Glen Grunwald's Board Blog

Not Goodbye, But My Last Entry

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 12 Oct 2006 19:45:00 +0000

This is going to be my last entry on this blog, as today is my last day on the job at the Toronto Board of Trade.

First, I want to repeat my thanks to everyone who has posted here, called and written in to the Board, stopped me on the street, etc. to wish me well in the future. Toronto is a great place with a lot of wonderful people - you've certainly been warm and friendly to me!

Second, I want to repeat that I'm going to continue to have my home here and commuting back regularly to spend time with my family. I also have some charitable work and other projects that I'm going to continue working on in Toronto, so I'll be around quite a bit. Look for the HoopDome, a multi-court public basketball facility, to open next Spring at Downsview Park in the centre of Toronto.

Third, don't worry about the Board of Trade - we've been around for 161 years (since before Confederation) and survived two World Wars, blackouts, outbreaks, recessions, depressions and a hurricane. The Board will carry right on being the voice of our business community and the champion of a competitive and vibrant city. I know our COO, Grant Humes, is a perfect choice for Interim President while a permanent replacement is found.

Finally, there have been a lot of questions about this blog and if it will continue. I'm glad to say that the answer is 'yes' - not as MY blog, but as a Board of Trade blog that will continue to offer you information, opinions and ideas about what's happening in Toronto and the business community. We have some amazing people volunteering and working here who have a lot to say, and this will be their home.

The brand-new Board Blog will be up and running by Monday, October 16 and you will be able to reach it at www.bot.com/blog. We're going to leave this site up for a while so that regular visitors can catch this message.

So, that's it. Thanks again to the people of Toronto, and the volunteers and staff at the Board of Trade, for supporting me in my efforts to give something back to a great city that has given so much to me. I'll always be proud of the Board and our accomplishments, and always be proud of our city.

See you around, Toronto!

Five Step Program

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 17:42:00 +0000

Toronto is a great place to do business and a great place to live, but ...

We've also got some serious challenges here and, unless we face them, there's a real risk that our great city will become a city in trouble.

Toronto has lost 100,000 jobs and 10,000 businesses in the last 15 years. Our tax base has shrunk, our traffic problems are getting worse, and our reputation as a clean and safe city isn't nearly as strong anymore.

So, what should be done?

This is a good time to talk about these challenges because we're right in the middle of a municipal election campaign. If we can get the candidates for City Council and the Mayor's office to address these topics on the campaign trail and, more importantly, to commit to action in the next term at City Hall, that would be a great start.

That's why we put out our 'Action Agenda' today - five steps that the next Mayor and City Council should take to help build a better city. Our Chair Becky McKinnon had a piece about it in the National Post this morning, and you can read the entire agenda on our website.

Just so I'm not teasing, here are the five key points:

Reduce traffic congestion and improve transit and transportation systems in the next Council term.
Improve Toronto’s business competitiveness in order to attract and retain employers and jobs.
Enhance Toronto’s quality of life through investments targeted at building better communities.
Operate municipal government in a more accountable, efficient and effective way, based on best practices drawn from the public and private sector.
Establish clear benchmarks that measure success in key areas by results, not spending, and report on progress towards such benchmarks.

Obviously, the actual agenda goes into detail about each of these issues. The point is, we're trying to propose things that are good for both our quality of life and economy, because the two things are totally inseperable.

As Becky said in her piece, if Toronto can be a top choice for both business and residents, we all win.

Speaking of big moves ...

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 05 Oct 2006 19:03:00 +0000

How about Jim Balsillie of RIM fame buying the Pittsburgh Penguins?

People are already talking about what he might do, including rumours of moving the team (one joker is suggesting the 'Hamilton BlackBerries').

It's just one more way the co-CEO of Research In Motion is making news these days. Just a few weeks ago, he was named Outstanding CEO of the Year by Financial Post Business magazine, and the papers have been full of stories about him taking the BlackBerry truly global by getting into places like China.

This is a guy on the move, and his success could be a huge help in raising people's awareness about the outstanding communications technology we develop here in Canada. This is the birthplace of both the telephone and the BlackBerry, after all.

Anyway, the great news for the Board of Trade and its members is that we've confirmed Mr. Balsillie to be the keynote speaker for our Annual Dinner next January 29!

[WARNING: SHAMELESS PLUG AHEAD] Tickets for our black tie event are now on sale and several hundred have already been sold, so don't wait too long -- you can e-mail events@bot.com or call 416 862 4500. Toronto Board of Trade members get a whopping 24% discount ...

So, now what?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 05 Oct 2006 18:47:00 +0000

First of all, a million thanks to all the people who have been wishing me well with their calls, e-mails, posts to this blog, etc. Everyone from the Mayor and the Premier to Board of Trade members and basketball fans have been saying really nice things, and I truly appreciate it. This is a class town!

Second, a lot of you have been asking what's going to happen to this blog. Well, I think it's very important for the Board of Trade to keep up this method of reaching directly to people, giving you interesting (I hope) viewpoints and information -- so, I'm glad to say that there will be an ongoing blog from the Board perspective.

You will be able to reach it through www.bot.com/blog (right now, that link points back here). It's going to have posts from all sorts of people at the Board who can pass on useful links, fascinating stories, inside information on things happening in the business and political worlds of Toronto, etc.

As for what I'm going to do on a personal blog level, I'm not sure yet. I'm still President and CEO of the Toronto Board of Trade until October 12, so any talk of things I'm going to do in the future will have to wait until after that.

Yes, it's true ...

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 15:32:00 +0000

I announced today that I’ve accepted a front office job with the New York Knicks.

Believe me, this was not an easy decision. Among other things, I have had a really rewarding and fulfilling time here at the Board of Trade. It’s not often in life that you get to do a job where you know you are contributing to something so important.

However, I just could not pass up this opportunity to get back to the sport that I love and to rejoin my old friend Isiah Thomas in the NBA.

I’m very proud to have been involved in the Board and to have worked with such outstanding volunteers, business leaders and dedicated staff. They’re really great people and I’m going to miss working with them.

Most of all, I’m proud of the progress we made together in helping make Toronto a better place to live, work, invest and raise a family.

We’re still working out details of the transition. I’m not sure what’s going to happen to this blog, but I think the Board of Trade will be doing something like this in the future.

I know that the Board of Trade is going to keep doing great things after I’m gone – heck, I’ve only been here for two of the 161 years that the organization’s been around! – and I wish the Board and my successor nothing but great success in the future.

Finally, I want to thank all of the people in Toronto who have made my role at the Board of Trade so enjoyable -- the supportive notes and phone calls, people stopping me on the street to chat, even people like the Mayor and Premier giving me an opportunity to help make a difference.

As I've said before, there are a lot of good reasons for me to love this place and I’m not going to be cutting my ties here. I will still have my house and family here (my wife’s in her first year of law school and my son Gabe is playing on Stouffville Clippers hockey team – undefeated, by the way!). I’m still involved in projects like HoopDome at Downsview Park. So, I’ll be commuting regularly.

Toronto is a great city and while I have to say goodbye to the Board of Trade, I’m not about to let go of my adopted hometown.

A Dump To Call Our Own

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 14:09:00 +0000

So, here's an interesting 'before and after' picture ...

BEFORE: Dozens of trucks a day haul Toronto's trash to Michigan.

AFTER: Dozens of trucks a day haul Toronto's trash to St. Thomas, Ontario.

Is there any real difference, outside of the fact that the trucks will be turning off Highway 401 a few hours sooner?

Well, yes, it is important that we have more control over how our trash is being handled. But the bigger, long-term question of what to do with the million tonnes of garbage we produce every year is not answered by the controversial purchase of our own garbage dump.

The National Post ran a longer piece from me on this topic over the weekend - you can click here to read it.

The main point is that we should look at acquiring this new garbage dump as a temporary solution. It's bought us time to find a real, sustainable, local, environmentally responsible answer.

Let's not pretend the crisis is over, when all we've done is find a bigger, more convenient hole to throw our trash into.

Me, The Knicks And The News

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 16:13:00 +0000

Just got back from the Canadian Chamber of Commerce meeting in Saskatoon to find the media machinery going full tilt!

In case you hadn't heard, the New York Daily News ran a story on Sunday saying that I was a candidate for a front office job with the New York Knicks basketball team. Now, all the media in Toronto and a number of other outlets across North America are running with the story.

It seems that every time a managerial job opens up in the NBA, my name comes up and they quite often contact me -- and that's happened again this time with the Knicks. However, there has been no formal offer of a contract or a job.

Frankly, I've got a lot of good reasons, personal and professional, to stay right where I am. I love this city and I get a lot of fulfillment from working at the Board of Trade.

There's not much more I can say about this. I think this morning's story in the Globe and Mail summed it up pretty well. It's business as usual for me, and if anything changes, I'll be putting an update here.

Wireless Has Nothing To Do With Wireless

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 15:00:00 +0000

You know things are changing fast when the head of one of the biggest wireless technology companies in the country says that 'wireless' really doesn't have a lot to do with being wireless anymore.

It was one of the ways that Nadir Mohamed, president of the Communication Group at Rogers Communications, opened my eyes this morning, along with the eyes of a roomful of people at our first Technology Innovators Breakfast. It's a new series we're doing to showcase and support Toronto's ICT (Information and Communication Technology) sector.

Anyway, Nadir made the point that wireless used to be all about the lack of wires - about mobility, in other words. Now, wireless technology is just another part of the bagful of tools that customers are using to interact with the world. A lot of the time, mobility doesn't enter into it.

The examples he gave were of the people using their cell phones at home, when their landlines are within reach, and people using their Blackberry's at their desks, instead of their computers. These people are using their technology of choice, for its features, familiarity, flexibility, etc. Nothing to do with wires or wireless.

That's where he sees the future for his company and everyone else in the wireless world -- moving from having separate divisions or technologies based on 'wireless' to being about communication in general, and how they can provide connections, services and content to people.

I also liked what Nadir had to say about his incredible record of financial success with Rogers. He was proud of all those fiscal quarters in a row of double-digit growth, he said, but the best metric in the world is word of mouth. If people don't like what you're company is doing, you're just not going to succeed in the long term. And that, he said, comes down to day-to-day execution.

The other highlight of the event for me was Greg Betty, founder of a mid-sized software company called Intelliware Development Inc., who really nailed down the keys to success for his firm and for Toronto. The most important thing, he said, was people -- the well-educated workforce, the incredible diversity of this city that brings great minds from around the world, and the sophisticated customers here that push suppliers like him to remain innovative.

As he said, people may think Toronto is far away from the world centre of ICT - Silicon Valley - but we're just as capable of being world leaders.

All in all, a great start for this series, and thanks to our ICT Advisory Committee and its Chair, David Dobbin of Toronto Hydro Telecom Inc., who also served as moderator. Special thanks to Accenture, our newest lead sponsor, for supporting all of our C-level events, including this series, and to their managing director for Toronto, Tony Gaffney, for taking part.

It's just hard to believe that, in a city that boasts the third largest ICT sector in North America, that we haven't had this kind of forum for the leaders and innovators to get together, celebrate their successes, learn from each other, and start to collaborate more. Well, we started fixing that today.

Anyway, we've got Patrick Sullivan, the President of Workopolis, coming up for the next breakfast on October 31st. If you're in the ICT sector, or interested in the future of technology, I hope to see you there!

Left Brain vs. Right Brain

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 13:51:00 +0000

Okay, so what do the left and right halves of our brains have to do with business?

According to this interesting article on a small biz website, you can use the differences in the way those brain halves work to kick-start your creativity and find new solutions.

Don't know if it's true, but it's certainly interesting reading ...

Remembering 9/11

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 12:55:00 +0000

We just co-hosted an event at our Downtown Centre this morning - a commemoration service for the business community to mark the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

It was a very simple, heartfelt and - I think - very moving ceremony that allowed some of the family members of the Canadian victims to see that their loved ones have not been forgotten, and gave all of us an opportunity to reflect on what happened, and what we learned as a result.

I spoke briefly on behalf of the Toronto Board of Trade, World Trade Centre Toronto and the 10,000 members of our organizations to express both our sadness and our determination.

Our sadness is for the victims, their families, friends and colleagues, and for the sense of loss and horror we all felt on that terrible day.

Our determination is that the loss of those lives, and its horrific impact on so many others, will never be forgotten nor have been in vain.

I believe that the spirit that brought nations and communities, faiths and peoples together five years ago is still in our hearts, and can still unite us today.

I call on our business colleagues here in Toronto, and around the world, to revisit that spirit and to work to forge greater understanding and kinship between the peoples of the world.

Litterbug On The Ropes?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 07 Sep 2006 14:14:00 +0000

Some people think that litter is not such a big deal. I disagree.

Whether you’re a tourist, a resident, a business owner or someone thinking about investing in Toronto, clean streets are one of those subtle things that help prove our city is a great place to live, work or invest.

There's lots of evidence that reducing litter helps an area to be more prosperous and even have lower crime rates.

So, results of the City’s latest litter audit, finding our streets are getting cleaner, is great news for all Torontonians.

It’s also a real tribute to the City staff who pick up 14 tonnes of street waste – 2,800 garbage bags full! – every day. Mayor Miller is right to credit both the City’s increased efforts and the better behaviour of Torontonians for the 40% drop in litter since 2002. I like to think our award-winning “Can The Litter” campaign has had something to do with it as well.

However, it is still costing Toronto taxpayers some 20 million dollars a year to have other people clean up our mess. That nasty species, the Toronto litterbug, may be becoming endangered, but it’s not yet extinct.

Youth ONE Revival

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 06 Sep 2006 12:45:00 +0000

Six months ago, our Board of Trade set out to do something that has apparently never been done before – to try to lead the whole business community in reaching out to young people in vulnerable neighbourhoods. Our Youth ONE initiative officially expired last Friday, September 1, but the challenges facing these young people, and the impact on our city, are just too important. We can’t give up now.

So, we're announcing today that we're going to continue Youth ONE as an ongoing effort to encourage Toronto businesses to provide hope and opportunity to the youth who need it most.

We’ve learned a lot in these six months, including how generous the business community can be, how important a symbol of hope and open doors can be in the more depressed parts of our city, and how much education needs to be done about the plight of Toronto youth in those vulnerable areas. The most important thing for people to understand is that these young people are not ‘at risk’ – they are good kids in bad situations, they are equal citizens of Toronto, and they make great employees.

Young people who do not have all the advantages tend to deeply appreciate their opportunities. They bring just the kind of eager, gung-hot attitude that our Members are always saying they want in their employees. Every time a business connects with the City’s Youth Employment Partnerships (YEP) program to hire one of these qualified youth, that’s a victory. It’s another young person removed from temptation and frustration, and given hope and a way forward.

Whether employers contact YEP directly at 416 397 JOBS or go through our Youth ONE website, they are keeping the doors of opportunity open for Toronto youth and helping build up our neighbourhoods, one job at a time.

Youth ONE - Over, But Not Out

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 15:07:00 +0000

Today is the last day for our Youth ONE initiative - it was a six month effort with a September 1 end date.

If you don't know about it, Youth ONE has been our effort to help create jobs and hope for the young people in our city's vulnerable neighbourhoods. These are the classic "good kids with bad luck" who need and deserve the same kinds of opportunities that other young people in our city get, just because of where they were born.

We set a very ambitious goal - a thousand new jobs, apprenticeships, training opportunities, etc. in just six months. It turned out to be too ambitious and we ended up with more like one hundred jobs than one thousand.

So, yes, I'm disappointed we didn't hit our quota. But, apparently, no other business community has ever tried an across-the-board program like this before ... and we certainly were learning as we went along.

But there are also positives to focus on:

We helped change dozens of lives for the better, and provided more hope and positive role models for these communities.

We proved that the business community can work with the City, social agencies and community groups to make a difference in this city.

The kind of feedback we've been getting tells us that our effort has been appreciated. This is the first time that some of these neighbourhoods have heard from the 'business establishment' that their problems are important, and that their young people are equal citizens to everyone else.

The most important thing we've learned is just how misunderstood these young people and the issues they face are in mainstream Toronto. Businesses we approached quite often assumed that youth from these areas must all be in gangs, have criminal records or drug problems. They were willing to write a cheque, but not offer a job.

Those companies that did take the chance got tremendous young people who worked their butts off to take full advantage of the opportunities that a lot of others might take for granted.

However, there is obviously a huge educational challenge out there, and a real need for many Torontonians to change their attitudes towards their fellow citizens.

Okay, we've taken some lumps from some in the media for falling short of our mark. If that's the price we have to pay for trying to address the root causes of youth crime and help build a better city, that's fine. We're not doing this for glory - we're doing it because it's the right and the smart thing to do. If you want more reasons, check out my post from August 3 below.

Anyway, I'm thinking of this as just the first phase of Youth ONE -- the learning curve and experimental phase. Look for an official announcement next week of how we're going to turn this into an ongoing effort and improve how we promote this concept to the business community.

There's a terrible, tragic waste of young human lives going on. It leads to despair, poverty and sometimes drugs and crime. We're in a position to do something about it, or at least try to, so Youth ONE will continue ... stay tuned ...

TIFF Time!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 31 Aug 2006 13:40:00 +0000

The city is just buzzing as the Film Festival draws close. Now, the official schedule is out and we know that TIFF is just around the corner.

This year, there are more than 350 films, the vast majority of them premieres. As always, there are tons of great documentaries, along with the feature films.

The Festival says it gets more than 300,000 people through the turnstiles every year. That's a great economic boost to the city. However, what's more important is the boost that TIFF gives to our city's profile and reputation around the globe. This is one of the most important film festivals in the world now, and it demonstrates what a sophisticated and creative city Toronto has become.

Pit Stops and Heart Surgery

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 16:52:00 +0000

Great little story today on the front page of National Post (couldn't find it on their website, just in the print edition) about how the world-famous children's hospital at Great Ormond Street in London learned how to save lives from Formula One race car mechanics.

Seems a couple of the surgeons had been putting in a very hard day doing emergency heart surgery on little children and they collapsed in front of the TV in their hospital lounge to watch a car race. They were watching how the pit stop crews work so quickly to perform a lot of complicated tasks at once when a light bulb went off -- maybe their operating room staff could use some of the same techniques when hooking up their complicated equipment?

Long story short ... they worked with some of the race crews and changed the way their surgical team hooks patients up to equipment. The number of problems they have with this complex procedure has nose-dived as a result. They're still doing a study to see how many children's lives have been saved.

So, that's how pit stops relate to heart surgery. But I think there's a deeper story here - how learning in one area of technology can be applied to another area, even when they're as diverse as auto racing and medicine.

That kind of knowledge sharing and cross-fertilization is something we can be doing a lot more of here in Toronto. We've got the third-largest Information & Communications Technology (ICT) sector in all of North America here ... tens of thousands of innovative minds thinking of new and better ways to use technology.

These people are just starting to get together in a more formal way, with groups like ICT Toronto and efforts by the City to boost their sector. Our Board is helping out, too -- we've formed an ICT Advisory Committee and we're starting a new Technology Innovators Breakfast Series to showcase success stories and help share ideas (our first breakfast is coming up Sept. 14 with Nadir Mohamed of Rogers Communications)

The more that people from different technology areas spend time with each other, the more they can be inspired. We don't have to wait for chance to bring diverse ideas together; we can be matchmakers or match-lighters that help spark new thinking.

Eyes opened in China

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 20:06:00 +0000

China experts these days are saying, "If you haven't been to China in the last six months, you may as well not have been in six YEARS." That's how fast things are changing there.

One of our staff people, Glen Stone, our Public Affairs Manager, just got back from China, where he was representing our Board and our World Trade Centre Toronto at two conferences - one to talk about international trade with the new China and the other to help their local business organizations pick the brains of established Chambers and Boards around the world.

I was very happy that we were asked to participate. It was a great opportunity for us to showcase not only our Board and WTC, but the City of Toronto itself. We're a great city for international business and investment, and the natural gateway to North America. It's important that other countries get to know that.

So, the other Glen (yes, it does get confusing, having two Glens here!) tells me that it was an eye-opening experience. He says anyone who doubts that China is opening up should have been there at the trade conference when speakers openly debated and criticized government policies, as well as each other. It's the kind of thing we rarely see here in the supposedly wide-open western culture, never mind in front of a huge audience and the media in China.

The host city, Shenzhen, is a pretty mind-blowing story in itself. Just 25 years ago, it was a fishing village. Now, it's a city of five million and the fastest growing economic zone in the world!

The conference was literally front-page news there, and our Board of Trade was quoted extensively in the media. We've also made some good connections and friends among the business leaders and other board/chamber representatives. We all signed a friendship pact and agreed to look into how we can turn this into an annual international event, with each of our organizations taking turns hosting others from around the world.

It's a great idea and a real tribute to the vision of the Shenzhen Entrepreneur Association/Shenzhen Enterprise Confederation and the Service Bureau of the Shenzhen Industry Association, who put the conference together and acted as incredibly generous hosts to our representative and all the other guests.

As they say in Mandarin, xie xie (thank you), to everyone in Shenzhen!

A $2 million comma

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 08 Aug 2006 13:57:00 +0000

Think punctuation doesn't matter?

Check out this story - how a single comma is going to cost Rogers' Communications more than two million dollars!

Good kids in bad neighbourhoods

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 03 Aug 2006 17:48:00 +0000

There are a lot of expert opinions around about the causes of youth crime and the gun violence in this city. I'm not an expert, but I've been talking to a lot of them over the past year - from the Cheif of Police to social workers, visible minority community leaders, the United Way, etc.

One thing everyone agrees on is that one of the root causes is lack of opportunity.

You can be a good kid with bad luck, born in a neighbourhood where hope and jobs are about as rare as hen's teeth - where there are lots of temptations and few good role models.

Think about this description from an article today in National Post -

A walk around the area yesterday revealed heaps of torn couches and trash piled high outside one housing unit, broken liquor bottles strewn across an abandoned parking lot and huge swathes where there are no street lights.

"There is so much work to do in this area," said Detective Jim Gibson, 43 Division, who pointed out that this area was the former stomping grounds of the Galloway Boys gang. "There's a lot of robberies, it's a high prostitution area, and with the prostitution comes the drugs, and then comes the types of offences that are associated with supporting drug habits -- it's a vicious circle."

Can you imagine growing up in a place like that with no hope of anything better? Can you imagine what you would do, as a young person, for a real chance to get out and up?

Sure, our Board of Trade has the Youth ONE initiative, and the City and many others are doing their part, but nothing is really going to change until we, as Torontonians, make it change.

I think the first step is realizing that the kids growing up in these areas are fellow citizens, just like your kids and mine, with the same hopes and ambitions of doing something with their lives. Not a bunch of gang members or 'youth at risk', but a lot of good kids in bad neighbourhoods who just need to see one door open ... just one, just once ... to maybe change their lives.

The next step is to do something about it - offer a job, support a program, provide an apprenticeship, volunteer, vote, speak out, write to City Hall or Queen's Park. Do anything but sit back and let the waste of human potential and the breeding ground for disaffection, crime and tragedy continue in our city.

When is a voter NOT a voter?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 03 Aug 2006 16:19:00 +0000

Well, it looks like we'd better stop sniggering about our neighbours to the south having trouble with their voting system. It turns out the voters' list for the City of Toronto could have thousands of people on it who are not Canadian citizens and should not be able to vote.

The City is now trying to verify the citizenship of some 277,000 people!

This close to the municipal election in November, it's posing a potentially big problem. If people don't get verified in time, they will be challenged at the polls and have to sign an oath that they really are citizens and have voting rights. That's going to take extra time and could create congestion at the polling booths, not to mention opening the door to anyone willing to sign a false oath.

It also means that an unknown number of invalid votes have been counted in the past. Makes you wonder about anyone elected in this city by a narrow margin - could invalid votes have changed any election outcomes? I doubt we'll ever know ...

Sudge Monster Warning Reduced to Sludge Monster Watch

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 18:48:00 +0000

Looks as though the City of Toronto has managed to find enough alternative destinations for its sewer sludge to avoid disaster when the current dumping contract with Michigan expires at midnight tonight.

Of course, it's going to cost taxpayers a lot more, not all the paperwork is in place and - worst of all - the fundamental problem has not been addressed ... Toronto still does not have a viable, long-term plan for dealing with its one million plus tonnes of annual waste.

I'm going to leave my previous post up because the arguments and figures are still relevant. We can't keep stumbling from crisis to crisis like this, pulling our chestnuts out of the fire at the last minute.

Of course, that's assuming we actually have a solution this time around and don't have to dump our sludge into Lake Ontario instead.

Sludge Monster Warning in Effect

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 28 Jul 2006 19:54:00 +0000

When Godzilla would threaten Tokyo in those cheap old sci-fi movies, you would see government officials leap into action – ordering evacuations, issuing frantic warnings and calling out those sparking rocket launchers.

So, what will our city’s leaders do over the next few days before the 150,000 tonne Sludge Monster begins to swamp Toronto?

As of July 31, Michigan will no longer accept the sewage sludge we produce here and have been paying to dump in their state. What will we do with the 150,000 tonnes of the stuff created by Torontonians every year? Good question – I wish it had a good answer.

The reality is that ‘some day’ has now arrived and all talk of a ‘looming’ garbage crisis is out-dated because the crisis is here (check out the articles on pages 13-14 and 21-23 of this new OWMA publication). The doors to Michigan start swinging closed on Monday. As of then, it will become more difficult to ship our waste problem away. Over the next couple of years, it will become impossible. Toronto will have more than a million tonnes of waste a year on its hands and no place to put it.

Our provincial and city governments still don’t have a realistic plan to deal with the situation. The well-intentioned and partly successful programs for diversion are simply not going to solve the problem. Even if we reach some magic diversion number like 75% (and good luck with that, by the way, since City Hall says it doesn’t have the money and no other cities have been able to do it), we’d still have 250,000 tonnes a year to deal with.

So, what do we do? We could hide our heads in the compost and continue to follow what one expert has dubbed the Blanche Dubois School of Waste Management – relying on the kindness of strangers. Of course, we should expect them to charge us $200 to $500 a tonne for their help, not the $57 a tonne we’ve been paying to Michiganders. If you hate your property taxes now …

Or, we could start looking at how other cities have managed this challenge; with an open mind to all waste disposal processes and technologies, and with an attitude that waste can be a resource instead of a problem. Toronto is being given the authority now to search for a mix of solutions, but we won't find them with eyes closed.

Safe, clean alternatives are being touted and widely used that derive energy from waste. Would any of them make sense for a city that is also facing an energy shortage? Since there is no single solution for all our waste, what mix of alternatives is the most sensible for Toronto?

We’ll never know the best answers until we have an open, honest debate about our options, one free of fear mongering, politically correct thought and NIMBYism. It may be more likely that I, and anyone else who proposes taking the blinkers off, will be pilloried.

There will be a lot of talk about this over the next few months, as the arrival of the long-anticipated garbage crisis coincides with this fall’s municipal election in Toronto. I’m saying it needs to be honest talk without prescribed limits.

By the time our Board hosts Councillor Jane Pitfield (September 21) and Mayor Miller (September 29) for election campaign speeches, I’m hoping that they will come prepared with some realistic solutions.

Environment Canada may not have issued a Sludge Monster Warning for the Toronto region yet, but our time to deal with this issue must now be measured in days, not years.

Here we go and here's why

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 18 Jul 2006 17:15:00 +0000

Okay, so yet another blog is born. Here's why I'm doing this:

First, if you're reading this, you probably don't need to be told how blogging is changing the way that people and organizations communicate. More people every day are getting their news or forming and sharing their opinions through blogs. Just like every other organization, if our Board of Trade wasn't paying attention to the blogosphere, we'd be out of touch.

Second, it's a chance to share my thoughts and concerns about this great city directly with people, and hear directly back from them. That's what blogging is all about, of course.

And, third, I'm on a bit of a mission to clarify what the Board of Trade really is and does. Some people still think we're some kind of "old boys club", with a bunch of middle-aged white guys in suits smoking cigars, etc. They' don't know about our opinions and policies on social issues like affordable housing, or how active we are in the political world, or how two-thirds of our members are NOT big business, or about our civic action efforts like Can The Litter and Youth ONE, etc., etc.

So, I'm going to try to use this blog to talk about the important things going on in Toronto and express my opinions about them. Along the way, I hope people may learn about these issues, and get inspired to involve themselves in finding solutions ... and, I hope, get a better understanding about our Board in the process.

Obviously, I'm biased about the Board of Trade being part of building a better Toronto- no bones about it, that's why I work here - but I'm not doing this to advertise us or drum up business. I'm here to write what I think and read what you think. Comments and ideas welcome (keep it clean, okay?).