Will Suncor and TD help Evergreen make our future cities low carbon?

As taxpayers, over the years we’ve put a lot of money into Evergreen Brickworks, the parkland/gathering place, in the Don Valley (off Bayview, north of Bloor in Toronto) -- even though it has also partnered with private funders.

That’s why I was upset to learn that Evergreen is partnering with Suncor and TD on the premise that they will help make our future cities low carbon.

Evergreen describes itself as “a place where the world can experience sustainable practices that enable flourishing cities of the future.”  It uses the word “sustainable,” yet it partners with Suncor Energy Foundation (among others) in the “Future Cities Canada”(FCC) organization (formed in 2018).

There’s more: One of the founding partners of FCC was TD Bank Group  and is still involved under the name TD Ready Commitment.  In terms of the word, “sustainable,” TD was, in 2017, the principal broker for Kinder Morgan in 2017, helping the company to build the Trans Mountain Expansion tar sands pipeline.

TD now has such a prominent presence at the Brickworks that the newly renovated kiln room, now its largest enclosed room, and the main “hub” for FCC, is named “TD Future Cities Centre” (announced Nov 8, 2018). That name is prominently displayed to traffic on Bayview, and that room is physically connected to the “Centre for Green Cities.”

Does Evergreen’s willingness to enter into such partnerships with Suncor, and into a prominent room-naming agreement with TD, involved in such a high carbon project, compromise Evergreen’s self described goals to “help make cities flourish…cities that are low carbon?”

If Evergreen pleads ignorance in their relationship with TD, can they also do so in their FCC relationship with Suncor, an obvious oil company?

FCC’s stated goal is to “address two of the most pressing issues of our time: inequality and climate change.” Yet TD bank is one of their founders and Suncor is one of their funders.

Those two are also among the sponsors of the Nov 7 – 8 Future Cities Canada Summit 2019 which will take place in Evergreen’s renovated room named after TD.

So what can we do about it, you might ask? Isn’t Evergreen a private organization?

Actually, it cost the Government of Ontario roughly $24 million to acquire the property in the mid 1980s, but all three levels of government, plus many players in the private sector, have contributed to the development of the site since then. Evergreen describes its fundraising over the years in this way: “…bringing in partners was key to transforming our idea [around 2004]… from an enterprising native plant nursery to a large-scale “Community Environmental Centre” that would explore all aspects of urban sustainability…”  

My question to Evergreen and all of its funders over the years, including us taxpayers, is this: I know we are a multi-stakeholder animal, but what kind of contradictory self-destructive animal have we become if we now bring in Suncor and TD to encourage low carbon cities?

If Evergreen has “pitched City Hall” for acceptance of its proposals over the years, it should now realize that City Hall on Oct 2, 2019 declared climate change to be an emergency.

For humanity to survive this emergency, we can no longer do “business as usual.”