n a low-income Toronto neighbourhood where people often feel overlooked by policymakers, an Indigenous-led coalition of community members is fighting for the future of their green space.
Mount Dennis is a community of new Canadians, multi-generational households, working-class families and first-time homeowners identified by the City of Toronto as a neighbourhood improvement area. It will also be the site of a major transit hub — the Mount Dennis intermodal LRT station — once the Eglinton Crosstown West rapid transit line on one side and the Eglinton Crosstown West Extension (ECWE) on the other are complete.
While the 9.2-kilometre ECWE will mostly run below ground, a 1.5-kilometre section in Mount Dennis will be elevated, passing underground again west of the Humber River.
A coalition of community groups led by ENAGB Indigenous Youth Council has rejected the plan and is calling on the provincial government and Metrolinx — the agency responsible for the project — to reconsider burying the line in Mount Dennis. If Metrolinx does not agree to pause construction tendering and meet with members of the coalition, Cynthia Bell, executive director of ENAGB, says the coalition is prepared to stage a construction blockade sometime in 2023.
"We're in a race against them right now," Bell said in an interview following a protest against the elevated line on January 7. "They're in a race to destroy everything, and we're in a race to have a conversation with them."
In order to build the elevated tracks, Metrolinx will need to clear a strip of parkland and urban forest tens of metres wide from Pearen Park, west through Fergie Brown Park and the Eglinton Flats to the Humber River.
ENAGB — also known as Eshkiniigjik Naandwechigegamig Aabiish Gaa Binjibaaying — licensed a parcel of land just east of the Humber River and north of where the track will be built from the City of Toronto in 2020. They've built lodges there where they perform traditional ceremonies and spend time reconnecting with nature. They also work with other Indigenous community members to remove invasive plant species from the forest and grow food and medicinal herbs native to the area. Some of those community members have been working to restore the forest using Indigenous wisdom for 10 years.
Metrolinx has said it won't need to clear any of ENAGB's parcel in order to build the tracks, but to Bell, it doesn't change anything.
"It's going to have a direct effect on the land," she said, explaining that by constructing a permanent elevated rail line on the edge of ENAGB's parcel, Metrolinx will undermine the youth's efforts to care for the land, connect with the land and share it with their relatives, the plants and the animals.
"If we don't stand by [our youth], they will fail. We need to help them prevail for the future," she said. "They inherit what we leave behind. And this is why it's so important to have youth voices."
Kiyana Johnston is an ENAGB youth member who attends events and ceremonies on the land. To her, the parcel and surrounding urban forest are both a grounding force and something to be safeguarded for the Indigenous youth who come after her.
"We're here to protect our lands, to protect our water. As a youth that comes here to access these ceremonies, these sweats, it hurts me to know that this is what they want to do," she said.
"We have our anchors of land, this is our land and we're here to continue to protect and fight."
According to Neiland Brissenden, a spokesperson for the community advocacy group Stop the Trains in Our Parks (STOP), the parkland due to be cleared by Metrolinx is also part of a natural corridor for wildlife travelling north and south along the Humber River.
"Some people say 'What's the big deal about a 50-metre-wide stretch of urban forest?' That urban forest connects this green belt to the Humber River system," he said, adding that Eglinton Flats, Fergie Brown Park and Pearen Park also create a "contiguous greenspace for wildlife and migratory birds including endangered and at-risk species."
Among species along the corridor identified as endangered or threatened are little brown and small-footed myotis bats, monarch butterflies, barn swallows, chimney swifts, peregrine falcons and other birds classified as being of special concern, according to STOP.
STOP has worked alongside the Mount Dennis Community Association and the Mount Dennis ecoNeighbourhood Initiative — also members of the ENAGB-led coalition — since early 2022 to advocate for a buried line. Brissenden has attended community meetings where he said Metrolinx' engineers told attendees it is not only possible to put the line under Mount Dennis and the Humber River, but also "the best option for a livable community."
"Metrolinx told us they can't go underground here because of the floodplain, but their engineers at the last public meeting said they can go under the floodplain and they do it all the time," he said.
In fact, Arup — the engineering firm hired by Metrolinx as technical advisory consultant for the Eglinton Crosstown West Extension — designed the tunnel to Billy Bishop airport. That tunnel passes 35 metres under Lake Ontario and through 185 metres of shale bedrock.
"We know they can do it. We know that it's feasible. We know that they've studied it," he said. "We know that they're ready to proceed with a plan to go underground. They just don't want to do it."
In an email to The Hoser on January 10, Metrolinx confirmed it plans to go ahead with the elevated rail line, citing the "unique challenges to underground construction" in an identified flood plain prone to "historic levels" of flooding.
"This would be more complex, more time-consuming and more disruptive for the community in comparison to an elevated option," the statement reads. Metrolinx said it plans to re-plant more trees than it removes, and that it wants input from the community on aesthetic elements of the elevated track.
"We are committed to continuing to work with ENAGB and have launched a design and restoration working group to seek further community input into the restoration of the parks and some design elements of the transit project," the statement reads.
Ultimately, Brissenden said the coalition considered this promise and decided it's not enough.
"They're gonna tear down the forest… and then ask us how we'd like to make it look pretty at the end," he said. "We are asking Metrolinx to come back to the table and give our community and the Indigenous community an opportunity to provide real feedback and real input into this project."
