appendix “A”, as appended to the added agenda, BE RECEIVED for information.

Motion Passed (12 to 0)

2.2   Secondary School Student Transit Pass Pilot Program

2024-08-15 Staff Report - (2.2) Secondary School Student Transit Pass Pilot Program

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by E. Peloza

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Neighbourhood and Community-Wide Services, the following actions be taken:

a)    the report dated August 15, 2024, with respect to the Secondary School Student Transit Pass Pilot Program BE RECEIVED; and

b)   the secondary school pilot project BE DEFERRED to school years beginning September 2025 and September 2026 to provide for the Civic Administration together with London Transit Commission (LTC) to develop a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Thames Valley District School Board (TVDSB), for the purpose of partnering to deliver a pilot project to provide annual transit passes to secondary school students at Clarke Road Secondary School for Grade 9 students in year one and Grade 9 and Grade 10 students in year two, with a report back to Council on the MOU, appropriate source of financing, and metrics as previously directed.

ADDITIONAL VOTES:

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by E. Peloza

That the preamble and part a) be approved as follows:

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Neighbourhood and Community-Wide Services, the following actions be taken:

a)    the report dated August 15, 2024, with respect to the Secondary School Student Transit Pass Pilot Program BE RECEIVED; and

Motion Passed (12 to 0)

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by E. Peloza

That part b) be approved as follows:

b)   the secondary school pilot project BE DEFERRED to school years beginning September 2025 and September 2026 to provide for the Civic Administration together with London Transit Commission (LTC) to develop a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Thames Valley District School Board (TVDSB), for the purpose of partnering to deliver a pilot project to provide annual transit passes to secondary school students at Clarke Road Secondary School for Grade 9 students in year one and Grade 9 and Grade 10 students in year two, with a report back to Council on the MOU, appropriate source of financing, and metrics as previously directed.

Motion Passed (9 to 3)

3.   Scheduled Items

None.

4.   Items for Direction

4.1   2023 Climate Emergency Action Plan Progress Report

2024-08-15 Staff Report - (4.1) 2023 Climate Emergency Action Plan

Moved by S. Franke

Seconded by J. Morgan

That, on the recommendation of the Deputy City Manager, Environment and Infrastructure, the following actions be taken:

a)    the staff report dated August 15, 2024, providing a summary of progress and policy implications and opportunities pertaining to the Climate Emergency Action Plan as well as the appended 2023 Climate Emergency Action Plan Progress Report as Appendix “A” BE RECEIVED for information;

b)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to report back as part of the Climate Emergency Action Plan Update Report in January 2025 on revised timelines and completion dates for the actions that have been delayed or are under review including the rationale and potential impacts;

c)    the provincially required 2024-2028 Corporate Energy Conservation and Demand Management (CDM) Plan, as appended to the staff report within Appendix “B”, BE APPROVED; and

d)  the Mayor BE REQUESTED to engage with the Minister of Energy to discuss London’s efforts on the Climate Emergency Action Plan and how provincial energy policies are impacting London’s ability to achieve our climate targets.

it being noted that the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee received a presentation from the Director, Climate Change, Environment & Waste Management and received a communication dated August 12, 2024 from B. Samuels and a communication dated August 13, 2024 from M. A. Hodge, Climate Action London with respect to this matter.

Motion Passed (12 to 0)

5.   Deferred Matters/Additional Business

5.1   (ADDED) Request for London Police Services Delegation - Councillor E. Peloza

2024-08-15 Submission - (5.1) LPS Request for Delegation-E. Peloza

Moved by E. Peloza

Seconded by C. Rahman

That the following actions be taken:

a)    the Civic Administration BE DIRECTED to invite London Police Chief T. Truong to appear before the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee as a delegation at the  September 17, 2024 meeting, along with any staff he deems appropriate to accompany him; and

b)    pursuant to section 36.3 of the Council Procedure By-law, the delegate BE PERMITTED to speak an additional five (5) minutes with respect to this matter followed by a Question and Answer session;

it being noted that the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee received a communication dated August 9, 2024 from Councillor E. Peloza with respect to this matter.

Motion Passed (12 to 0)

6.   Confidential (Enclosed for Members only.)

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by D. Ferreira

That the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee convenes In Closed Session to consider the following:

6.1    Labour Relations/Employee Negotiations / Land Acquisition/Disposition / Solicitor-Client Privileged Advice

A matter pertaining to reports, advice and recommendations of officers and employees of the Corporation carried on or to be carried on by or on behalf of the municipality concerning employee negotiations and labour relations, proposed acquisitions and dispositions of land, and advice that is subject to solicitor-client privilege, including communications necessary for that purpose.

6.2    Personal Matters/Identifiable Individual / Solicitor-Client Privileged Advice

A matter pertaining to personal matters about an identifiable individual, including municipal or local board employees and advice that is subject to solicitor-client privilege, including communications necessary for that purpose.

Motion Passed (12 to 0)

The Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee convenes In Closed Session from 2:40 PM to 3:03 PM.

7.   Adjournment

Moved by P. Cuddy

Seconded by J. Morgan

That the meeting BE ADJOURNED.

Motion Passed

The meeting adjourned at 3:07 PM.

Full Transcript

Transcript provided by Lillian Skinner’s London Council Archive. Note: This is an automated speech-to-text transcript and may contain errors. Speaker names are not identified.

View full transcript (1 hour, 53 minutes)

My colleagues, I am going to call the 13th meeting of the Strategic Priorities and Policy Committee to Order. And as always, I want to start by acknowledging that the City of London is situated on the traditional lands of the Anishinaabe, the Haudenosaunee, Lene Peiwak, and Adewanda and Peoples. And we honor and respect the history, languages, and cultures of the diverse indigenous people who call this territory home. The City of London is currently home to many First Nations, Métis, and Inuit people today.

And as representatives of people of the City of London, we are grateful to have the opportunity to live and work in this territory. The City of London is also committed to making every effort to provide alternate formats and communication supports for meetings upon request. And to make a request specific to this meeting, please contact SPPC, London.ca, or phone 519-661-2489, extension 2425. I want to advise colleagues that Councillor Stevenson is with us virtually.

Councillors Layman and Hopkins are unable to join us today. And that is, all other members so far are with us in chambers, and as far as I am aware, Councillor Hillyer and Councillor Van Mertberg and will likely be joining us virtually. I haven’t heard otherwise, but they’re not with us yet. I am going to start the meeting by looking for any disclosures of culinary interest.

Councillor Palosa. Sorry, not disclosure, but Councillor Hillyer did send regrets, I did see them for SPPC. Thank you, Councillor. I did not receive those myself, so I appreciate you flagging that for me.

So I’ve got no disclosures of culinary interest, so I’m going to move on to the consent agenda. We have two items on consent, and we’ll look to see first if colleagues wish any of those pulled separately. Otherwise, I’ll look for a motion to move the consent agenda before we go to discussion. Councillor Cuddy, you’re moving.

Seconded by Councillor Trussau. Do you want to vote separately on 2.2? Councillor, I’m going to just ask, do you want to make any amendments to it, or are you just wishing to vote separately? Okay, so I’m going to treat that as having the consent agenda, if we have a seconder, fully moved, and we’ll just call two votes separately.

Councillor Palosa will second. So all of the consent agenda is on the floor, noting that we will vote separately on those two items. So looking for any questions, comments, or discussion. Councillor Trussau.

I do have a brief question on 2.1, and it won’t come as a surprise ‘cause it’s the same question I asked you last time. I suspect I’m going to get the same answer. It’s my, I want to say suspicion, but it’s by very, very strong sense that there were many worthy applications that were not funded. And I’m coming from the point of view that rather than cut back this program, we should be looking at the take up from the community and maybe think about expanding it.

So I understand that you can’t give me a lot of detailed information about the unsuccessful applicants. But is there something in general without disclosing their identities that you could say that speaks to whether or not this was a successful application process in terms of many more people than we could accommodate? I’ll go to Ms. Smith.

Thank you, through the chair, I can start. And then if Ms. Pollock has anything to add about specific as she sits on the community review panel. So we received a total of 85 applications for this round of funding with requests totaling about 4.6 million.

That was up about 26% from last year. And as the report saw before today, we were able to fund, we have $496,000 in annual funding for this program. And we were able to fund 19 projects. And it was different this year than in past years.

This is the first year that through our policy review last year that Council approved adding a new grassroots stream. So you will see a number of those projects. There was $100,000 dedicated to new and emerging groups to support grassroots. So the team worked a lot.

Some of those were ready to be funded some weren’t. So hopefully next year, those organizations as Ms. Pollock and her team supports on building capacity with new and emerging organizations. Hopefully some of those organizations will have built that capacity and maybe will be successful next year.

Thank you, that’s very helpful. One of the features of this program is that the council itself, we don’t really get to adjudicate these applications. Somebody does adjudicate these applications and could you just very, very briefly, ‘cause we’ve been through this on other committees, could you just very briefly remind us what that adjudication process entails and how much time did Council save by not having to adjudicate these directly? So Councilor, I’m not going to ask Ms.

Smith to speculate on how much time Council would spend debating merits of applications. That’s unfair to her, but I will ask her if she can just briefly highlight the process again. Thank you. So there’s really two stages to the review process.

As you know, the evaluation is tied to the Council’s strategic plan and some key evaluation criteria. The first step when applications are submitted is they go through an internal review. So with internal staff and staff from our finance department. So they do that initial review out to make sure that organizations are eligible.

So if they pass that initial stage, then they go to the community review panel. So as you can imagine, there’s 85 applications. It’s not as comprehensive as the multi-year funding for the panel, but the volunteer panel does spend quite a number of hours reviewing these. And then I believe they took two evenings to review them, two evenings to review these, assess them and come to the decisions they did.

Okay, and Councilor. Through the chair, this is my last question. And I don’t want you to speculate. How much can you estimate how much time these review panels put into their task of reviewing at both stages?

Ms. Smith. Ms. Pollock.

Thank you and through the chair. The community review panel receives the applications four weeks in advance of their meeting. So you can imagine that reviewing 85 applications, anywhere from 10 to 12 pages each. So they spent about four weeks doing that review and then they meet on average three evenings and those meetings run anywhere from three to four hours.

And that happens one or two times per year. Thank you. Thank you. No more questions.

Thank you, Councilor. Any other speakers on this or on 2.2 as well? ‘Cause both items are on the floor. Councilor Pribble.

Thank you and through the chair to the staff. First question for 2.1. I wanted to ask you and thank you for explaining the stages, the evaluation criteria, the process. But there is one that states there on page four that total of 25% of funding will be allocated to a specific specific area or a specific group orientation.

Besides this one, is there another policy, another guideline that would restrict the panel to go outside or is it just this one 25 and the rest of the criteria is identical for all? Ms. Smith. Thank you and through the chair.

The number one criteria is it must align with Council’s strategic plan. I believe the last council then made a motion and passed as part of the policy that at a minimum 25% goes to support equity, diversity and our ARAO. So, and if not, then the majority of funding goes to the other applications. So, for example, this year, 64% of the funding, when we go through the evaluation criteria, the panel did, 64% of the funding went to projects that furthered anti-racism and anti-oppression.

Other than that, there are no other ratios that are divided among Council’s strategic plan priorities. Just that one. Answer purple. Thank you very much for that answer.

And now for 4.2.2. I do have a question that thank you for that report regarding the secondary school student transit pass pilot program. And I see the recommendation and that the staff would come back beginning of next year, spring of next year. But there are under 2.3 and actually under 2.0 discussion.

There are three different considerations. And what would be the next step? Because those are the considerations and especially in 2.3, which Council, there are some couple of recommendations for Council to consider. When would it be kind of the timing on the right time to do this?

Because then it says that you would come back in the spring. When should we consider? When should we go back to the staff? What would be the process?

Thank you, Ms. Smith. Thank you and through the chair. If there’s any direction that is in addition to or different than the report before you, we would need that now as we need to go and begin scoping out what this pilot is, looking at all the technology and getting everything ready.

So if there is any change to the direction and the report before you, we would need that today. Councilor Proville, thank you. No more questions at this time. Looking for further speakers, Councilor Trossa.

This is a general question that could be answered by anyone who has an answer. Can anything more be said about the objectives of the pilot program? Because I was trying to find something more with more clarity in the report. And I was not finding that.

In fact, well, I’ll just leave the question at that. So I don’t know if this was a council direction to staff. Ms. Smith, I don’t know if you wanna comment about discussions you’ve had with LTC and the Thames Valley District School Board in terms of objectives to achieve.

I can certainly offer some comment as one of the movers of this. If Councilor Cutty wishes to add some comment, I can go to him as well. But first, Ms. Smith, did you wanna share anything?

And as this was a council direction, I’m not asking you to speculate, but based on your conversations with LTC and the Thames Valley District School Board, the objectives that are being discussed to be achieved. Thank you. When civic administration, the school board, and the LTC met, it is our understanding that the intention of this pilot is to provide free transportation to high school students in grade nine and in grade nine and grade 10. Further, we understood that the intention is to improve social, recreational, educational, employment opportunities for students and allowing them to use transportation, not only to school, but make this an option to use it 12 months out of the year to support part-time jobs, employment, travel, et cetera.

And I will ask Councilor Raman if she’ll take the chair, as the mover, I’ll speak to it as well. Thank you, I have the chair, go ahead. Thank you, Madam Presiding Officer. So as someone who was one of the signatories on the motion to have this investigated, there are multiple objectives to be achieved.

Ms. Smith talked about the educational component. For example, improved student attendance at secondary schools is one of the objectives that the Thames Valley School Board hopes that this can help them achieve as well as better educational outcomes because of course, when students are in class, their academic results generally are better than when they’re not in class. And we know that if students, and this is from the Thames Valley School Board discussions that I’ve had, when students miss a yellow bus in the morning, they tend to not attend at all, whereas a transit pass would allow them to perhaps make second and third period, even if they missed first period.

So that is part of it. Of course, there’s also the challenges we have with reliability in terms of yellow bus service during snow days and the impact that that has on student attendance. But beyond that, the overall ability for students to participate more fully and completely in the community, the objective though in a pilot project is to see what the student uptake and results would be before determining whether or not there was a need to explore expanding this city wide at some point with our partners. For me, one of the objectives is also to ultimately have transit start to replace yellow bus service for secondary students in the school board.

That’s a longer term goal. The school board cannot pull yellow bus service during a pilot project because the pilot may end. It may not go forward. They may still need that yellow bus service so they have to plan accordingly.

But that is one of the objectives is to start transitioning away from yellow buses. As colleagues may know, there’s issues around hiring and ability to retain bus drivers for school buses. There are other issues that are involved in that. And generally, additional road congestion and greenhouse gas emissions.

Putting students on transit allows them to have transit serving a wider base of people. And of course, if we want people using transit, the earlier they learned the better. So from my perspective, as somebody who was engaging with the school board on these discussions, that’s the objectives that we’re looking to achieve moving forward from this. If the pilot proves to be successful.

Thank you, I’m returning the chair to you, Councilor Cuddy on the list. Thank you, and I’ll go to Councilor Cuddy. Thank you, Chair. And through you, there’s very little like an ad that you haven’t already mentioned.

I will mention the reason it’s a pilot project is there are two successful models currently running one in Halifax and one in Kingston. And I don’t know if there were pilot projects that came before that, but they are successfully operating. And I will add one comment to what Deputy Mayor Lewis had commented that when a yellow bus doesn’t make it due to weather conditions and inclement weather, the LTC does. And I remember when I was a school board trustee and Councilor Raman maybe remember the same day that we were notified when school buses were not running because of inclement weather.

And I remember today that there were 72 yellow buses, 72 yellow buses not running to any of the TV DSP schools, but all the LTC buses were running. The other thing that I will mention that this project will do and Deputy Mayor Lewis alluded to it, it is a lifestyle change for these kids because now they know how to use an LTC bus. And not only do they get to school as the Deputy Mayor said and they get to school on time, they have a job afterwards and they get home from that job. So I’m disappointed that we’re not going ahead with this year, but I’m gratified to know that this Council wants to move ahead with it in 2025.

Thank you. Councilor Trussow. My next question to the Chair deals with the source of funding. The report very clearly tells us that there are three main sources of funding, revenue from the rider, gas tax allocations, and the municipal tax base.

Has there been any progress on identifying even potentially sources of funding for this pilot? So I can go to Ms. Smith on that as well. I will very briefly share though, Councilor, that in their spring budget this year, the province did include a new transportation funding source for school boards.

However, the details in how school boards can access that are not yet available. So the school boards don’t have clear understanding yet of how some of that transportation fund can be accessed, but I will, so I wanted to share that, ‘cause I know that that’s a discussion I’ve had with the previous board chair, and I will go to Ms. Smith for any additional sources of funding comment that she can offer us. Thank you, and through the Chair, it’s my understanding based on the conversation we had initially about this program is that the pilot funding would be coming from the municipality, and that it would be coming from the Reserve Fund, and I would ask Mr.

Murray to confirm what Reserve Fund, that would be, I believe that was the conversation at our last meeting. And Mr. Murray. Thank you through the Chair, yes.

So the intention would be that funding for the pilot would come from, in all likelihood, the Community Investment Reserve Fund. We would finalize that recommendation when we report back. However, in terms of longer term funding, I don’t believe there are any further information at this point in terms of a more sustainable funding source beyond the term of the pilot, at least at this point. Thank you, Councilor.

I’ll just, if I still have a moment, I’ll just speak to my position. I’m not gonna be supporting part B. I think that there are still too many unanswered questions in terms of the source of funding, why this is not being applied across other potential stakeholders, and having read the report, I am not willing to proceed with this any further, so I will be voting no on part B, thank you. Any further speakers?

Councillor Frank. Thank you. I just had one additional question on the Community Grants Program. I noticed that under the capital programming, there’s funding for 68,000 for new parking lot resurfacing.

I’m just wondering, I believe that the program has been evaluated using clam emergency screening tool. I’m just wondering if moving forward, if parking lot upgrades will continue to be an eligible capital expense, given that they are supporting more car infrastructure within the city and where, you know, trying to go in the opposite direction. So I’m just wondering if that has been used, the screening tool has been used to evaluate those kinds of capital costs. And Ms.

Smith or Ms. Pollock. Thank you through the chair. Now the key part about the approval of funding these two or more you write based on accessibility and allowing access to the building, particularly those that require specialized parking and right now neither allow buses to attend school buses, for example.

And it is our understanding that when this program’s paused, we will be doing an in-depth review of the council policy and the community grants program. And we’d be happy to add this to the list to review when we bring back some recommendations around future community grants regarding capital funding. Councilor Frank. Great, very pleased to hear that.

I personally know I would support removing parking as an eligible option unless it is 100% absolutely required for accessibility use. And I would be very interested to know if we’re able to provide funding for solar panels, air source e-pumps, that kind of capital cost. So I look forward to that report and seeing it reviewed using the screening tool. Thank you.

Councilor Raman. Thank you and through you. I just had a question regarding 2.2 with respect to the report that’s in front of us, Appendix A. Excuse me, the Appendix A is dated May 29th.

And the recommendation is noted and filed. And I’m just wondering if there’s been any further updates communication. Ms. Smith.

Thank you and through the chair, the Appendix A is the report that the London Transit Commission Board received. I believe Ms. Palesny is on the line if you have questions for her to answer. Ms.

Palesny is not with us. I’m sorry, can you repeat what your question is? I’m not sure I can answer it. It’s we attached the report that went to the London Transit Commission Board on that date.

Sure, and through you chair, maybe other members of council that are on LTC might be able to, if they’re willing to comment on whether or not any additional reporting has been or discussion has happened. Well, I am happy to go to either Councilor Ferreira or Councilor Pribble if they’d like to offer comment on the report that the LTC received on this item earlier in the year. Okay, Councilor Ferreira’s shaking his head, no, but Councilor Pribble put his hand up, so I’ll go to Councilor Pribble. Thank you, Mr.

Chair, LTC and our commission, they left it to the meeting of our city’s administration together with LTC. And this was the first report we have seen coming back. So our next commission meeting will be in August. And this is, I’m quite sure that that’s gonna be the time we’ll be discussing this further if any commissioners have any questions.

And Ms. Pletchney has joined us. Welcome Ms. Pletchney.

Councilor ramen had a question she’d like you to respond to if you’re able. I’m just gonna go back to her to repeat that question. So you hear it in its entirety. Thank you and welcome.

My question was just related to item 2.2 and just looking at the memo that’s included Appendix A, where it just says to all commissioners that the report be noted and filed and just wondering what subsequent conversations have happened with the board and whether or not our commissionant and whether or not there has been any updated reports. Ms. Pletchney. Thank you, through the chair.

And I think I heard Councilor Pribble somewhat answer this, but the intent is that we would go back to the commission at our August meeting with an update that this report has now gone back to SPPC, which was the next step in the process when we tabled that report. So there hasn’t been any discussion in between the tabling of that report and what’s going on today. Ms. Pletchney, just for clarification, there hasn’t been any discussion, further discussion with your board, but LTC, Thames Valley District School Board and city administration have had some discussions, correct?

Yes, sorry, my apologies. I was referring directly to discussion with the commission, but yes, we have participated in those administrative discussions. Thank you. Just wanted to make sure that was clear to everybody.

Councilor ramen. Thank you. And I guess what I’m trying to understand is we heard from Thames Valley District School Board and we have council direction. And I’m just wondering is the next step for LTC direction or support?

Ms. Smith. Thank you. It’s through the chair and conversations we’ve had with Ms.

Pletchney and the Thames Valley District School Board Administration is our understanding that pending this report, we will then go away together and come forward early in 2025 with a proposed plan with the memorandum of our standing or agreement looks like we will work internally with our legal and finance department in order to do that. So as per the direction that we receive coming out of this report, we will go away and develop that pilot program, all the details around it and bring forward those details, the financial requirements, the any necessary agreements, MOUs, et cetera, probably in Q1 2025. So we can roll out this program in September 2025. And Ms.

Smith, just for all counselors sake, that’s pending council approval for what you bring forward in 2025. Thank you, that’s correct. And also noting that just like this report, that report we would create in collaboration with I’m gonna go to the school board, the trustees at the school board too. And I don’t wanna speak for Ms.

Pelesny, but I’m sure the LTC board too. Councilor Raman. Thank you. So I just, I wanna provide some comment just in terms of where I am on this.

I’m going to support what’s in front of us today, but excuse me, I’m not supportive of funding this solely through the community investment reserve fund. I do think that Thames Valley District School Board needs to have a stake in the pilot program. And I do need to see willingness from LTC in the commission to support this. I appreciate that this came to them as direction from council.

And therefore they were in kind of response mode and with a very quick timeline to turn it around. And so this allows for us to address the timing issue. But I do think that when we’re entering into agreements such as this, we have to do so with willingness from all parties to be part of what we’re proposing and we need to work on that. I think just to strengthen our relationships and make sure that we have clear understanding of those objectives from the beginning.

So I do think that we have to smooth that that part of the process out. And I will also say that I appreciate that LTC is looking at this, knowing that this was not part of their strategic plan. This was not part of their objectives that they had set. So we’re kind of coming in and providing further direction on where we’d like to see them make some changes.

And they’ve provided to us some very fair commentary on why they think this is going to be a challenge. And so I think as willing partners, we have to be willing to hear what they’re saying. They know their business. So hearing some of their concerns and being willing to listen to those concerns and find a way forward that addresses them so that the pilot has the most opportunity for success is really important to me.

So that’s what I’ll be looking for as we get further reporting. Thanks. Looking for any further speakers? Seeing none, before we call the vote, Councilor ramen, can I ask you to take the chair?

Sure, I have the chair, go ahead. Thank you, Madam Presiding Officer. I’m just gonna offer some really brief comment on both items. I’ll start with the secondary school transit past pilot project.

Obviously, I’m a little disappointed that we can’t operationalize it now, but I understand, I hear the challenges. I hear both LTC and Thames Valley School Board, as well as our staff. So although I would have liked to have it in place in September, I am more than willing to wait and give everybody more time to operationalize this, and to come back with some more scoped out and more defined parameters. So I appreciate the work that’s gone into this.

I think that we have, even on some of the existing subsidy programs we have, that the city provides additional funding through to LTC, for example, the children under 12 riding free. I think we have some challenges with how those fobs are reclaimed when the children exceed 12 years of age. I think we have riders right now in secondary schools who are riding free because they still have their fobs. And so I think that there’s some pieces to be worked out here.

So as much as I’d like to run to the finish line, I’m happy to walk. And so I’ll be supporting this and see what staff comes back with in the fall. On the community and capital grants, I will say, I’m not gonna pick apart any of the grants, specifically, I don’t wanna pick on anyone here. I still think that there are grants even today that we’re approving, that are a bit of a stretch in terms of how they’re interpreted to be attached to our strategic plan, which is one of my ongoing concerns with this program.

I do not think we should be funding it more. I think we should be funding it less. It’s not at heart the city’s job to be a grants bank. And we have municipal services that we do not have fully funded, including London Transit, through our board and commission, that money could be directed to in different ways.

So I will just say, while I generally share Councillor Frank’s concern about parking lot, so I do know on these two particular projects, the Jet Aircraft Museum is absolutely critical for mobility issues and for school buses and those school tours and things that come to the facility. And as a very small organization, they either get some help here or they don’t have those programs. So I understand why it is being recommended and I will share as well, only because I’m a member of the Victory Branch and so I know that part of this overall project here is not just so we can get veterans from, for example, Parkwood Hospital actually into the building, but I know an overall part of the plan. And I don’t know what was in their applications, so I don’t know what parts they included and didn’t include, but I know part of this is to also address the fact that right now storm water is just becoming an overland flow there and part of their goal is to connect to the municipal storm sewer system, which is only, I think, about 150 meters away from where they are, but as you can imagine, a sewer connection is a lot of expense to for a legion.

So my understanding is this is one part of an overall rehabilitation project for them. And so I’m supportive of that as well. But I will say, and I will say this freely, even as a member of the LGBTQ+ community, I think a couple of the recommended programs here may not have full value for the money we’re spending in the LGBTQ community, but I’m not gonna identify particular ones, as I said, I’m not picking on anybody here. I just think that some of these are a bit of a stretch in terms of our strategic plan, and that’s my issue with these being decided independent of council is that it’s ultimately, at the end of the day, council’s strategic plan.

And it’s my opinion that we should be interpreting whether these connect to the strategic plan or not. So however, that’s a next year discussion. For this year, I’m not gonna oppose any of these grants. I’m gonna support them because the process is what it is that got us to this point.

So I’ll be supporting both of these items. Thank you, returning the chair to you. And I see Councillor Pribble. Just a brief comment on 2.2.

I will be certainly supporting it. And I do believe that I’m hoping that this pilot project, we are gonna build a case for the provincial government that future the funding for the school buses, instead of school buses, is gonna come more towards the LTC. And we’ll have the opportunity to improve our LTC services with the additional funding. And I believe that the certain pilot project is gonna help us make the case.

So I will be supporting it. Thank you. I always say this. So at the risk of seeing I have no further speakers, I’m gonna call the vote.

Anyone else before I call the vote? Seeing none, I will ask the clerk to first open the vote on 2.1. That is the community grants allocations for 2024. Closing the vote, motion carries 12 to zero.

And now I will ask the clerk to open the vote on 2.2, secondary school transit pass pilot program. Councilor Trussell? Yes. - Yes.

This is just part A to be received. Closing the vote, the motion carries 12 to zero. And now part B, we’ll open the vote on. Closing the vote, motion carries nine to three.

Thank you, colleagues, moving on. We have no scheduled items today. Section four of our agenda is items for direction. We have one item, 4.1, the 2023 Climate Emergency Action Plan Progress Report.

And staff did ask for an opportunity to present. I am happy to grant them that opportunity. We’ve told them that they have 10 minutes, but because Mr. Stanford is presenting, I’m gonna start the clock now.

And then in 30 seconds, let him start. Mr. Stanford, when you’re ready, please go ahead. Well, thank you, Mr.

Chair, and good afternoon, everyone. I’m very pleased today to be presenting the 2023 Progress Report. Not only behalf of environment and infrastructure, but on behalf of actually everyone here at the corporation, there are so many people involved. We have over 20 directors across all service areas engaged at one level or another on this important project and program.

In our report, as you see, though, it goes much deeper than that. Our information includes major submissions from London Hydro and the Upper Thames River Conservation Authority. We also have a number of pieces from the community, from businesses, business associations and institutions. So it really is a big report.

And in fact, the number of pages before you highlights that. We cover off a lot of material in the progress report each year. As well, as you know, council directed staff to also produce an update report. And we deliver that in usually January or February of the year.

So two major reporting situations each year on a plan that was approved back in April 2022. The plan really deals with two main things about reducing our use of energy, primarily fossil fuels, natural gas, transportation fuels, for example. Those, of course, influence how much greenhouse gases generated here locally. And a key piece, and it’s becoming even more key each year, preparing for severe weather.

On the screen, and you’ve seen this slide deck, I will not be going through every line-by-line, of course. Key part, though, is to note we were sitting compared to our 2005 baseline year from a greenhouse gas perspective, 20% reduction. Our fair share target for 2030 is 55%. So it shows you how much heavy lifting is required over the next five to six years.

Fair share, by definition, applies to really communities in higher wealth countries, where basically they have contributed more greenhouse gases. They have higher income levels on average. They are expected to deliver more of their fair share compared to other communities. That has been incorporated in many, many municipalities here in Canada and North America.

And it’s part of the target that was approved as part of the Climate Emergency Action Plan. This is very much embedded into Council’s strategic plan, the current one, and the previous one, in a number of areas specifically, and then indirectly in all areas. Our reporting really covers off six major areas. On the screen, you actually see an arrow that points to energy use.

Energy use in the past has always been reported, but we didn’t highlight as much as other areas. And we’re doing that now because energy use, of course, contributes to greenhouse gas. But these two items have some challenges on their own, in that greenhouse gas, even as we reduce our energy consumption. Greenhouse gas can rise, and we’ll be covering that off in a few minutes.

Before you today, of course, a number of reports. You have the corporate report. You then have a very large appendix, which we consider it as the community report. It is quite lengthy, and I’ll tell you how that gets broken apart in a few minutes.

We also have, in today’s package, what’s referred to as the 2024-2028 Corporate Conservation and Demand Management Plan. This is something we produce every five years, required by the provincial government. This one is before you today for approval. I’ll touch on that again shortly.

These outcome areas, very important, when it comes to our Climate and Mercy Action Plan, over 200 actions, some very large, some on a smaller scale, are all tracked. And before you today, we’re reporting that about 87% of those from 2022 and 2023 have been initiated, 78% on track, and yes, we do have 19% that have been delayed. And we’re just going through the analysis now on how long that delay might be, that a laser associated with changes here at council in the way of policy, changes at other levels of government in the way of policy, funding limitations, and longer timelines sometimes are just now needed to have more effective collaboration with different sectors of the community. When we look at the community, I’ll tell you overall, I’m just so grateful to be working with so many good people in this community.

Our goal, really, is to get many, many more working. This is not just the residential sector. This is the business sector, the institutional sector. We need everyone pulling their weight in this.

That does take time, and that is why I mentioned, collaborations do take time and effort, ‘cause you have to meet people’s needs and understand their priorities to build in this larger system that we all need. On the screen, just a handful of logos from things just that have been occurring here in 2024. Many of you have been actually involved in some of these. This touches on community members, business members, the partnerships between and within.

These are all key pieces. This is the alignment that the Climate Emergency Action Plan was based on, and we’re seeing that occurring. This is where hope strengthens in this community. When we look at other levels of government, we’ve talked about this before.

Yes, they can be very influencing, and when we basically have to work with provincial governments and federal governments, yes, we have to work closely, understand their needs and directions, build that into our plans, and push back where appropriate, all part of moving forward. No different than any other municipality in Ontario or in Canada. We are, in many ways, having good and stronger relationships, not only a staff with these communities, but also hearing from elected officials sitting around the horseshoe today. Energy use, I’ll tell you.

This is a difference. We are moving in the right direction. Our amount of energy being used on a per person basis is dropping. Per person is really key because we are growing community.

Therefore, looking at it from that perspective is a very good one. The challenge, though, is, as we switch into this greenhouse gas, which I’m going to touch on in a second, but here’s where I really want to pause for a second, corporate energy use and community energy use. The corporate portion is what folks in this room are primarily in control of. Community buildings, arenas, facilities, city hall, projects and programs designed to reduce energy reduced, sorry, to reduce energy by these entities.

We are doing quite a good job and you’ll see shortly that we’ll throw it right here, that in the city, we’re doing a good job. In the community, energy-wise, we are dropping as well. So there is the good news. The challenge, though, in both situations, we’re not dropping quick enough.

So where do we need and how do we improve to do more? Your package contains the positives and the negatives. The greenhouse gas is that piece that we often measure and very important to measure this, but that energy use is very, very key and we’ll be continuing to push hard on that because the greenhouse gas is something that is driven by the direction from council to be net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. But that is many years out, but we have milestones along the way.

Each year, things are going to change. They can change basically by force the fossil fuels that are used by people and businesses in institutions in London. The fossil fuels that are specific to certain elements, such as natural gas being used more province-wide to strengthen the grid system and make sure the Ontario economy is growing and decisions that are made that are beyond this council. And of course, greenhouse gas is influenced by a hot, hot summer or a cold, cold winter.

We look at it corporately. Our greenhouse gas is tracking below the line, but we still have a lot of heavy lifting to do over the next six, seven years to do our best to hit the milestone fair share target by 2030 for our corporate energy use. We are currently in our conservation demand management plan, looking at another four to 5,000 tons to be reduced, which is going to bring us closer by 2028. More work has to be done though to hit that milestone.

Community is a different story because the community is so huge. City of London just represents a small, small portion of the number of tons of greenhouse gas out there. We’re looking at about 3 million tons on this graph. It’s not specifically stated there.

That number’s kind of covered around that number for the last handful of years. But half of those greenhouse gas emissions in the community come from how we move in our personal automobiles and how we live in our homes. Whether we report on this because it’s reported constantly, challenges in London with floods, wind storms, challenges across Canada with wildfires, droughts, parts of the US, parts of Europe. We have just released, as part of the climate emergency accent plan, the climate change adaptation framework, discussion primer, that is going to help us move forward.

It’s called a framework because once again, many, many different players are going to be involved in this. And many players, such as London Hydro and Upper Thames, they move and have projects that are quite different and unique, but they wish to be part of the larger framework, different than a plan. But basically, the notion of a framework will be the key agencies and the city, very much involved from an emergency perspective. What happens when these situations do occur in London?

And they have already, therefore, the foundation of that group that needs to be watching and taking care of all of London exists right now. The CDM plan before you today, it is based on the approved budgets that came forward as part of the multi-year budget. And a plan has been laid out on how to basically put projects in place over the next four to five years. In that, though, and very important, our proposed projects should more funding become available.

We can then move the needle further. So planned is already in the budgets, proposed waiting for potential other funding opportunities to help us move forward quicker. And speaking of financial, this year during the multi-year budget, three major projects came forward and were approved. Just a quick update on all three of them.

The application to FCM for the home retrofit program has been submitted. And as a reminder, that is an application where the city is investing $1.5 million in capital. We are then asking for that to be matched in the form of a grant and then alone in the way of $3 million as well to be part of this program, to put in place what’s referred to as the local improvement charge program to help a number of Londoners move forward with energy retrofits. But most importantly, continue to raise the awareness of the need of home energy efficiency cross-lended, not only is it good for your pocketbook.

It’s great for the local economy. And it is those things that action can be taken by Londoners. Many are doing it now. Government grants for different types of energy features come and go.

We know that. And we’re not sure if more are going to come back in. But Enbridge has just announced a few and is very handful of weeks recently. These are all key pieces and all key levers that people have access to.

The report is large. We know that. But it contains so much information that our job next is to unpack it after this has gone from SPPC through council. And our goal is to exactly do that as we’ve done in the past.

But in fact, over the last year, we’ve heard and learned from people, we’ve learned from our advisory committees on how to do certain things, what their suggestions are. So those things are all going to be put to the test. We’re working on more videos. In fact, the mobility master plan is leading the way on initiatives to reach the public, not only from community connectors perspectives, but also from the use of videos long and short.

So all these pieces are going to be part of unpacking and bringing the climate emergency plan and the details in front of you today to the community. And parallel to that, of course, will be work on the climate change adaptation framework. I’ll tell you, I’m just going to last slide here. And then Mr.

Chair, I’m probably crossed the mark or maybe just thunder. I think you’re being generous to me today. What are we focusing on? Well, I’ve mentioned where the 50% greenhouse gases come from, how we move and how we live.

So how we move, mobility master plan, we are working on it. Humanity-wide, we’re raising it, debating it, we’re getting more and more out there. Who doesn’t move around the city? That’s why so many people can get engaged.

How we live in our homes, that, of course, varies. Some already live in environments that produce very little greenhouse gas. And use very little energy. Then there are those that are on the opposite end.

Adaptation I’ve highlighted. I think everyone’s aware of that. Very, very key for us to be continuing to invest and raise awareness. People need to take care of their properties.

They need to look at swales between homes. They need to look at where trees are planted and maintained. Maintenance of a tree will keep it up there that much longer. But also, if it ever did fall, you will likely know well in advance because you have the knowledge of the health of your tree.

Awareness and recognition, we never do enough of that. But I’ll tell you, one of my jobs here is being one of the leads in this area is doing my best to recognize all the good work that is being done in this community. Because I do believe, and I firmly believe, we basically thrive on good work and hope. And there’s a lot of that here in London.

And that’s how we’re gonna tackle this year after year. And some years will be a little bit bleaker than others. And then we’re gonna have some great, great years. I’m looking forward to those.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mr. Stanford.

And happy to give you some leeway. In fact, I might’ve forgotten to start the timer for a little while after you started talking so that you would have ample time to walk us through what is a very dense report, for sure. Before we go to Mr. Stanford for any questions and comments, I’d like to get a motion on the floor to help frame our debate.

I know Councillor Frank had circulated a motion with an amendment attached to it. So I’m gonna go to Councillor Frank rather than get the staff recommendation on the floor and then start moving through a bunch of amendments if you’d like to move an as amended main motion. Yes, that’d be great. I’d love to move the as amended main motion.

I believe I have a seconder in the mayor and I’ll probably speak to it a little bit later. And the mayor has already indicated he will second it. So that is moved and seconded and on the floor looking for any speakers for questions to Mr. Stanford, comments and/or on the motion itself.

Councillor Frank. Thank you. Yes, I have a little bit of all three of those things. So if I could through you to staff, I’d have some questions, some comments and a bit of an explanation for the additional amendment.

I really appreciate the presentation. Thank you, Mr. Stanford, for that and all the work that your team does. As you said, I think there’s lots of really positive nuggets that are in the report.

And I know the community is doing a lot of good work. Just to start off with some questions. So I was hoping you could tell me a little bit more about how the climate emergency screening tool works in every department and how it’s applied with all of our major decisions. I know it’s mentioned in the report, but I’d really love to hear maybe a brief overview of how it’s enterprise-wide.

So we want to go to Mr. Stanford or Ms. Share for that, Mr. Stanford.

Thank you, Mr. Chair and through you, a very important question. So the climate emergency screening tool is a portion of the climate lens framework. The emergency screening tool is a very detailed process that goes through mitigation and adaptation.

It has been used on a number of major projects. Has it been used on them all? No, in 2022 and 2023, we’ve done our best to move that forward into different areas of the corporation with the existing resources assigned. It is an important tool, but it is one of many important tools the city has been working on.

We do wish to do more and we will continue to do more, but I’ll be honest, it’s not used as much as we’d like, but at the same time, it’s available to all, but commitment is required, and that is challenging when there are other priorities in front of other service areas that are also juggled. So we are gonna continue with the leadership from the environmental leadership team and the senior leadership team to continue to push this forward in 2024 and beyond. Councillor Frank. Thank you, AS, and I think for me, it would be actually really helpful from a governance perspective at council if there’s some ability for us to see the worksheets.

I do know, I’ve seen a copy of a blank screening tool, worksheet, and I’m wondering, moving forward, if there’s any way for reports in the future that use that screening tool to actually append the worksheet so that we can see how the results are being arrived at and what the considerations are. For example, I know at corporate services, the jail and tailor building reference that it had used the screening tool, but we didn’t see a worksheet associated with it, and I know that I’m sure that our facility staff did a great job of filling it out, but moving forward, I’m wondering if there’s an opportunity for us to see those worksheets actually appended to reports. I’m not sure if that requires a motion at this point or maybe some general guidance to see if staff would be able to speak with other SLT members and start that process. Thank you, Mr.

Chair. Certainly we’ve been looking at the best ways to report out to committee and council with respect to the full screening tool when it’s used or the outcomes of the framework, which are generally captured and text in the report. If there’s a desire to see those appended, we are happy to do so. There’s some subjectivity and some objectivity in all of them and they may become some point of scrutiny for people in terms of how they’re filled in, but we do our best with them and we’re happy to share what we believe our best advice is.

Councillor Frank. Thank you, yes, that I think I agree that there may be further discussion based on people’s subjectivity and objectivity, but I think and Mr. Stanford actually had brought Catherine Hayhoe to speak to Londoners last year at Green in the City, and I thought she’d a great job in her main message was we need to be talking more about climate change. So I’d actually love and relish those discussions, but maybe move forward, I’m not gonna make a motion at this point, but I’ll be looking keenly to see if there are some worksheets whenever we reference that the screening tool is being used.

I also was interested in, I know that Mr. Stanford mentioned the 200 actions that are being tracked. I am personally interested in seeing the ones, mostly specifically the 19% delayed and three under review. I’m interested in understanding, you know, which ones are delayed and why are they delayed?

Again, I know we had a high summary in this report, which I appreciate, but I’m hoping to perhaps see that circulated as an email communication and then moving forward, having that chart included in future reports, if that’s possible. So through the chair, is that something we could have civic administration do without needing a motion? Mr. Chair.

No concerns at all, Mr. Chair. Sounds wonderful. That’s great, easy peasy.

Another question, curious as to how we are continuing to make sure that this is an enterprise-wise approach. I do feel like we personally, as Council, are under-resourcing and under-supporting this plan, but understanding that, I’m curious as to how, as an enterprise, we are able to execute this through all the departments, because that doesn’t necessarily cost more money as we have existing staff. And a follow-up to that is I’m just curious if there are specific champions in every department and how it’s being regularly discussed. Mr.

Stater’s beer. Thank you, Mr. Suray, presiding chair. Whatever you are, chair, SPPC, my apologies.

Thank you so much for the question to Councillors and all Councillors. This is clearly a passion for us in this organization. You heard the presentation of our colleague speak about, and he spoke and started that comments with, this is a part of everything that we do. And while we aren’t meeting necessarily, I suspect everything that everyone would like to see.

It is part of our thinking, it is part of our passion, and it is part of the work that we do. I’ll ask Mr. and Mr. Stanford to speak a little bit more to your question, but I do want members of committee to understand that this is embedded in our organization.

It’s part of what we do. It’s part of what we think about. It’s part of the discussions we have at our senior leadership team. It’s part of the discussions that we have at our enterprise leadership team, which you know is based on or developed amongst the directors and managers, the senior managers in our corporation as well.

We have work to do, but we have work to do in our community, and we do use our communications team to support the work that’s being done, not just by Mr. Stanford team, but across the corporation. We’re looking for our community organizations and stakeholders and others to participate in those discussions as well. And I appreciate the advice you’ve given us, and we’ll continue to work as best as we can to meet those desires and hopes.

And Ms. Sher? Thank you, Mr. Deputy Mayor, and I just have a couple of brief additions, and Mr.

Stanford may wish to add to that. We do have champions in every service area and every department. This is deeply connected in all of the work that we do. We bring that group together collectively when we need them, and we work often in small groups or individually with particular champions in those areas in order to advance their specific needs to embed the climate emergency action plan within their own area.

There are work plans assigned to various teams in each service area, and we provide supports to those teams in order to deliver those work plans based on the resources they have, and their priorities that are also assigned under the strap plan and by council. Mr. Stanford may have something to add to that, sorry. And Mr.

Stanford. Thank you, Mr. Chair. The only thing to add on top of that is that when we look corporate or enterprise-wide, we also recognize that some areas are much more involved than others.

And therefore having everyone in the room to have dialogue is good, but at the same time, it is, in our opinion, it has become much more important to focus on a handful of areas. When it came to the Conservation Demand Management Plan, that was developed using about four different directors and then staff at many different levels, because it is as we get down in the levels, we actually get a better appreciation, how energy is actually consumed. So we’ve decided that over the favor of a single group, it is really to embed more. We actually are drilling into the right areas of the corporation.

The Climate Lens Framework, which is the broader tool, is going to be implemented much in the same way that ARAO is going to be implemented, where there are pieces for everyone. And that actually includes modules on training, which we already have in place right now. So the focus changes by the nature of the area. It is not one size fits all.

We found that that didn’t work. Some people became less interested, and others were underserved. So it’s an evolution, but we will continue to continue to do our best with the resources we have. Councillor Frank.

Thank you, appreciate that. And I just have one final question in a couple comments, but I am wondering, in staff’s perspective, what do they see as the main barrier of being able to undertake the full climate emergency action plan and execute it to its fullest extent? Ms. Cher, would you like me to start with you or with Mr.

Stanford? Mr. Stanford had his hand on the button quickly. So I’ll let him start, and I may add a few comments at the end.

We’ll have to get some jeopardy rangers for staff so that you can buzz in to be the first to answer. Mr. Steph, Stanford. Thank you, Mr.

Chair. Very tough question, ‘cause I don’t think you can really narrow it down to a single barrier. I’m gonna provide two, and I’m gonna be sure if there are barriers or challenges or that maybe they’re running the same. With respect to our corporate emissions, it is really, it’s about investments.

No doubt about it. Who funds the investments is the key question? Does it come locally? Does it come provincially?

Does it come federally or some other source? This is the key part to moving forward. We can move as quickly as capital dollars and operating dollars are available. I don’t think that has really changed, and I do think that is well understood.

Being ready as we are in our Conservation Demand Management Plan to address a funding program that comes available, we are ready. We like other people’s money. That is kind of an internal motto. We will jump on it quickly.

We will work with Mr. Karl and his team. We will grab as much money as we can working within the right financing context. The community, it’s interesting.

That’s where the majority of our emissions are. There is no single barrier. It is basically the willingness of people, businesses, employees, and visitors to, one, begin to adjust and more importantly, change their behavior. So the barrier that has to be broken there is increased awareness, increased recognition of those that have cracked the barrier and actually got to the other side and are smiling and saying, my house is now better protected against a flood.

My energy-efficient furnace that is put in actually has lowered my cost, but yes, I was able to afford it. There is a barrier. Not everyone can afford some changes. So when it comes to the community, there’s a number of things, but I do believe a more aware community and a community that is recognized for what they’re doing really helps to move not only residents, but also businesses.

That’s a long-winded answer to two barriers. But thank you. Councillor Frank. Much appreciated.

I really do appreciate all those answers and I’ll just gonna offer a couple comments. As we can see in the report, it looks like there’s a lot of good work going on, as I’ve already said. And I was actually able on Monday to attend a project unveiling in Councillor Cuddy’s ward of a retrofit of community living London, a house there. They have solar, new windows, insulation, fruit trees and all of that was done in the community with some federal funding and local community foundation funding.

So that’s just one example of many things happening. So I do think we have some really inspirational things going on. However, given the report and the ultimate outcome overall, I do think that, of course, we need to be reevaluating and looking at how we can try and make sure that we’re achieving our targets. I’m very personally committed to try and achieving our 2030 and the following, but I do think essentially we’re gonna have to drop our emissions by 35% from where we are right now to 2030 in five and a half years, which is more than we have dropped from 2005 to 2024.

So we have some heavy lifting, and as I think I heard Mr. Stanford say, pulling up our socks. I think I heard that on the radio, not today, but I was listening to the radio for an interview for this, which I really like that term. I personally, as a council member, think we are vastly under resourcing the climate emergency action plan, under funding it and under staffing it.

I do see this as a significant contribution as to why we’re not achieving our targets. Since the climate emergency was declared five years ago and the plan enacted, we’ve actually only hired one full-time employee in my understanding to work on the climate plan. I know that there are other supporting staff, which I appreciate, but— Councilor, I just wanna let you know, you gotta vote 25 seconds. Ooh, okay, I go fast.

Okay, the main thing I would say that I want to mention is we need to be looking at where our energy is coming from as well. With the province adding more gas to the grid, it’s becoming harder and harder for us to achieve our targets, which is why I added this motion, and I will save the rest of my comments for council. Thanks. Thank you, Councilor Frank, Mayor Morgan.

Well, it’s probably not bad that Councilor Frank ran out of time because right where you were leaving off is where I’m gonna pick it up, and that’s on the additional motion piece. And I think I’ll start with some comments, and then I’m gonna work a question into this for Mr. Stanford through the chair. So first off, I wanna thank Councilor Frank for chatting with me about the additional piece, about some advocacy and dialogue with the Minister of Energy on how provincial policy impacts our ability to meet our climate targets.

Certainly through Mr. Stanford’s presentation, it was very clear. There are things we have absolute control over, right? The retrofitting of our buildings and the changes that we can make.

But when it comes to the energy use piece, both for us and the public, we can electrify our fleet. But if the changing dynamics of how that electricity is produced in the province of Ontario shifts, that can change our emission targets in some cases dramatically. And so in a couple of the charts that Mr. Stanford presented, there was a similar piece and it is the way that energy is generated in the province of Ontario, a move to additional natural gas generation.

And in the report, it outlines that changes in Ontario’s electricity grid will have a big impact on corporate energy emissions. As a result, the greenhouse gas emissions in 2023 are about 3,600 tons or 21% higher than they would have been. Ontario’s electricity grid emissions had not changed from 2018 levels. And there’s another piece that says, given the greenhouse gas emissions from Ontario’s electricity grid are expected to climb even further this decade, direct investment in renewable electricity generation from municipal facilities may be needed to help meet London’s 2030 target milestone.

So the advocacy piece with the province of Ontario and the long-term structure of how energy is produced in this province is actually pretty important for us to meet our targets ‘cause we can continue to make changes for electrification of different parts of municipal operations. But if the components of that electricity are changed from a greenhouse gas perspective, it can create swings. So in some cases, we saw a huge assistance with the elimination of coal-fired plants in the province of Ontario from a positive perspective. We see that kind of backtrack a little bit with the bringing on its natural gas infrastructure in Ontario.

And I do recognize, I will say, I totally recognize the way that the province is growing and the pressure that there is on energy and demand in the province and the short-term need to bring on some additional resources. But there has to be a dialogue with the minister about the impacts that those decisions have on our ability to meet our climate targets. And I think some awareness there is probably pretty important for future provincial decision-making. And so my question to Mr.

Stanford is, you talk about this in the report. Its impacts both our work and obviously electrification of that the public can do with the pickup of electric vehicles and other components. How big of a challenge does that energy grid production actually, how big is that actually layered within kind of the changes that we’re seeing, both positive and negative over a period of time within our ability to meet our targets? Like how important is that?

Is the energy grid in the way that electricity is produced to us having that opportunity to meet our targets in the future? Mr. Stanford. Through the chair, just by way of an example, for a comparison between 2023 and 2022, where greenhouse gas has gone up, probably 90 to 95% of that is due to the change in the makeup of the electricity grid where more greenhouse gases are being created ‘cause the use of natural gas.

The challenge there though is that of course, not only happens, that’s province wide. Decisions that are made for a variety of other reasons that definitely influence us so that the level of conversation is one that goes well beyond what city staff are able to do. We’re able to talk with our fellow bureaucrats and staff at the different levels of government. It’s just getting everyone aligned because the provincial government here is heavily investing in EVs and EV battery plants.

Therefore, it’s almost a little counterproductive to be seeing greenhouse gases going up because the investment is huge, especially in Southwestern Ontario. So it is one of alignment and looking at a longer term plan that we might have to get through five years of understanding that greenhouse gas will go up, but it’s what is going to occur in the next five and 10 years when it will come down. And I do believe that those conversations with IESO are all occurring now, but it’s just something there that it is very large. And I do think it needs to be not only addressed, but also brought down to language that is easy to understand.

And Mayor Morgan, and I’ll let you know you’ve got about a minute 40 left. That’s okay, I won’t need that. So I’ll just conclude by saying, I think that there’s good work done by our staff. I appreciate the reports.

I certainly appreciate the role that the community continues to play in the decisions that they can make. And I think our education and engagement with them is also very critical. But I also support the additional piece of the motion and that is an ongoing dialogue, both at the staff and bureaucratic level, but also at the political level with our provincial counterparts about how our investments that we make here and electrification can be magnified by provincial policy. It can also go the other way, by provincial policy.

And so this is an incredibly important discussion. And my approach to this will be one of awareness and education to actually demonstrate through some assistance with our staff, through that discussion should counsel support this resolution to show exactly how our targets and our work is impacted by some of that provincial decision making. So, and I think through collaboration in the future, we’ll be able to continue to work together to achieve the targets that we need to achieve at the pace that is realistic and reasonable for the situation at hand. So thank you.

Councillor Trussa. Thank you, through the chair. My questions would be for Mr. Manners, Smith-Neely, who aren’t here.

Who would be speaking for that department? Okay. So I guess what I want to try to understand, and I’ll ask through the chair, what is the tension? What is the potential barrier?

What is the tension between our stated goals of increasing our building of additional housing units, which is something that we see manifest at PEC every week? What is the tension between that and what we’re talking about here today? How is the climate lens, how is the screening tool, how is the evaluation tool built in to the ongoing planning process? Mr.

Felberg, certainly through you, Mr. Chair. So, the London Plan has a number of parameters around climate change and energy efficiency, and improving the overall activities related to building on the climate emergency action plan. So I guess where I would go with this is that we’re looking at things like rapid transit, we’re trying to build more efficiency and remove cars from the roads.

We’re looking at potentially the operational models that we’re working with with the different developments. We’re also even considering how the construction of different materials and how those are brought to site. So there’s a number of those different actions that are being built in. Additionally, it’s working within the business plans of the developers and how they might bring forward some of the different activities and some of the different work that they’re working on.

I don’t know if Mr. Stanford or Ms. Chair has anything else to add on some of the tracking or some of the work that they’ve been doing. Well, I will look to see if they wish to add anything.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Perhaps the only other helpful comment will be as we, over an environment and infrastructure, we’re watching the work that’s being undertaken. We are jumping in, we’re required.

We are watching and encouraging course infill, which, you know, when you start building the newer stock, the more that is done, that is not only affordable, but is more energy efficient, it is even cheaper to operate those homes. So these are the kinds of things that we’re all watching and this will be occurring province wide because all municipalities are under the gun to do more homes, but at the same time to reduce our emissions and our energy use. So they go hand in hand. So I don’t know if that’s helpful, but that’s where we get very involved with our colleagues.

Thank you. And I’ll just add, as the Vice Chair of PEC, Councillor, there used to be in the London Plan, some provisions under Bonusing where we could request things like energy efficiency components, but with Bonusing gone, the only tool that we have available is to ask for consideration at site plan, and then it is really up to the developer and whether or not it works with their pro forma. Thank you, and that is actually a very, very exceptionally helpful answer to my question. And I think it speaks to the problem.

I think it speaks to the problem. I think we have an inherent disconnect right now between our policies to reduce greenhouse gases, emissions, improve the environment, and the pressures that we’re under to increase our building including in fill housing. And I would make the argument that we need to give more attention to this. And yes, a lot of it we’re constrained in terms of what the province can do.

And I like the way you distinguish between what we have absolute control over in terms of city hall and things like that, and what we can only influence. We need to exert more influence over the planning process. And it may involve being very creative beyond just saying, well, we’ll kick this down the road to site plan. I would make the statement that I think the planning approval process right now is the weak link in this whole program.

In fact, it might even be the missing link, but I’m hearing you say that there are some things that you’re doing, so I won’t say missing link, but I will say weak link. And I really wanna call on the planning staff, and I’m not gonna make an amendment to this motion, because I probably would go beyond what we can do today. But I just, I really wanna call on the planning staff and members of the committee to be more cognizant of maybe trying to ameliorate these tensions. So that’s what I wanted to say about the planning process.

I did have a comment that I wanted to make about one of the submissions. So Councilor, can I get you to hold your thought for just a moment, ‘cause Mr. Felberg wanted to add something to his prior comments with relation to your question, so I just wanna give him a chance to do that, unless I’m interrupting your thought. Okay, we’ll go to Mr.

Felberg first. Thank you, and through you, Mr. Chair. So one of the things, one of the tools that we could potentially be using is something like a green development standard, and you’ve seen that in places like City of Toronto.

Region of Peel has recently implemented that as well. In addition, you have the Canadian Building Code, and you have the Ontario Building Code, which are ramping up with all the changes that they brought forward recently with the update that earlier this spring. A lot of the changes they’re making are inherently building in some of those energy efficiency and some of that climate emergency, those activities and the design parameters that we might be wanting to build into our planning process. The planning process itself, again, we rely on the landing plan and their zoning by-laws, so those are things that we could, those are our tools that we have at our fingertips.

Those are the things that we could go away and use as how we might advance this further into the future. And I know Ms. Sharer indicated she had something to add too. Ms.

Sharer? Thank you, Mr. Deputy Mayor. I just wanted to share that the development of London’s green development standards, which had development in that sentence, maybe more than it needed, is underway, and there is a working group between planning and our experts in environment and infrastructure who are starting to pull that piece of work together.

Our colleagues in planning as I’m sure everyone can appreciate our exceptionally busy dealing with rapid growth in our housing starts, but this is a priority and they are continuing to work on that standard that you will see at some point here. Probably pick up. Councilor? Okay, well, that’s helpful.

And I guess I’ll just come back to this in a few weeks or a few months and I’ll be watching the developments as they come before PEC. And I just hope that there’s more consideration of these items. I do want to just indicate that I will be supporting the amendments. I appreciate that.

I want to also thank Mr. Stanford, you, once again, I’m always thanking you for your reports. You’ve done what you can. And I think a lot of the constraints that are sort of keeping us from being able to meet our targets are things that are outside of your control.

And I think your entire, Ms. Cher, I think your entire division has been very responsible in terms of trying to help us with this. But I love what the city manager said and that is this is an enterprise wide endeavor. So with that, I love the idea where we received a letter from Mary Ann Hodge.

I love the idea of having the advisory committees all take a look at this. I don’t think that having this report received by council would preclude that. Is that correct or does receiving this preclude further consideration? So I’m gonna speak to a process point, but I’m also gonna go to Ms.

Cher. So I’m gonna go to Ms. Cher first in terms of the engagement. ‘Cause I know we talked about this before our meeting about the engagement that you do with this with regard to the advisory committees.

So can you comment on that, please? Absolutely, Mr. Deputy Mayor. We are at a Sakaka at the advisory committees regularly.

These conversations happen at actually many of the advisory committees. And we’ll continue to have those conversations with our advisory committees. The report is a massive comprehensive document and we will be looking at ways in order to parse those pieces out. And also to take a look at the concerns or suggestions raised in both pieces of correspondence and implement them where appropriate.

Okay, well— - Thank you. And Council, I just wanted to share ‘cause I did have a conversation with the clerk about the communications. Nothing in council receiving this report precludes council from changing direction, adding new components in the future. That is all up to our discretion in the future.

This is a report on the updates from 2023. So sending it to the advisory committees without receiving it today really would not change the numbers that are in the report because it’s last year’s data. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. And I’m pleased to hear what Ms.

Share said. There’s nothing here that precludes this ongoing discussion that many of your staff are regularly having very productively with members of the advisory committees. I think it’s very important that that happened. With that, I have a general overall concern that we haven’t moved quickly enough on this.

We declared the climate emergency. We brought in the plan. Now we’re gonna be discussing it more. I am satisfied that there are many, many people in civic administration who in very diligently and in very good faith are pushing this along as quickly as they can.

I appreciate your constraints, but I think we’re going to have to, we’re gonna have to look at this from a broader policy point of view. And when measures come to the table at city council meetings, sometimes I feel as if there is a skepticism when the part of many counselors to engage with climate change issues. And I’m just, what really gives me a lot of confidence in this ongoing process is that this is still part of our policy and we are still working towards this. Every bit of what we said about the climate emergency in 2019 is something that we’re still concerned about.

And I think that every counselor at this table needs to take that very seriously. So thank you very much and I’ll be supporting the amendments. Thank you, counselor, with 10 seconds to spare. Any further speakers to this?

Counselor Pribble. Thank you, sir, the chair. I have two questions for the staff. The first one is actually for Mr.

Stanford regarding the presentation, the statistics that you showed per capita, what is the number of residents for London that you worked with, Mr. Stanford? Through the chair, we’ll be working with the 2023 population somewhere in the order of 425, 435,000 people in that range. Thank you for the answer.

And the second one, I just, and I do like it, and I think it’s really good comparison to the world when we go per capita. I think it gives us a really good indication where we stand when we compare ourselves and do the benchmarking. But when it comes to the industrial and corporate world, when we have certain targets. And as was already said, we are growing, population is growing, and businesses are growing, industrial lands are being sold, manufacturing is gonna increase.

How are we gonna compare, let’s say, our targets in terms of the industrial, because that one, it’s really hard to measure by capita by the factory. How are we gonna see it and compare if we are really meeting those targets, or let’s say if the targets, let’s say it would be to decrease by 5%. This our growth, would it be actually not 5%, would it be 89%, Mr. Stanford?

Through the chair, this is where it does become more difficult, ‘cause our ability to control or dictate what industry does, it tends to be done at another level of government. With respect to the major greenhouse gas emitters in Ontario or in London, rather, they must report right now. And so we contain that information that is reported publicly by the larger emitters in London. That’s in our report.

As this moves forward into the future, there will likely be the need for more and more industries to be reporting, but for the most part, that would be reporting into the provincial government or the federal government. Unlikely, that would be reporting into the local government. Councilor Pribble, thank you, no more questions? Looking for any further speakers before we go to vote.

I’ve seen none at the moment, I’ve seen none online. Madam Vice Chair, if I can just ask you to take the chair, I’m gonna try and say something in 45 seconds or less. Thank you, I have the chair, sorry, and over to you, thanks. Thank you, Madam Presiding Officer.

So I wanna say to Mr. Stanford and Ms. Chair and everyone involved, and I know it is an enterprise-wide thing. I think we are really doing a great job of leading by example on the corporate side.

We are doing what we can do in a reasonable, fiscally responsible and time-constrained way to get results and kudos to everyone right across all the entire enterprise, because we have made some significant improvements. I will say, and I’ve heard the climate change emergency declaration referenced a couple times, I’m just gonna say the same thing that I said back then when I supported that. We can lead by example as a city. We cannot force people to change their behaviors.

And a great amount of the emissions of our city are going to be addressed by individual uptake, by people choosing to go to a heat pump instead of a furnace, by people choosing to bike to the corner store instead of take their car to the corner store for a five-minute trip. Those are where individual habits can be encouraged, but they can’t be forced. And so I would applaud Mr. Stanford’s team again for the work that they’ve done on this.

But I think many of us have heard, even in the last couple of weeks, residents who are still reluctant and unhappy about the green bin and wanting weekly garbage pickup again, which we know is a negative for the environment as well as for our finances. And yet the adoption rates there are, although they’re good for this early in the program, we’re still hearing some real reluctance on people’s parts to participate. Until those individual adaptations happen at home, we are going to continue to struggle to meet targets because the city itself can only do so much. But I will say I think our team has done an excellent job so far.

And I do think that there is a provincial component of this, so I will be supporting the entire motion, including the advocacy with the province on the energy grid, ‘cause I think there is definitely a conversation to be had there as well. Thank you, returning the charity of no one in the speakers list. Thank you, and I know that was not 45 seconds. Having no one else on the speakers list, I’m going to ask the clerk to open the vote.

So, Mayor Bergen, closing the vote, motion carries 12 to zero. Thank you, colleagues. Moving on, the next section of our agenda is deferred matters additional business. We have one additional business item added by Councillor Palosa, with respect to the request for London Police Services delegation.

Councillor Palosa, I will turn to you. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and to colleagues for hearing this one today, as it wasn’t added, as this will allow time for this to come through committee, then through council, and then allow the police chief and any of his colleagues he needs to bring with them to appear for us at the next SPPC meeting, and trying to keep the conversation out of the budget process that will also come forward in later October. So, this motion is to seek your support to allow the police chief to come before us as a delegation, and any staff he deems appropriate to answer questions that you might have about the police.

They released their annual report in June, updates on staffing, equipment, response times, and crime rates within the city. So, he does have this on hold in his calendar. He is available, I have checked with that. Unlike land ambulance and some other organizations, he does not have a standing time to come before us and present, I will bring another motion later to set something up for that, but I’m moving this one now and looking for your support of it.

It also contains that’s in having, instead of just having the normal five minutes, it will give him an additional five minutes, so he will come with a 10-minute presentation. Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Plaza, looking for a seconder, seconded by Councillor ramen, any discussion? Councillor Trussell.

Thank you for the chair. I’m going to ask some questions now, because I would rather ask them now than when he’s here and when we’re eating up his time, and I don’t wanna get into a procedural dispute while the chief is here, I would like to ask questions about the budget, and I understand you just said that we’re not gonna go back and revisit the budget. I think that’s what I heard you say, and I appreciate that, and I’m not gonna question that. However, maybe I should just stop and let you respond to that so far.

So, actually, I’m going to, as the chair, say, what we have here is a request for the chief to appear, so we need to keep our comments to that. Okay, so the specific question I would like to ask the chief, and I think it’s just fair for me to put it on the table right now, is what would be the implications if we deferred some of the items that were approved in the budget in terms of their timing, and I understand that I cannot get into a particular business plan and say, well, this and not that, but my specific question is, what is the status update on progress with the training center, and would it be possible to consider deferring the expenditures even a year or two down the line, and I think it’s a fair question. So, Councilor, respectfully, I don’t think we can ask Councilor Palosa to answer that. I, she did indicate she’s willing to comment, so I will do that, but we are straying away from having the police chief appear as a delegation before us.

I think that question would be more appropriately sent through the chief’s office, so that he’s aware that we have it, and an answer can be provided that way, but I will go to Councilor Palosa as the budget chair for a response. Thank you, Mr. Chair. He is aware that we had some questions about the budget and how it’s been spent and utilized and operationalized so far.

He is prepared to answer those. I also give him a heads up that some might have questions on reserve funds and other things. He did say that he is happy to come prepared to answer our questions. If we know we have them in advance, if we please send them along, he’ll make sure he has the appropriate staff with him, whether it’s his finance team or deputy chief to be providing those answers to Council.

Thank you, that’s very helpful, and it answers my question. Thank you, Mayor Morgan. Yes, I’ll stick to this, but I’m gonna make one comment. I would just probably suggest the Councilor engage with that question before the meeting, because the training center is actually a joint police and fire, potentially regional training facility, and so the impacts wouldn’t necessarily just be for police, but there would be fire-related impacts as well, because it’s a joint facility, which involves both emergency services coming together in one operational center.

So it’s probably a question for both, so probably good that you didn’t wait for just the chief here, because we need to have some fire personnel to be able to answer that question as well. So maybe engage with Ms. Smith between now and the chief’s meeting to try to get a more complete answer for the Councilor, and from my perspective, I think this is a really good motion. I’m happy to support it.

And for those who may not have seen Ms. Smith as nodding, that yes, fire would be involved, and she would be happy to engage with you, as well as potentially have the fire chief engage with you on questions around that. Seeing no other speakers, I’m going to ask the clerk to open the vote. Closing the vote, motion carries 12 to zero.

Thank you, colleagues. That concludes the public portion of our agenda. We do have two items on the confidential agenda. I, before we look for a motion to move in camera, I’m going to ask colleagues, having reviewed these two items, if there would be a willingness, just from the chair for me to simply change the order, I think item number two is going to be dealt with perhaps more expediently, and that would allow potentially staff to be released to go about the rest of their day, while item one may have a little more thorough discussion.

However, I’m also going to look to Ms. Dater’s beer, ‘cause I did not check with her beforehand. This was a coming into the meeting idea, just because I want to be respectful of staff who can go about their, the rest of their work day. Ms.

Dater’s beer, do you think that that would be helpful to some of our staff? Thank you, Deputy Mayor. I think that would be helpful, although we’re actually willing to take any direction Council wants to give, and take the direction around how you’d like to deal with those issues. So, unless I see any objections from colleagues, we’re going to deal with 6.2 first in camera, and then we will move to 6.1.

So, I’m just looking for any objections. Otherwise, as a chair, I’m going to deem that as accepted and just reverse the order. I’m not seeing any objections, so I will look for a motion to move into camera. I will also apologize to Ms.

Sher, ‘cause I know that that means she has to stay around a little bit longer and wait for us, but we’ll look for a motion to go in camera, moved by Councilor Cuddy, and seconded by Councilor Ferreira. I’ll ask the clerk to open the vote on that. Closing the vote, motion carries 12 to zero. Thank you, colleagues.

We will move the appropriate staff in and out of the room. Close off. Okay, colleagues, doors are open. The stream has restarted.

We are back in public session, and our agenda is complete, so I just need a motion to adjourn. Oh, sorry. Thank you, Councilor Cuddy. Councilor ramen, can you report out from our closed session?

Thank you. I’ll report that progress was made on the items we went in camera for. Thank you. And thank you, Councilor Cuddy, for the reminder.

And now we’ll look for a motion to adjourn, and Councilor Cuddy was quick on that one too, and Mayor Morgan was ready to second that one, so we will call the question, all those in favor. Motion carries. Thank you, colleagues. And for those traveling to AMO, we will see you all in Ottawa.