The Society’s Research Officer Nathan Jackson deputed before City of Toronto’s Executive Committee on March 19 to express the Society’s full support for the mayor’s tariff response action plan.
Toronto City Council approved the Mayor’s Economic Action Plan in Response to U.S. Tariffs, a comprehensive strategy designed to support Toronto businesses, workers and residents in the face of recent economic policy changes by the United States. The City’s plan aims to strengthen local supply chains, promote locally made goods and support the businesses and workers most vulnerable to economic disruption. The plan lays out a robust list of immediate actions that the city can take to respond to the ongoing threat of US tariffs.
The Society’s focus is on the plan’s forward-looking projects. Specifically, those that reduce reliance on US energy and support sustainability through electrification.
The Society has been a strong advocate for the electrification of our economy, ending Canada’s reliance on fossil fuels in major sectors – like transportation and buildings – and powering the energy transition with non-carbon emitting electricity.
While the Society’s primary reason for advocating for electrification has been to combat climate change by decarbonizing our economy, secondary benefits – which have become even more important in recent weeks – are economic sovereignty and energy security.
While Canada, as a whole, is a net-exporter of fossil fuels, its geography, transportation issues, and decades of trade integration with what was once considered a reliable partner, have led to Ontario having a significant reliance on imported natural gas and refined petroleum products, like gasoline, from the United States.
56 per cent of Toronto’s GHG emissions come from buildings – the vast majority of that is natural gas used for space heating and water heating. 35 per cent of the city’s GHG emissions comes from transportation – primarily the combustion of gasoline. The technology exists in both sectors to facilitate mass electrification, putting us further down the path of net-zero emissions while reducing our reliance on imported US fossil fuels.
Electrifying the city’s buildings by encouraging retrofits to replace gas furnaces and water heaters with heat pumps, and requiring new construction projects to install either ground source or air source heat pumps are significant actions that the city could take to reduce GHG emissions, while also drastically reducing its reliance on American natural gas.
Decarbonizing the city’s transportation sector will also reduce the city’s reliance on American refined gasoline. In its simplest form, this means maintaining existing active transportation infrastructure, expanding public transit, making more on-street electric vehicle charging stations, and maintaining and expanding Toronto’s bike lane network.
Members can watch the Society’s full deputation on the City of Toronto's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/live/7DJ7zm7yxWg?si=-z28SMA-J_GMJXBu&t=2950
