Dear Councillors Fletcher, Chernos Lin, Colle, and Pasternak,
On Dec. 5, 2025 we sent out a bulletin to our supporters expressing our disappointment with respect to the City of Toronto’s Infrastructure and Environment Committee’s decision to delay action on reducing gas burning at the Portlands Energy Centre. Specifically, we were disappointed by the Committee’s decision to refer Councillor Saxe’s motion – requesting Toronto Hydro develop a plan to reduce gas burning at Portlands – to city staff for “consideration” with no timeline for a response.
Unfortunately, our bulletin was combined with an image with your photos and the false statement: “Meet the Councillors who voted for more pollution”.
This statement simply wasn’t true and we apologize for including it. We have removed this image and statement from our website. Please accept our sincere apologies for mislabelling your actions.
We would also like to acknowledge that on Dec. 17, 2025 Toronto City Council supported (by a vote of 23 to 1) Councillor Saxe’s revised motion to request city staff, in consultation with Toronto Hydro, to develop a plan to avoid unnecessary gas burning at Portlands by significantly increasing local distributed energy generation (renewables), energy storage and demand response measures that shift electricity demand from peak to off-peak periods. We responded with this bulletin in appreciation.
As you know, on March 27, 2026 city staff responded to City Council’s request by releasing their report, The Electrification Advantage, which outlines many practical, cost-effective actions that the City can take to reduce gas burning at Portlands.
We hope that City Council will now establish targets and timelines to ramp up local solar electricity generation and request that Toronto Hydro undertake a preliminary feasibility study on the potential locations (near shore and far offshore) as well as costs and benefits of a Lake Ontario wind farm.
In closing, once again, please accept our apologies for the false statement in our December 5th bulletin.
With appreciation for your good work,
-Angela Bischoff and Jack Gibbons
Ontario Clean Air Alliance