By now every household in Richmond Hill will have received another one of Councillor Carmine Perrelli's huge, glossy flyers paid for by your hard-earned tax dollars. This flyer was so large that the Fact Check is broken into 2 parts. (Click here for Part 2)
Please share this with your Richmond Hill friends and family members. It's important that they know all the facts about this flyer.
All of a sudden, Councillor Perrelli seems to be very concerned about environmental sustainability and now "nothing is more important to him than the environment".
One wonders if this sudden interest in the environment is due to the fact that 48% of the recent Strategic Plan Survey respondents said that protecting the environment was their most important priority?Let's Do Some Flyer Fact Checking!
ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY
The environment never seemed a priority for Councillor Perrelli; in fact he only discovered the importance of biodiversity a few months ago.
Would someone who really cares about the environment print 50,000+ wasteful and non-essential, huge, expensive, 4 page flyers (albeit on recycled paper using vegetable based ink) that are going to end up in the garbage or recycling bin?
FACT: On October 8, 2020, Councillor Perrelli voted in favour of a motion by York Region Council to allow municipalities to convert protected lands on the Oak Ridges Moraine from ‘Countryside’ to ‘Employment lands’ along the 404.
FACT: On May 13, 2020, Councillor Perrelli requested a Minister's Zoning Order to remove lands from the Oak Ridges Moraine. His justification was that in the "post COVID-19 world" additional lands are required for manufacturing to encourage Canadian made products and supplies.
FACT: On December 2018, Carmine Perrelli, Joe DiPaola, Greg Beros and Tom Muench voted against adding a motion by Councillor David West regarding an issue of Greenbelt protection (Bill 66) to the agenda as “an emergency or time-sensitive matter". Immediately after this vote, Councillor Beros said he, too, had an urgent issue to add to the agenda — a motion to include “Banshee” in the list of approved street names and that was added.
FACT: Another example from June 2019 occurred when Councillors West and Cilevitz presented a Member Motion asking for Richmond Hill to join Canada and the world by declaring a climate emergency in recognition of the urgent need, for climate action. Instead of recognizing the urgent need Muench and Perrelli amended the motion and called for staff to report back in 6 months.
In the above examples, a number of residents and organizations spoke in support of the motions but to no avail.
FACT: Richmond Hill Staff received approval in 2018 from the previous Council for advancing the climate change mandate through the development of a Climate Change Framework and a Community Energy & Emissions Plan.
FACT: A significant amount of work has been completed by Staff on the Community Energy and Emissions Plan (CEEP) by bringing together key stakeholders and the public to find ways to increase energy efficiency and decrease greenhouse gas emissions throughout Richmond Hill.
Why is Councillor Perrelli suddenly forming his own group and conducting a "comprehensive review of environmental issues" when we have subject matter experts on City Staff who have been making environmental sustainability a priority in Richmond Hill for years? Is this not undermining City Staff? Councillor Perrelli made a huge deal of other councillors “having no faith in staff” when they made their original vote on the Bernard KDA yet he seems to be doing the same here.
FACT: For 20 years, Richmond Hill has been a member of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities’ Partners for Climate Protection Program and was the first municipality in Canada to achieve all five corporate milestones and later the five community milestones so our City Staff know what they are doing when it comes to environmental sustainability.