Earth Day & The Conversations We’re Not Having

April 22 2026

Today is Earth Day and I’m going to be honest, I’m not feeling particularly celebratory.

Over the past couple of years I have had elected officials tell me, directly, that climate action just isn’t a priority for voters right now. That advocates need to “do more work” to make it matter. Those kind of statements are hard enough to hear, but this is not what I’m hearing on the ground, because what Etobicoke residents tell me is that they DO care, and feel like their concerns are being ignored, it makes the whole situation feel much worse.

Why must there be such a disconnect here?

I’ve spoken with local seniors who are making real changes in their homes and daily lives because they are thinking about their grandchildren. They are paying attention to what’s happening around them, such as more extreme weather, rising costs due to difficult growing seasons, increasing uncertainty, and they want leadership that is willing to act before it’s too late.

I’ve spoken with young people who are asking a much harder question: what kind of future are we heading toward? Too often, they don’t feel like anyone at City Hall is taking that question seriously.

And I’ve seen, firsthand, the work that climate advocates in this city are already doing.

They are not absent from this conversation, they are driving it. They are organizing, educating, pushing for change day after day, and sometimes late into the night. Just a couple of months ago, so many advocates showed up to a city council committee meeting to speak that deputations stretched on for hours, pushing other agenda items aside. People took time out of their lives to show up, to speak, to be heard.

So the idea that advocates aren’t doing enough of the work is simply not true.

What’s missing isn’t effort from the public, it’s response from leadership. Climate change is not being ignored entirely, but it is being minimized. It gets reduced to surface-level conversations: planting more trees, cutting back on single-use plastics, small incremental changes that are easy to support and easy to communicate. Those things matter, but they are not enough on their own.

Where are the harder conversations?

About how we design our communities so people actually have safe, reliable options beyond driving.
About investing in public transit in a way that makes it a real alternative.
About road safety and active transportation, not as niche issues, but as core parts of a climate strategy.
About how we build housing in a way that reduces emissions and creates more resilient neighbourhoods.

These are municipal decisions.

They sit squarely with City Hall.

And yet, too often, they are treated as optional or avoided altogether. Some councillors appear to be scared to vote for our future generation as they seem more interested in protecting their own interests.

So when I hear that climate action isn’t a priority for voters, I have to push back.

What I’m seeing and hearing is something very different; people are paying attention, people are worried, and people are ready for real leadership in the fight to save our planet.

We do not get a second chance if we screw this one up!

As we head into the 2026 municipal election, this gap matters more than ever.

Earth Day cannot be the only time we hear about protecting our environment. April cannot be the only month where climate shows up in political conversation and social media posts. And we cannot keep pretending that small gestures are a substitute for meaningful change.

The reality is simple: the decisions we make or avoid at the municipal level are shaping the future of our communities right now.

And people know it.

They are asking for more.

Not perfection, but honesty.

Not slogans, but action.

Not delay, but a willingness to make difficult choices before those choices are made for us.

That’s what I’m hearing across Etobicoke and so far some of our current councillors do not seem to understand the concern and it shows based on actions and speeches at city hall, combined, with a lack of action in some city wards.

The question now is whether our political leaders are willing to listen and change the way they see climate action. If not, we have a chance now to find new candidates that are more prepared to bring local concerns to the decision tables at City Hall.