Purpose

To track and show how climate-related items are being voted on within Toronto City Council.

Mission

To increase transparency on how councillors and the mayor are voting on climate-related items so that local constituents and climate groups can hold City Council more accountable for meeting the climate targets outlined in the TransformTO Net Zero Strategy.

Scope

The climate-related items shown on this website are items voted on by City Council that help address the climate crisis and lower greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. As a guide, we referenced the TransformTO Strategy to identify the scope of items. This includes items that support green electrification, transit infrastructure, bike lanes, flooding prevention, social policies, and more. Some policies that have a positive impact on the environment and align with the City's net zero goals may not currently be on the website. The scope of social policies may also be limited despite its interconnection to the climate crisis. As the website evolves, we plan to expand the definition of climate-related items to align more fully with the City’s Resiliency Strategy and include policies that lower consumption-based emissions.

Methodology

This website uses data from Toronto Open Data by the City of Toronto to track the voting results of councillors and the mayor. The data is available in Excel form and documents how councillors voted on climate-related items (i.e. policies) presented in City Council. A councillor can either vote in support (vote “Yes”), not support (vote “No”), or be absent for an item. In some cases, "Absent" can also indicate that a member chose not to participate in a vote because they declared an interest under the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act. We do not show the results of all items that are in the dataset. A team at ClimateFast rigorously evaluates and sorts all the items in the dataset to see which ones are “climate-related”. We begin by doing a key terms search based on a list of selected terms and scan the item titles that contain the key terms. After that, we then research and analyze the item to see whether the item helps reduce GHG emissions and align with the goals set out in TransformTO. To research the item, we go to Toronto Meeting Management Information System (TMMIS) to get a better understanding on the item.

Disclaimers and Limitations

• Currently, items listed on this website date back to 2019. As the site gets developed further, we aim to expand the list to include items from as far back as 2006.
• Not all voting results made by councillors are made public by the City. Some votes are not recorded electronically but rather voted through physical hand raising which does not get reflected in the Toronto Open Data database.
• The website excludes climate-related items that are carried by default before City Council begins its session on held items. Those votes that get carried by default without discussion are all unanimously passed by all councillors, including some climate-related policies.
• It’s important to note that the voting records of councillors/the mayor is just one indicator and does fully show where a councillor stands on the climate crisis. The voting records data is able to provide a high level finding of which councillors are most clearly not in favour of climate action but is unable to show the nuances and reasoning behind why the councillor voted in the way that they did. Some votes made by councillors could also be performative. Each individual councillor may have slightly different reasons for why they voted ‘yes’ or ‘no’ on an item, or have a differing degree of understanding of what they are voting on and urgency of addressing the Climate Crisis. For a deeper insight, one may want to look at how their councillor voted on amendments within an item, see how they voted on it within the committee (if they are on the committee), or book a personal meeting with them to ask questions on where they stand.

What to learn more?

Please check out the public resource folder to see details on how this project came about. This public folder also acts as a toolkit to help those working on a similar project and shares lessons learned. As stated by adrienne maree brown: “Write up these learnings and share them widely…”