Item - 2024.IE11.8

The Infrastructure and Environment Committee recommends that:

1. City Council request the City Manager, in coordination with the Executive Director, Environment and Climate, the General Manager, Solid Waste Management Services and other City Officials as necessary, to report to the May 28, 2024 meeting of the Infrastructure and Environment Committee on the City’s relationship with fuel utilities, including Renewable Natural Gas facilities, use of public property, short and long term costs incurred by the city as a result of utility cuts and other impacts of fuel utilities on public property, and taxation / fee recovery mechanisms, including a jurisdictional scan of fees paid to municipalities in other provinces and a recommendation for fair fees and the amount of revenue such fees would produce.

2. City Council request that the City Manager report to the May 28, 2024 meeting of the Infrastructure and Environment Committee on the potential impacts of the Province’s Bill 165, Keeping Energy Costs Down Act.

3. City Council authorize the City Manager or designate, at their discretion, to submit comments to the Province of Ontario regarding the impacts of Bill 165 on the City of Toronto, including a written deputation and / or attendance at Standing Committee.

Toronto, like other major municipalities across Ontario, is in desperate need of a new fiscal framework and additional revenue tools to meet the many responsibilities that have been downloaded by the provincial government.

Subsection 8 of O.Reg. 595/06 under the City of Toronto Act, 2006 and section 9 of Regulation 584/06 under the Municipal Act, 2001 provides an unjustified subsidy to for-profit gas utilities by forcing municipalities to allow them free use of public property, without compensation even for the damage their utility cuts cause to city pavement. This is a large fossil-fuel subsidy that is contrary to the public interest, in light of our climate crisis, in light of the financial crisis facing Ontario municipalities, and in light of the increasing demands on public space. Municipalities should be free to charge fair fees to for-profit fossil fuel utilities for their use of public property, and for the entire damage that utility cuts cause to public infrastructure. Toronto taxpayers should not be forced to subsidize multi-billion dollar private companies.

Municipalities in other provinces are permitted to charge such fees and receive millions of much-needed dollars as a result.