Spacing has Julie Yamin reporting from the two-day Toronto Summit conference.
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Day two of the Toronto Summit 2007 began with remarks from John Tory, Leader of the Official Opposition. He didn’t have a lot to say, but he made a point of delivering his own big idea for municipalities.
He began with saying he’ll soon be writing a letter to Premier McGuinty’s municipal funding review committee to let them know that an 18-month time-frame is unacceptable to him, and that if he is elected Premier of Ontario in the next election, that time-frame will be greatly reduced. Tory would like to see this review completed by the end of 2007.
He also agreed with the consensus reached on Monday regarding the uploading of services back to the province. “Municipalities want to be partners with provinces; we need to realign the levels on Government.â€
Before getting the group settled for their morning workshop, David Pecaut, Toronto City Summit Alliance Chair gave everyone an overview of what was said in the Monday workshops. He was quite pleased to see so many people in the same boat this week. For issues like uploading services and transit, he says it is essential for Toronto to have a unified voice if they are to be heard by the Provincial and Federal Governments.
Over the course of day two, attendee registration numbers soared to more than 600, a lot more than the 350 they expected. On Tuesday, hundreds of people were invited to join larger discussion groups as opposed to dividing the group up like Monday.
Tuesday saw the discussion of two major issues facing Torontonians.
A Green Toronto: Hon. David Crombie, former Mayor of Toronto and President and CEO of the Canadian Urban Institute, guest speaker Louise Comeau, Director of the Sage Climate Project and former Director of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities Centre for Sustainable Communities.
Transit & Transportation: Getting to Sustainability: Anne Golden, Conference Board President, Rob MacIsaac, Greater Toronto Transportation Authority (GTTA) Chair, and Adam Giambrone, Toronto Transit Commission Chair.
