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?

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.

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.