Juno News - July 21, 2024


Olivia Chow blames Toronto floods on climate change

Topics
climate change climate change mitigation rain tax
Mentioned
Olivia Chow Brian Lilly Andrew Lawton Show Howard Leavitt Warren Kinsella Justin Trudeau Kathleen Wynne Kitchener
Smith says the left’s vision is bleak Biden's out; Trudeau's in Tofino

Episode Stats


Length

12 minutes

Words per minute

173.08

Word count

2,096

Sentence count

165

Harmful content

Misogyny

6

sentences flagged

Toxicity

4

sentences flagged

Hate speech

2

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, we talk about the massive flooding that hit Toronto this week, and how climate change is to blame for it. We also talk about what politicians should be doing about it, and why they aren t doing enough.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 I want to shift from the national to the local here because there is a national tie-in, of course.
00:00:14.220 Toronto this week had massive, massive flooding.
00:00:17.060 I saw some of the just horrendous videos of people that were getting their cars just covered in water.
00:00:22.520 I think the DVP or the ramp onto the DVP was terrible and you had a cascading waterfall down the steps of Union Station.
00:00:30.000 I was nervous that Howard Leavitt, a lawyer you may recall, he's been on the show before,
00:00:34.460 when there was flooding in Toronto a decade ago, he famously ditched his $200,000 Ferrari because he had a plane to catch.
00:00:41.100 And I was thinking this week that someone should do a welfare check on Howard Leavitt's new car.
00:00:45.180 But all of that notwithstanding, the flooding was there and Brian Lilly in the Toronto Sun had a great piece out
00:00:52.340 where he talked about how much this exposes how so much of Toronto's priorities have been on these luxury items,
00:00:58.440 on these virtue signaling plans like bike lanes as far as the eye can see,
00:01:02.420 when core infrastructure just isn't there.
00:01:05.360 But no, no, no, it's not infrastructure to blame, Olivia Chow says.
00:01:09.160 It is people with big driveways.
00:01:12.280 I do want to talk a bit about climate change.
00:01:17.080 It's real.
00:01:17.660 We are expecting sort of almost doubling the number of severe rainstorm days in 15 years.
00:01:28.080 So we have to redouble our effort to have mitigating actions because we have to do more prevention work.
00:01:40.700 If you're talking about long-term mitigation effort, providing incentives for homeowners and for people that have big parking space
00:01:50.740 because the stormwater is not running off properly, the ground is not absorbing the rain.
00:01:57.320 As a result, the runoff is severe and it causes even more flooding.
00:02:02.180 And that's one of the reasons why basements are flooded.
00:02:05.040 It is a severe problem and we really seriously have to deal with climate change
00:02:12.400 because these kind of days are going to be a lot more frequent.
00:02:17.700 Brian Lilly from the Toronto Sun returns to our program.
00:02:21.520 It's always good to see you, Brian.
00:02:22.800 Thanks for coming on today.
00:02:24.140 Thanks for having me.
00:02:25.320 You thought of Howard Levitt's car.
00:02:27.300 Very good point.
00:02:28.420 I thought, it's raining hard.
00:02:30.840 Has anyone checked on the Science Centre?
00:02:32.540 Because if you've been following Ontario politics, you'd think that the Ontario Science Centre was the be-all and end-all.
00:02:38.260 Quite frankly, if you don't live in or near Toronto, you forget it exists.
00:02:43.660 And if you live in Toronto, you forget it exists.
00:02:45.520 But one of the reasons they closed it was the roof was in danger of imminent collapse from heavy rainfall or snowfall.
00:02:52.980 And that was pretty heavy rainfall the other day.
00:02:56.120 But can I read you something from a little while ago that the city put out when it comes to rain?
00:03:03.240 I'm going to throw on my glasses here and read this direct.
00:03:05.880 The city council said that they need to start planning and developing new programs for future disaster mitigation, including urban flooding, that reflect the reality of climate change and include investments for municipal water and sewer infrastructure that can mitigate the risks from future storm events that are anticipated to increase both in frequency and severity.
00:03:30.220 Andrew, Andrew, that was written in a report for the July 2013 flood, and it was published September 2013.
00:03:37.940 So that's 11 years ago.
00:03:40.300 And where did the city flood on Tuesday?
00:03:44.400 In exactly the same places.
00:03:47.280 And just to give you one more tidbit, we had 70% of the rain that they had back in 2013.
00:03:52.500 It's almost 140 millimeters back in 2013.
00:03:56.940 We didn't even crack 100 millimeters.
00:03:59.900 Parts of the city got close, about 98 millimeters, so about three to three and a half inches.
00:04:06.260 But most of the city didn't get that.
00:04:09.340 And we still saw that massive flooding.
00:04:11.480 So if you're going to invoke climate change, then show the courage of your convictions and actually do something.
00:04:17.000 But instead, politicians, whether it's Justin Trudeau or Olivia Chow, they just want to use climate change like a get-out-of-jail-free card in Monopoly.
00:04:24.900 Yeah, and you mentioned, I mean, the obvious point to some, but I don't think it gets enough discussion, which is that they invest in and they spend.
00:04:32.760 I use their language for a moment.
00:04:33.940 It's not investing.
00:04:34.620 They spend.
00:04:35.220 They spend money on all the things that don't matter.
00:04:38.580 I mean, they spend money on bike lanes, which in a lot of ways, yes, there's a place for them, but nowhere near the extent to which they're looked at.
00:04:45.180 And you certainly see that in, you know, Calgary and Edmonton when those cities, you know, which you can ride your bike in, you know, three days a year basically do it.
00:04:51.880 But in Toronto, it's like, yeah, we've got all these bike lanes, but we don't have enough maintenance for water downpours.
00:04:58.780 So Olivia Chow said that the city is something like $26 billion in the hole for infrastructure over the next 10 years.
00:05:06.880 That's $2.6 billion a year.
00:05:09.880 That on average.
00:05:11.000 So, well, why aren't you putting the money into that?
00:05:16.160 Instead, we're renaming Yundundas Square to Sankofa, a word that means nothing to most Torontonians.
00:05:23.700 We had to all look it up and ask what it means and then find out there was a bizarre story behind it.
00:05:29.620 They've just approved another 100 kilometers of bike lanes.
00:05:33.620 Now, if you're in the downtown core like I am, some of these bike lanes get used heavily.
00:05:39.000 And, you know, sometimes I use them.
00:05:41.400 I walk, I cycle, I take the subway, I drive.
00:05:43.980 I, you know, whatever mode of transport works for me, that's what I use.
00:05:47.760 But there are parts of the city where they're going to be expanding the bike tracks in ways that make no sense because the traffic isn't there.
00:05:56.040 They're trying to induce demand. 0.95
00:05:57.840 They tell us we can't build more roads because it will cause more people to drive, but they're building more bike tracks for the same reason.
00:06:05.360 They want more people on bikes.
00:06:06.920 They want more people out of their cars.
00:06:09.600 Okay, fine.
00:06:10.740 That's a nice to have.
00:06:12.680 When your sewer infrastructure does not work and can't handle it, I mean, they're talking about this as a once-in-a-century storm.
00:06:21.060 It's not a once-in-a-century storm.
00:06:23.240 It's not even close to that.
00:06:24.860 It's a heavy day of rain that was preceded by several other days of medium, mild to medium rain.
00:06:33.240 Our city infrastructure should be able to handle that.
00:06:36.120 And if you keep saying climate change is real, like Olivia Chow kept saying this, climate change is real.
00:06:41.660 We have to mitigate it.
00:06:43.000 Okay, part of your mitigation measures is making sure that your sewers can work.
00:06:46.800 But they're not doing that.
00:06:48.380 It's beyond frustrating that most of the media is letting her get away with this.
00:06:55.440 I said it on Tuesday afternoon.
00:06:57.560 We can't let her get away with this.
00:06:59.120 And so far, everybody has.
00:07:00.860 They're just, oh, yeah, climate change.
00:07:02.540 Okay, then what are you going to do about it?
00:07:05.100 Well, and it's also, I mean, we're a country, and Toronto is no exception to this, that gets a lot of snow.
00:07:12.100 And when that snow melts, there is a lot of water sometimes.
00:07:15.740 And sometimes there is the, no pun intended, perfect storm that comes down.
00:07:18.920 So the idea that this is not something we should be prepared for is just absolutely the most unconvincing argument ever.
00:07:26.120 Absolutely, and as far as being prepared for it, look, we have an emergency operations center in the city of Toronto that was stood up early Tuesday morning, and we still had the DVP flood.
00:07:40.020 If you're not from Toronto, you don't live here, it's a major highway that runs into the city.
00:07:46.160 The city could have and should have shut it down early.
00:07:49.140 It runs next to the Don River, which flooded, and it flooded over the Don Valley Parkway, turned it into the Don Valley Seaway.
00:07:58.560 They should have had that shut down earlier, and the fact that they didn't was poor management.
00:08:05.340 And I know that True North clipped some of the same things that I did from Mayor Chow's scrum.
00:08:11.240 She came out and was completely unprepared.
00:08:13.400 So between the emergency management center not getting this right and shutting down highways and roads that were completely flooded before cars ended up in them, before we needed to rescue a dozen drivers, that should have happened.
00:08:27.980 But it didn't do to bad management.
00:08:29.820 Chow came out and couldn't answer basic questions. 0.97
00:08:32.320 Why?
00:08:33.040 Bad management.
00:08:34.020 Either she did not ask the questions that needed to be asked that she knew journalists would be asking, like, why wasn't it closed earlier?
00:08:40.840 I don't know.
00:08:41.860 Which other roads are closed?
00:08:43.660 One's near rivers.
00:08:44.880 These were horrific answers that, you know, I've shown it to political staffers across the spectrum because they said, no way.
00:08:52.360 No, she didn't say that.
00:08:53.500 And send them the clip, and they all have the same reaction.
00:08:56.400 Oh, my goodness.
00:08:57.280 How did she go out to speak like that? 0.57
00:08:59.400 You know, we can all clap about or clap back at the boys in the short pants or the kids that brief politicians.
00:09:07.040 But they're there for a reason, and that's to make sure that they have the information to share with the public.
00:09:13.340 Chow didn't ask for it.
00:09:14.580 Her staff didn't give it to her. 1.00
00:09:16.460 She looks foolish. 1.00
00:09:17.560 The whole city looks foolish. 1.00
00:09:19.460 And in the meantime, once we're through it all, she just says, climate change, get us jail free. 0.97
00:09:24.880 I don't need to put money into things that are beneath the ground that people can't see.
00:09:29.220 I can invest in shiny new things that will get me votes.
00:09:32.660 And unfortunately, that's what politicians do across the country. 0.97
00:09:35.920 And she's also going to try, and you mentioned the big parking pads.
00:09:41.340 Do you know why she's doing that? 0.94
00:09:44.040 Why?
00:09:45.000 Because she wants a rain tax. 1.00
00:09:46.960 Oh, is that?
00:09:47.520 So it is that?
00:09:48.100 Yeah, because they walked back on that one a couple of months back when there was so much incredible pushback.
00:09:53.380 But you don't think that's dead forever?
00:09:55.100 No, I don't.
00:09:56.460 Look, the rain tax exists in many municipalities.
00:09:58.980 It might surprise you where it does, just in and around here.
00:10:02.260 I believe it's Kitchener, Mississauga, Aurelia, or just a few.
00:10:06.720 But my colleague, Warren Kinsella, he wrote on it back in March.
00:10:10.960 We put her on the front page of the Toronto Sun.
00:10:13.160 I believe we had her in a sinning in the rain pose and a yellow slicker. 1.00
00:10:17.280 And I love the God bless the Toronto Sun.
00:10:19.620 We have fun.
00:10:20.600 But, you know, we talked about it as a serious issue.
00:10:22.980 And it is.
00:10:23.420 The rain tax is something that every progressive politician that I've covered for the last two to three decades, I've been at this about 25 years.
00:10:32.240 It doesn't matter where I've covered City Hall, at some point someone tries to push for a rain tax.
00:10:37.960 And it's like a carbon tax.
00:10:39.280 They say it's for a specific environmental cause.
00:10:41.880 It just goes in general revenues.
00:10:43.840 It's like the people that say, oh, we need to improve the taxes to improve the roads.
00:10:47.800 It just goes in general revenues.
00:10:49.740 And they spend it on whatever they want.
00:10:51.460 The roads aren't better.
00:10:52.360 The temperature doesn't go down.
00:10:54.620 The rain doesn't stop falling.
00:10:57.220 You know, they want to tax you for every square inch of your roof, your deck, your patio stones, your walkway up to your door, your driveway.
00:11:08.320 That's what they want to do.
00:11:09.700 And it's all just another way, another revenue tool, as Kathleen Wynne used to say in the hallowed halls of Queens Park, where I'm sitting now.
00:11:18.040 It's a revenue tool.
00:11:19.580 That's all it is.
00:11:20.340 Yeah, it'll have, I mean, Toronto, talk about the great city rural divide, because Torontonians are just like praying for drought, because they'll save a few dollars, whereas everyone in the real world realizes how they need rain.
00:11:31.600 You just got to prepare for it.
00:11:33.040 Brian Lilly, always great reading your stuff in the Toronto Sun, including this piece of yours on the whole to-do about the flooding in Toronto.
00:11:40.880 Great stuff, and thanks for coming on today.
00:11:42.800 Thank you.
00:11:43.480 Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show.
00:11:45.820 Support the program by donating to True North at www.tnc.news.
00:11:51.300 We'll be right back.
00:12:06.180 Thank you.