{"id":1567,"date":"2007-02-27T15:09:50","date_gmt":"2007-02-27T19:09:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingtoronto.ca\/?p=1567"},"modified":"2007-02-27T20:41:04","modified_gmt":"2007-02-28T00:41:04","slug":"time-for-a-climate-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2007\/02\/27\/time-for-a-climate-change\/","title":{"rendered":"TORONTO SUMMIT: Time for a change"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Spacing has Julie Yamin reporting from the two-day Toronto Summit conference.<\/em><\/p>\n

– – – – – – – – –<\/p>\n

You don’t need to live in the heart of Toronto to know the waterfront, the Gardiner, the Island, social service downloading, and transit are just a few of the issues that have befuddled City Hall for years.<\/p>\n

But this week, the Toronto Summit 2007<\/a>, a two-day conference of panel discussions and workshops, gathered professionals and non-profit directors to brainstorm together and bounce new and innovative ideas off each other.<\/p>\n

A couple of the eight workshops on Feb. 26 2007 were the Waterfront Revitalization<\/a> and Beyond the Gas Tax<\/a>. The summit is oversubscribed, so if you made a game time decision and switched rooms, you were sadly left without a seat at one of the many round tables.<\/p>\n

In each workshop, attendees were asked to answer three big questions as a group and then report back. Although broad, the questions allowed for each table to come up with a few ideas and also created some healthy debate, always a good sign during a roundtable discussion.<\/p>\n

In the Beyond the Gas Tax room, most people were into the idea of GTA green taxes, a pay-per-use system would greatly help with garbage, water and electricity waste. Another idea was to implement tolls on the city-owned highways. Although many disagreed with placing the tolls with bumper-to-bumper traffic during peak periods as they felt this would both increase the gridlock and increase car emissions.<\/p>\n

It was nearly unanimous is all workshops that the city needs to seek help from other levels governments: stop downloading, start uploading and look for more ways to generate revenue without increasing income or property tax. If the issue is tackled properly, Torontonians would warm up to user fees and other funding strategies.<\/p>\n

There was also talk of making services cost effective. Toronto needs to make its services and departments accountable from the hours they log to how much they spend on paperclips annually. As Joe Berridge, from Urban Strategies put it, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d With the baby boomers slowly heading into retirement, it is Toronto’s chance do a lot of management restructuring.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153If the province wants these services to exist, than the province needs to pay for them,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Roger Anderson, Regional chair of the Region of Durham<\/a> during his six-minute speech for Beyong the Gas Tax. He would like to see more independent local government, less band-aid solutions, long-term federal and provincial funding, not short-term help. He says true solutions will be long-term.<\/p>\n

Shelley Carroll<\/a>, Chair of the Budget Committee for Toronto made a really good point early into her speech says that the budget isn’t unbalanced, it’s been balanced every year. It’s the measures needed to make it balanced that is the problem, she says.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Taxes and user fees aside, there were other important discussions yesterday, such as the never-ending saga that is the Waterfront.<\/p>\n

Some people might say they are tired of hearing about it, but that wasn’t the case on day one of the summit. People had great ideas for what we could and should be happening on the waterfront.<\/p>\n

At the back of the room, members of the media conversed among themselves on the issues brought up in the workshops. Christopher Hume<\/a>, a Toronto Star columnist said \u00e2\u20ac\u0153at some point, people need to be tough. It frustrates me. I haven’t seen it yet.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d He doesn’t think anyone is being aggressive enough, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153no one mentioned the Gardiner until the end.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d He’d like to see the city get their hands dirty and start breaking ground on the hoards of ideas and plans that have come about over the years.<\/p>\n

Following the brainstorming, table representatives spoke up about needing to clean out some of the agencies involved with the waterfront. At the moment there are too many people stepping on each others toes down there. They expressed concern about the agency gridlock going on, many of the agencies stepping on each others toes, the removal of some agencies would make life a lot simpler on the waterfront. One of the world’s most well-known urban planners, Ken Greenberg<\/a>, gave me his top three things that need to change for the waterfront; \u00e2\u20ac\u0153one, reduce the number of cars on the street, two, make the transit better and people will use it, and three, take down the Gardiner.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Others had more cultural ideas to bring to the plate. One group suggested a cricket field, or a Toronto museum that could also showcase Toronto’s strong first-nations heritage, as well as the city’s past in bootlegging history. Another group thought of creating something similar to the Ottawa skating canal in winter in the Keating Channel. One woman suggested an aquarium. And if was often noted that the city has to plan a waterfront that can be used in all four seasons, not just in the warmer months.<\/p>\n

photo by Bouke Salverda<\/a> <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Spacing has Julie Yamin reporting from the two-day Toronto Summit conference. – – – – – – – – – You don’t need to live in the heart of Toronto to know the waterfront, the Gardiner, the Island, social service downloading, and transit are just a few of the issues that have befuddled City HallContinue reading “TORONTO SUMMIT: Time for a change”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4031,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,5],"tags":[4699,4698,976,340,424,495,4702,4700,4683,4684,4703,1653,4701,22085,4697,3066,1276,19,341],"class_list":["post-1567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-waterfront","tag-a-lot-of-management","tag-budget-committee-for-toronto","tag-chair","tag-christopher-hume","tag-columnist","tag-durham","tag-electricity-waste","tag-increase-car-emissions","tag-joe-berridge","tag-julie-yamin","tag-keating-channel","tag-ken-greenberg","tag-less-band-aid-solutions","tag-politics","tag-regional-chair-of-the-region","tag-roger-anderson","tag-shelley-carroll","tag-toronto","tag-toronto-star"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nTORONTO SUMMIT: Time for a change - 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