Speeches & Commentary
Towards a Dumbed-Down Future
By Alan Broadbent (originally published in The Mark)
One of the definitions of high intelligence is an enhanced ability to perceive relationships – the perception of patterns or correlations that can lead to new insights and to innovation. It is through the observation of data that we derive the information from which knowledge is created.
A place for equity policies
By Ratna Omidvar (originally published on August 14, 2010, as an op-ed in the Toronto Star).
According to the Ethnic Diversity Survey, about 20 per cent of visible minorities, or 587,000 people, have sometimes or often experienced discrimination or unfair treatment because of their ethnicity, culture, race, skin colour, language, accent or religion. They are most likely to say they face discrimination when at work or when applying for work. While employment equity has helped make great strides in hiring women, aboriginal people and people with disabilities into the public service, it has yet to achieve its targets with visible minorities. Visible minorities make up 9.8 per cent of federal employees compared with 12.4 per cent of the national workforce. What’s more, these overall numbers mask a “glass ceiling” within the public service, where the leadership is still overwhelmingly white and male.
The Stadium that Emasculated a City
By Alan Broadbent (originally published in The Mark)
The decision of where to build a new football stadium in Hamilton is the latest litmus test of the “cities agenda” in Canada. What began as a disagreement between a city and a football team has escalated into another intergovernmental turf war.
Toronto: Crazy, Sexy, Cool?
By Ratna Omidvar (Maytree Opinion, August 2010)
In a recent article, the American blogger Laurie Lyons wrote that “Toronto is the hot new destination for all things crazy, sexy, cool”. In particular, she highlights Toronto’s accessible art, our fusion and fresh restaurants and the fact that Toronto is also one of the most diverse cities in North America. Toronto has something else to be proud of. Global cities around the world look to Toronto to understand and learn from our ongoing experiment with diversity. However, as Ratna Omidvar writes in this month’s Maytree Opinion, Toronto has still a long way to go before claiming success. To do so, it must be open to learning from other cities.
Immigrants want success now, not tomorrow
By Ratna Omidvar (originally published on Aug. 3, 2010, as an op-ed in the Globe and Mail)
While recent immigrants are more highly educated than previous cohorts and the Canadian-born, they earn lower wages and have more difficulties entering the labour market in the first place. The number of new immigrants to Canada with a bachelor’s degree is equivalent to the total annual number of undergraduate degrees awarded by Ontario universities, yet Canada has not leveraged this talent into innovation and productivity.
The One Summit Benefit
By Alan Broadbent (Maytree Opinion, July 2010)
Did anything good come out of the G20 meetings? Apart from a luke-warm pledge on maternal health (which is unclear on abortion), and which might turn out like many G8-G20 “pledges” (remember aid to Africa?), was there a benefit?
City for Tomorrow
By Alan Broadbent (June 17, 2010 – keynote speech at Maytree Leadership Conference)
The theme of this year’s Maytree leadership conference is The City, and our intention is to look at how we can build both prosperity and equity. It is timely that across the Toronto region we are in the middle of some of the most interesting municipal elections we’ve seen. The Toronto mayoral election is getting a lot of attention, but there are interesting situations in the other regional cities at the mayoral and council levels, and also in the school trustee elections. One of the great features is the number of new faces running for seats, which indicates to me that our democracy is alive.
The “Beautiful Game” Is Toronto’s Game!
By Ratna Omidvar (Maytree Opinion, June 2010)
Soccer, or football as most of the world calls it, is very much part of the Canadian identity, writes Ratna Omidvar in this month’s Maytree Opinion. Every four years, it brings us together in a wonderful one-month celebration. Soccer is a defining feature of Toronto’s landscape in other ways too. Soccer helps many immigrants integrate. Recent immigrants search out soccer fields to meet new people. It’s a place where their struggle in a new land can be forgotten for a while, where it does not matter whether they have Canadian work experience, or whether their English is heavily accented. The soccer field becomes the place for new beginnings.
Mixed Messages
By Alan Broadbent and Ratna Omidvar (Maytree Opinion, May 2010)
Bill 158, which passed third reading on May 13, sends mixed messages to how open the province is to skilled immigrants. While the Ontario government has made strong commitments to making Ontario a more welcoming place for skilled immigrants, with Bill 158 – an Act to review and update the statutes governing the accounting professions in Ontario – it re-enacts old barriers. The opportunity was lost to modernize the profession and instead restrictions are put in place on how international accounting credentials can be used with a $10,000 fine for anyone displaying their international designations using any portion of the initials CA (chartered accountant), CMA (certified management accountant) or CGA (certified general accountant). Does the right hand know what the left is doing? It seems it does not.
Legalize Municipal Sales Tax
By Alan Broadbent (originally published in The Mark)
The recent round of provincial budgets and the federal budget have proven that those levels of government have neither the resources nor the inclination to finance the big-ticket items cities need, such as transit and low-income housing. They are mired in their own deficits and their own priorities.
