Why Should I Care?

A Change of Heart on having Municipal Political Parties. (Credit Adam Smith)

Post Date March 23, 2017

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Category Cities, Civic Engagement, Government

Adam Smith was kind enough to share his thoughts from WSIC’s talk on adding parties to municipal politics. Like many of us, he was staunchly opposed to the idea at first.

Thank you Adam for showing us why we do these talks. If we are willing to discuss ideas, we can change minds and (hopefully) have better governance.

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I have to say, I came into this event staunchly opposed to bringing partisanship into a municipal system, I gotta say, those guys were patient with my outbursts and …

Preserving Local Heritage

Post Date June 15, 2016

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Category Cities

May 11, 2016

Deirdre Leowinata

“Quality is never an accident. It is always the result of intelligent effort.” – John Ruskin, art critic and social thinker

Our “heritage” is a term that gets tossed around a lot, even in a young country like Canada. But what exactly is heritage? How will the Torontonians of the future remember the Torontonians of 2016, or of the 21st century? It seems from the construction in the downtown core that it’s going to be condos: the unimaginative sky-high concrete boxes that seem …

Black Lives Matter. Period.

Post Date April 04, 2016

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Category Cities, Civic Engagement

On March 9, Why Should I Care hosted an event about the Black Lives Matter movement to explore why it’s important to us in Toronto. We brought in an expert panel including activists Akio Maroon and Andray Domise and lawyer Gordon Cudjoe.

Akio Maroon started off the panel. Earlier that day she had been given acknowledgment at Queen’s Park for her work on Bill 132, Sexual Violence and Harassment Action Plan Act.

Akio gave a rousing speech, asserting that we should care about the Black Lives Matter …

Creating Pedestrian Zones In Toronto —Not just a walk in the park.

Post Date February 01, 2016

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Category Cities, Civic Engagement, Transportation

Car people versus foot people. Driving lanes versus sidewalks. With an average of 20m of space to work with on most city roads, planning can get quite tight. The downtown core of Toronto is growing into a community hub for local citizens and tourists, and with that is a rising number of pedestrians. Many new condo buildings have underground lots that stay empty, save for a few resident cars. New residents complain about having to pay for a parking spot that is not being used, …

Healing the Urban/Rural Divide

Post Date November 03, 2014

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Category Cities, Civic Engagement, Rural Communities, Uncategorized

Ontario is deeply divided between its rural roots and explosive urban growth, with the PC party claiming the majority of rural ridings and the Liberals capturing the majority of urban ridings in the recent June elections. When Tim Hudak stepped down from his PC leadership role, the question of how the PC party would rebrand itself within the urban GTA community became even more pressing – what can be done to reconcile rural/urban values, which are often at odds with each other and …

Removing Barriers for “At-Risk” Youth

Post Date August 30, 2014

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Category Cities, Civic Engagement, Government

Too often our municipal leaders overlook or ignore the disadvantaged youth of Ontario, resulting in missed opportunities for these youngsters to forge strong connections to educational and employment opportunities. On Monday, August 18th, WSIC was fortunate to host three guest speakers who were both devoted to fixing these oversights and happy to discuss municipal policies for “at-risk youth” with our WSIC audience. They were: Steven Ambrose, the founder of the Canadian Basketball Academy and Bruiser’s Foundation, Andray Domise, a community organizer and currently running for councillor in Ward …

Sex Workers deserve safe working environments

Post Date July 25, 2014

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Category Cities, Civic Engagement, Municipalities

On July 21, 2014, WSIC hosted a full house of Torontonians engaged in the topic of proposed prostitution Bill C-36. We were pleased to have two highly qualified speakers leading the discussion: Sonya Barnett, co-founder of SlutWalk, www.afterbedford.com and vocal advocate for women’s rights and sexual freedoms, and Rachel, a board member Maggie’s Toronto Sex Workers Action Program.

Our speakers provided the WSIC audience with a comprehensive overview of the recently decided Bedford case, where members of the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) determined certain provisions of our Criminal Code …

The complexities of expanding Toronto’s Island Airport

Post Date March 28, 2014

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Category Cities, Civic Engagement, Economy, Environment, Transportation

On Monday, March 24th, a large WSIC audience participated in an unconventional discussion on the pros and cons of expanding the Toronto Island airport. The event was unusual because only one guest speaker presented the topic, instead of our customary two or three hosts. As a testament to the sensitivity of our topic, only one qualified expert was willing to field questions before a large gathering of concerned citizens on a subject so personal to so many people. Thankfully, our guest speaker did not disappoint. …

Communities need to be part of Infrastructure Planning

Post Date November 26, 2013

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Category Cities, Civic Engagement, Government, Municipalities

On Monday, 18 November, WSIC discussed the challenges of infrastructure resiliency in Canada in light of our changing climate. Heavy flooding in Toronto this past July and the recent devastating effects of Hurricane Haiyan in the Philippines have shown Canadians that serious consequences could occur us if we don’t start planning now for the future extreme weather events. Leading our discussion on this matter was Chris Fonseca, city councillor of Mississauga and representing Ward 3, and Abe Khademi, a water resources engineer and …

Understanding is the first step – Blog post by Terri

Post Date July 26, 2013

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Category Cities, Civic Engagement

On Monday night, WSIC hosted a discussion about Aboriginal Justice at the Duke of York pub. As the event organizer, I admit I was a little apprehensive since this is the first time we’ve come under vitriolic attack for our topic choices. A twitter user labeled us as “racist” for suggesting that aboriginal justice should not be the same kind of justice faced by everyone. Treating a subgroup of people differently was in and of itself racist.

This notion hit me hard and I was very …

A Change of Heart on having Municipal Political Parties. (Credit Adam Smith)

Preserving Local Heritage

Black Lives Matter. Period.

Creating Pedestrian Zones In Toronto —Not just a walk in the park.

Healing the Urban/Rural Divide

Removing Barriers for “At-Risk” Youth

Sex Workers deserve safe working environments

The complexities of expanding Toronto’s Island Airport

Communities need to be part of Infrastructure Planning

Understanding is the first step – Blog post by Terri

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