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Toronto residents navigating needles on sidewalks, open drug use on public transit (TTC), and chaotic public spaces are increasingly asking where their tax dollars are going as core services decline.

At the same time, city officials and partners are advancing a "tree equity" initiative that frames urban forestry as a race, income and social justice issue.

In late 2024, the City of Toronto announced the Tree Equity Score Analyzer (TESA), an app developed with American Forests, marking the first deployment of the tool outside the United States.

The project involves the City’s Parks, Forestry and Recreation division and LEAF (Local Enhancement and Appreciation of Forests), a local non-profit. It adapts U.S. models using tailored Canadian census data, incorporating metrics such as “visible minority” and “Indigenous identity” to generate equity scores that guide tree planting in supposed “equity-deserving neighbourhoods.”

A freedom of information request seeking details on costs for software, data adaptation, marketing, and rollout received a questionable response: the City stated it had no records to share, asserting that American Forests fully funds the tool with “no direct cost” to taxpayers.

Yet public announcements tell a different story.

A July 2024 American Forests press release highlighted the partnership, quoting Kim Statham, Director of Urban Forestry for the City of Toronto, alongside LEAF’s executive director. The initiative includes stakeholder groups, community engagement, data tailoring, public tours, shrub giveaways, and integration with Toronto’s Urban Forest Grants and Incentives Program, which has distributed over $22 million in public funds since 2017.

Statham’s own publicly funded salary, according to the latest public sunshine list, sits at a handsome ~$200,000 annually plus benefits.

City employees had to have participated in adapted outreach and data work tied to this Toronto-tailored app.

While LEAF’s 2024 annual report describes “tree equity training” with anti-racism experts and “decolonizing urban forestry” workshops, the City says that it maintains no internal records regarding staffing, coordination, or expenses related to the TESA.

Responses to direct inquiries to the above mentioned parties have been extremely vague and limited.

Toronto media relations provided high-level policy references to Toronto’s 2021 tree equity approach and long-term canopy goals but offered no operational details on partnership governance or resource use related to TESA.

LEAF stated that it received no city funding for the project, but it did not disclose its own financial contributions, provide details about any formal agreements, or release any of the requested supporting financial records. Notably, this non-profit who values “accountability” and “communication” doesn’t publish any detailed financial information.

Meanwhile, according to their latest annual report, American Forests saw a substantial increase in U.S. government funding last year, with tree equity programs forming over six million dollars annually of its total budgetary expenses.

The focus on ‘tree equity’ comes at a time when even Ontario Premier Doug Ford can no longer ignore rising overdoses and drug use on the TTC, prompting new rules following dwindling ridership due to increasing safety concerns.

If no records exist on this TESA, how was the partnership formalized? Who identified, collected, and supplied the Canadian data used in the project? How much taxpayer-supported staff time and public resources were allocated to the initiative?

Were there any memorandums of understanding, contracts, or data-sharing agreements signed between the parties involved? What oversight or approval process was followed before the project moved forward? Were councillors or the public informed about the scope, costs, and objectives of the partnership?

Appeals of the FOI response are underway to clarify the full scope and costs of implementation of this app, because taxpayers funding both urban maintenance and ambitious equity programs deserve straightforward answers on priorities — especially while public safety in Toronto continues to deteriorate.