Natural resource wealth and energy resources, in particular, play an important role in the Canadian economy. In 2006, energy resources accounted for 57% of Canada’s total resource wealth [
32]. Canada is a major supplier of energy to the US, including the exploitation of the Tar Sands in Alberta [
33]. Energy wealth in Canada results in regional differences in terms of how energy conservation and sustainability are perceived and enacted. Regional tensions between large energy producers and energy consumers have been an integral part of the federal political landscape in Canada. According to Toronto’s Sustainable Energy Plan, ’Toronto’s energy mix is dominated by natural gas, accounting for 63% of all the energy used (except for transportation) in Toronto, while local renewable energy resources provide only 0.6%’ ([
7], p. 4). From the perspective of the Toronto municipal government, energy expenditures represent lost revenue for the local economy and it makes Toronto businesses and households vulnerable to changing costs and supplies from external energy suppliers. Toronto’s total electricity use per capita is higher in comparison to other large urban centres, such as New York, Greater London, and Tokyo ([
7], p. 4).
As a global city, Toronto has become central in coordinating the international division of labour, which involves multinational corporations with various locations of production and distribution, and the global movement of financial capital. Since the 1980s, globalization and the move toward cleaner, technology-driven “new economy” sectors (including information technology, high finance, and new media) have reshaped the demographic geography of Toronto, as downtown residents have become increasingly white-collar. To wit, professional classes and groups with capital have been drawn to employment and housing in Toronto’s inner city [
34–
36]. Since the liberalization of Canadian federal immigration policy in the late 1960s, new waves of immigrants are integrated into a racialized division of labour between the highly skilled and highly paid professional strata (largely white), on the one hand, and the low-skilled and low-paid service sector strata (largely racialized), on the other [
4]. Simultaneously, as described above, since the 1990s neo-liberal agendas have resulted in federal, provincial, and municipal government cut-backs to subsidized housing, health care, education, and the environment [
1].
Recent immigrants have more dispersed settlement patterns, with more settling directly in the suburbs than in the city core [
5,
37]. The spatial segregation documented by Hulchanski
et al. [
5] shows fewer new immigrants and members of racialized groups finding housing in downtown Toronto, where the property values have increased and many new residential developments are geared to the affluent consumer. Young and Keil note that the four regional municipalities, which make up the suburban areas of the City of Toronto, ‘have population growth at four times [the rates of] [the rest] of the city’ ([
1], p. 144). Much of the growth in these suburban areas is low density, consisting of “sprawling subdivisions” punctuated by pockets of older high-rise apartment blocks poorly served by surrounding services. Unequal access to downtown Toronto housing has taken on increasingly racialized dimensions, which impacts the social-spatial context of environmental issues in Toronto. Arguably, social tensions arising in part from the social-spatial organization of Toronto requires particular types of energy policy that are best suited to meeting the settlement, transportation, and consumer needs of all Torontonians, including the growing immigrant communities.
Given these realities and the significant distances from employment opportunities in downtown Toronto, many suburban residents have few options but to participate in unsustainable energy practices, such as spending hours commuting on highways and living in low density, less energy efficient housing developments. Low income, marginalized residents, who have far fewer opportunities to “vote with their feet”, are disproportionately affected by unregulated growth in real estate markets and urban sprawl and have fewer resources to practice NIMBYism (not-in-my-back-yard syndrome) of their own.
Even with the push toward privatization under neo-liberal regimes, as described above, provincial and municipal governments have taken a leadership role through the development and implementation of environmental and energy policy to develop local renewable energy resources for Toronto. However, energy policy in Toronto and initiatives to reduce Toronto’s carbon footprint are complicated by the Ontario provincial government’s and the Toronto municipal government’s overlapping jurisdictions relating to the governance over urban planning, transportation, and natural resources. In the discussion that follows, two provincial Ontario energy policies, The
Green Energy Act 2009 [
31] and the
Places to Grow policy [
38] in 2004, both administered by the Ontario Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure Development are analyzed using an environmental justice lens to, first, critique the neo-liberal and green capitalism ideologies embedded in the policies. Second, we use environmental justice as a framework to examine the extent to which the green economy/green jobs and smart growth, as two energy solutions emerging from the
Green Energy Act and
Places to Grow policies, can concurrently address Toronto’s energy contradiction in light of the challenges of socially, economically, and spatially integrating immigrants. Given that the
Green Energy Act 2009 is a relatively new policy, much of this analysis is based on a review of government and environmental non-governmental organizations’ documents and online reporting. In short, this paper seeks to contribute to both the void in the critical scholarship relating to Ontario’s
Green Energy Act and to providing evidence of the need to bring environmental justice to the study of these policies.
a. The Green Energy Act and Green Jobs
Established in May of 2009, the Ontario
Green Energy and Green Economy Act is a significant policy tool for government support for renewable energy projects. In an effort to establish Ontario as a leader in the green economy, the
Green Energy Act attempts to stimulate employment, or green jobs, and to fight climate change by encouraging the move away from coal-fuelled energy plants and toward using biomass, biogas, solar, and wind energy. In this regard, the
Green Energy Act (“
GEA”) outlines six specific investment areas: conservation and demand management; hydroelectric power; on-shore wind; bio-energy; waste energy recycling; and solar power [
31]. Consistent with green capitalist thinking, advances in energy-oriented technology are seen as the means to resolve the present imbalance between energy demand and energy supply that characterized Toronto’s energy problems, in addition to new energy technology providing for local boosts to the Toronto economy through jobs and an improved global status for Toronto and the province of Ontario as leaders in the green economy. Embracing the green economy is positioned as a “win-win” situation for all stakeholders, including businesses and environmentalists, who are often seen as having incompatible objectives.
Core components of the
GEA [
39] include the goals to:
○ grant priority to purchase from green energy sources;
○ introduce a feed-in tariff (FIT) program as a mechanism to ensure the equal participation of the community energy sector and to provide for a reasonable rate of return on investment;
○ create an obligation for utilities to provide priority to green energy projects;
○ encourage the participation of First Nations and Metis as developers and owners in green projects;
○ invest $25 million to create the Community Power Corporation to assist local communities to develop viable projects; and
○ give priority to vulnerable consumers to ease their energy burden.
We believe that an environmental justice approach to energy policy would advocate for more active participation of affected communities as well as the questioning of relations of power implicated in and reproduce through the move toward green power. To its credit, the
Green Energy Act of Ontario [
31], acknowledges and seeks to address the needs of diverse stakeholders through, for example, seeking to work with First Nations and Metis in planning and implementing green energy projects; an emphasis on community power and the plans to establish a Community Power Corporation, and the acknowledgement of lower income people and their ability to pay as energy consumers. However, we believe that environmental justice takes us further, as an analytical approach, to examine the political interests of various actors. In this regard, we focus on four issues: the feed in tariffs program (or FIT) as a market driven approach; the political and economic reality of community power; the politics of including First Nations communities; and the promise of green jobs. Given that the implementation of the
GEA and its programs are still in their nascant stages and there is, presently, a short record of outcomes, our comments are informed by some of the benefits and challenges raised in the grey literature on Ontario’s
GEA.
On October 1, 2009, a feed-in tariff or FIT program for renewable energy was launched by the Ontario Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure as an essential component of the
Green Energy Act. The FIT program is implemented by the Ontario Power Authority, which manages Ontario’s electricity grid and which receives directives from the Ministry. The FIT’s function as financial incentives for all players, including community power and First Nations stakeholders, is to produce electricity from green energy by offering stable guaranteed pricing for long term contracts [
40]. In addition, “[T]he FIT program includes an incentive for community power in the form of a price adder of up to 1 cent extra per kWh and decreased security deposits” ([
41], par. 17). The ultimate goal of the FIT programs is to contribute toward a phase out of coal-fired electricity by 2014.
Ontario’s FIT program in many respects mirrors the Renewable Energy Feed-in Tariff (REFIT) that operates in Germany. Both the Ontario and German programs involve state ‘command and control’ for pricing settings and guarantees [
42]. Toke and Lauber’s ([
42], p. 683) work, which analyzes the financing of renewable energy in both the UK and Germany, argues that, in Germany, even with the government’s involvement in regulating the pricing, REFITs still rely on elements of neo-liberalism because they foster competition in the selling of their products to developers, who will be inclined to keep their costs down. In the case of Ontario’s FIT program, competition will be generated by Ontario Power Authority that will control the increased demand from various new energy producers for contracts that allow for access to the grid. This is a significant change from the situation prior to the introduction of the
Green Energy Act, when there were few players accessing the grid. Access to the power grid will, potentially, become the site where attempts to democratize participation in keeping with the goals of environmental justice will be the most challenging. As an example, on March 10, 2010, the Ontario Power Authority announced that 510 new renewable energy projects received contracts under Ontario’s new feed-in tariff incentive program. Under the FIT program, ninety percent of the contracts received were to corporations and large stakeholders for rooftop solar projects with only a small percentage of contracts going to small scale producers of alternative forms of renewable energy, such as water power projects or biogas projects [
43]. In this regard, Deb Doncaster, Executive Director of the ENGO Community Power Fund, states, ‘
While we are overjoyed that the FIT is off to a good start, there are rules that inadvertently put community owned projects at a disadvantage and, as a result, only a handful are being announced here today. … One example of this is the one property-one contract rule, which restricts the number of projects on community college and university campuses and large municipal properties with multiple buildings, such as Exhibition Place in Toronto, important sites for community owned projects of varying scales ([
43], par. 6).
Similarly, the Ontario Sustainable Energy Association, an advocacy non-governmental organization for the community power sector, in a letter dated October 15, 2009, addressed to the Minister of Energy of Infrastructure, draws attention to the FIT program’s bias toward commercial developers due to the challenge that community power groups were encountering in attempts to adhere to rules for eligible FIT contracts, such as the definition of participating landowners [
44].
And yet, much of language in the
GEA is intended to encourage and support community power. “Community Power is a class of sustainable energy projects that are owned, developed and controlled in full or in part (50 per cent or more) by residents of the community in which the project is located” [
45]. Under this definition, community power involves homeowners, farmers, First Nations and Metis communities, cooperatives and municipalities as a diverse sector with varying capacities to become producers of green energy. The Community Power sector, as envisioned by the Ontario government and ENGOs (Ontario Sustainable Energy Association and its funding arm the Community Power Fund), draws on the community power experiences in Germany and Denmark. Feed in tariffs program (FIT) and MicroFIT for smaller scale projects are the essential components that ensure that all players can potentially equally contribute to renewable energy production and to ensure that a variety of players are included in a decentralized energy grid. The Community Power Fund has two principle programs to assist those in the community power sector: the Community Energy Partnerships Program (CEPP) and Community Power Capital (CP Capital). Launched in May 10, 2010, the CEPP, provides grants to fund the development and regulatory phases of community energy projects. Similar to the financial supports available for First Nations communities, the community funding presumes that communities have the requisite resources to establish projects that would be eligible for tariffs to provide the return on investment, whereas in terms of access to specialized expertise, person-hours and liquid assets they are outclassed by more powerful corporate stakeholders.
The First Nations Energy Alliance is a network of about 24 First Nations established in 2007 to encourage sustainable energy as an economic development strategy and to assist First Nations and Metis people in meeting their own energy needs [
46,
47]. The Alliance is partially funded by the Ontario Power Authority, which is responsible for implementing the
GEA’s tariffs program. Through the Ontario Power Authority, the Ontario government has undertaken consultations with the First Nations Energy Alliance regarding the obligation to be respectful of Aboriginal territory and to forge partnerships. While many First Nations are generating renewable energy, for those First Nations in the planning process, two main challenges already been identified and are significant from the perspective of the politics of participation. The first barrier is the lack of access to Ontario’s energy grid. As Michael Fox, a founding Director of the First Nations Energy Alliance states:
Renewable energy policies in many European jurisdictions empower and obligate the local utility to connect projects to the grid and to facilitate projects by building grid capacity where it is needed. First Nations in Ontario need a
Green Energy Act that allows communities to develop projects by ensuring grid access and capacity ([
48], par. 11).
Second, the Ontario Power Authority uses a criteria points system to evaluate and shortlist green energy providers that are eligible for tariffs and supports. These criteria include: “environmental assessment, zoning, equipment, resource availability, proponent team and financial assessment” ([
49], par. 20. Few First Nations groups have been able to meet these criteria. In April 2010, new Ontario Ministry funds (under the
GEA to be administered by the Ontario Power Authority) were allocated to assist applicants under the Aboriginal Energy Partnerships Program (AEPP). This program has project requirements for eligibility including agreements in place to sell or transmit electricity [
50].
Our preliminary analysis of components of the GEA suggests that priorizing economic growth in the GEA will result in social and environmental inequities as businesses, developers, and investors who have the benefit of access to upfront startup capital, time, expertise, and the knowledge to navigate the bureaucracy are privileged. The growing number of environmental non-governmental organizations who are advocating for and assisting community power groups and First Nations communities with gaining access to funding and the professional assistance needed to qualify for FIT contracts will in part help to address some of the apparent inequalities.
The green economy is another important objective of Ontario’s
Green Energy Act. In the context of declining jobs in the manufacturing sector, green jobs are seen as a means to simultaneously foster economic development and fight climate change. Interest in green jobs and in the green economy are forging new partnerships between manufacturing unions and environmental nongovernmental organizations. Blue Green Canada, for example, brings together the United Steelworkers and Environmental Defense to encourage all levels of government in Canada to invest in green jobs, emphasizing in particular jobs in manufacturing, construction, and trades. In this regard, Blue Green appears to be responding to deindustrialization and restructuring in the global economy [
51]. In May 2010, Blue Green Canada released a report that criticized the federal government’s investment in green jobs as weak relative to most other developed nations. Blue Green argues that Canada’s poor investment in green jobs is connected to the federal government’s attempt to protect its economic interest in the Alberta tar sands [
51].
In a study commissioned by public and private stakeholder organizations that support the
Green Energy Act (the Green Energy Act Alliance, Blue Green Canada, and the World WildLife Fund), Pollin and Garrett-Peltier [
52] used Ontario, Canada, and US data to estimate the number of jobs that will be created with Ontario’s
Green Energy Act. They examined three areas of job creation: direct effects (e.g., energy conservation management); indirect effects (e.g., suppliers such as the steel industry); and, induced effects (employment generated through goods and services that people employed in the first two categories would purchase). The authors suggest that the
Green Energy Act will create 90,000 jobs in Ontario over 10 years, and that the majority of these jobs will offer ‘decent pay’ of over $20 per hour ([
52], p. 6). However, they acknowledge that a significant minority will be low paying jobs in the construction and farming industries. It is noteworthy that, on account of Canada’s immigration policies, many newcomers to Canada would be overqualified for such jobs and therefore not beneficiaries of this new green job creation.
One initiative that attempts to directly integrate Toronto’s immigrants into green jobs is a two year pilot project “Green Opportunities: Reducing Barriers and Discriminatory Approaches to Increase Newcomer Participation in Environmental Activities”. This project funded by the Department of Citizenship and Immigration Canada aims to connect new immigrants in Toronto and Southwestern Ontario to green sector employment. The project is implemented by FutureWatch Environment and Development Education Partners, a Toronto-based environmental nongovernmental organization. Consistent with an environmental justice framework, this initiative seeks to address systemic and social networking barriers that often limit immigrants and other racialized peoples’ participation in environmental activities and industries. Green Opportunities objectives include: to improve newcomer integration into Ontario; to enhance the employment prospects of foreign-trained professionals, to promote the viability of Ontario’s Green Economy and community environmental sectors, and to promote environmental sustainability [
53]. The final goals of the project include establishing formal partnerships and the development of a ‘best practices’ manual for newcomer engagement with an applied antiracism analysis [
53].
b. Places to Grow, Inner City Re-Development, and Smart Growth
Places to Grow: Better Choices, Better Futures established in 2004 outlines the Ontario government’s strategy to manage population growth and economic expansion and reconcile these with environmental considerations [
38]. As previously noted, much of the population growth in Toronto and surrounding areas is projected to result from new immigration. As a result,
Places to Grow is not only an environmental, urban development driven policy, but it also responds to and informs the settlement patterns of Toronto’s diverse communities. As a policy that seeks to curb further suburban expansion,
Places to Grow emphasizes land use intensification, the re-development of former industrial sites (brownsfields), and compact development. In particular, the policy is aimed at pockets along the Lake Ontario waterfront specifically designated as future population and economic growth growth areas within the ‘Golden Horseshoe’ area. These emphases can be read as promoting energy reduction and energy sustainability, as it makes use of existing infrastructure and stimulates residential development in locations that are already well suited to public transportation and work/living communities.
As a direct result of initiatives like
Places to Grow, inner city redevelopment in Toronto has transformed the downtown. Young professionals and groups that a generation ago had contributed to the expansion of Toronto’s suburbs by moving into low density housing developments are the demographic that is now choosing to live in new condominiums, lofts, and townhouses in downtown Toronto [
54]. This occurs in the context of frozen federal funding for subsidized housing since the 1990s and the increased privatization of the housing market. Brownfield sites close to the commercial and financial centre and close to the coveted Lake Ontario waterfront have become hot properties in Toronto. Gentrification is pitting developers, real estate agents, and potential middle class residents, against the subsistence needs of marginalized groups and marginalized land uses pushed out from these areas, and creating new forms of environmental inequality in the process.
Places to Grow encourages urban development that draws foreign investors and businesses. Teelucksingh [
17] argues that growth oriented development in downtown Toronto is pushed at the expense of provincial and municipal governments giving adequate attention to the procedural rights of stakeholders, including the need for diversity in the housing market in terms of housing type and tenure. Similar to Holifield’s [
29] analysis of ‘deep neoliberalism’ hidden in US urban renewal initiatives that coopted discourses of environmental justice and community empowerment, the social inequalities associated with urban development in Toronto directed toward the global economy are often repackaged with the more socially acceptable discourses of smart growth or sustainable development [
17].
“Smart growth” refers to a critique of low density urban sprawl and to the need to preserve greenfields and agricultural lands, reduce automobile dependency, and make more efficient use of existing inner city infrastructure. Smart growth, while environmentally necessary, will not be socially sustainable if targeted growth and development further marginalize and exclude low-income populations and deepen racial segregation. Smart growth development in Toronto, as an outcome of policies like Places to Grow, has not provided urban redevelopments that are accessible to all of Toronto’s diverse and multicultural communities. .
“New urbanism” is widely touted as another potential solution to balancing diverse interests in urban development. New urbanism began in the late 1980s to early 1990s and advocates for the renovation of brownfields with the explicit purpose of creating mixed income and mixed land use communities [
55], and creating less car-dependant development. In contrast to “smart growth” discourses, which share similar critiques of urban sprawl, the new urbanism movement tries to address the needs of all citizens, including lower income people While there has certainly been a move toward increased mixed use zoning in Toronto, the same cannot be said of land use that would attract a mix of housing tenures and services for low income and marginalized people. New urbanism’s focus on both mixed land use and mixed income aims to avoid the exclusionary outcomes of gentrification.