As the guy in the article mentioned, If this were the case I would hope to see and exception for contractors/business. Electric has come a long way, but still pales in comparison to a gas blower/trimmer.
As for pollution, while it's important to tackle all angles of a problem. There are definitely bigger fish to fry. Two stroke emissions might be "more harmful pound per pound" but there is a million times less of those pounds.
I don't live in Toronto, but is the sound pollution from two stroke engines really that bad? How does it compare to construction noise or traffic noise? There is no logical reason a two stroke engines should be running for longer than 20-30 mins at a time and that's stretching it.
I live in Toronto. They are loud. Traffic is usually isn't noticeable in my 22nd floor condo (unless it's those stupid tuned exhaust systems - which should be banned as well). But when the city or contractors pull out the gas leaf blowers, I hear them pretty clearly. I'm happy to have them gone to reduce the noise.
I agree from a pollution point of view there are bigger fish to fry (like ocean shipping and cruise ships).
A bowl full of fried shrimp is still quite filling. It's really easy to go Electric leaf blowers (and lawn mowers etc). All these small emissions can add up substantially and is quite important when ever year counts.
I'm in Vancouver area. Our Condo maintenance is contracted out. they use gas weed trimmer and blowers, the commercial ones (maybe modified) are as loud as straight pipe harley. it is deafening when they are here all day, and the smoke comes in to the unit smelling like raw gas. it's bad. And apparently running one of those for an hour is more emissions than 10s of cars doing lots of commutes; because they don't have emissions systems like vehicles.
If they are smoking there is definitely something wrong. I've run gas blowers / trimmers in an enclosed space and they shouldn't smell for a decent while.