Civic Impact

In its 214 years, the University of Toronto has played a central, and sometimes starring role, in the city's history. It's hosted royals, prime ministers, writers and politicians. It was the site of the discovery of insulin. The first-ever Grey Cup was held on its field. 

Last Monday, in an attempt to help disseminate that history, U of T announced the formal launch of a new heritage website. The site (www.heritage.utoronto.ca) gives visitors instant access to videos, photographs and artworks that document the school's history. 

 

"It's basically a one-stop site where individuals can get more information about the university's history," says University of Toronto archivist Loryl MacDonald. 

 

Rare video of the 1939 royal visit, photos of historic sports events and celebrations, and a history of the construction of the iconic Robarts Library, are among the thousands of archives made available on the website. 
 

Different units within the library dug into their own archives to find the best material.

 

"The different units, including the university archives, U of T Scarborough library, U of T Mississauga library and the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, started working together to build up content for the site in April and March of this year," says MacDonald. "Different libraries contributed different databases, it was a lot of intensive work."

 

This is just phase one of the project. 

 

"[The site] is really ongoing and growing. What's available on the website is really the tip of the iceberg in terms of content  we have in our archives, and we'll be continuing to add photographs, videos and more."

 

"We're also going to be looking at other departments on campus, other associations, other groups to see what they can add. We really encouraging everybody and anybody that has content to contribute."

 

Most of the content on the website has been long been available the public through U of T's libraries, but this is the first time it's all been organized on one online site.

 

Writer: Katia Snukal

Source: Loryl MacDonald, Archivist, University of Toronto 

This past October, after five years, $1 billion spent and more than a little controversy, the Ontario government completed the installation of 4.7 million smart meters in homes and businesses across the province. 

 

The up-to-the minute smart readers not only allow consumers to see the energy they're using in real-time, it also gives them the choice to save money by using less energy during peak hours. But the move away from clunky wall-mounted meters to the smart meter is only one stepping-stone (albeit an essential one) in the creation of a smarter grid. 

 

In an announcement made early last week, the Government of Ontario and MaRS Discovery District (MaRS) announced the Green Button Initiative, a new program meant to get Ontario consumers, distributors and software developers ready to take another step forward in efficient energy consumption. 

 

The ultimate aim, said Ontario minister of energy Chris Bentley at last week’s press conference "is to give consumers of energy choices: the choice to use less, the choice to use more, the choice to save money and the choice to adjust your use."

 

The way to give customers more choice, says Bentley, is to give them more information. 

 

But in order to get more customizable information about energy usage, there needs to be standard data format for Ontario's utilities. And that's what the Green Button initiative is working to sort out. Once the data is standardized, software developers will be able to use it to create tools that will let Ontarians monitor, manage and adjust their energy use in real-time from their computers and smart devices.

 

The Green Button initiative is essentially a working-group designed to bring different actors to the table in order to move towards this common platform. Starting next month representative from MaRS and the Ontario Government will begin meeting with utility providers, government agencies and the Information and Privacy Commissioner’s Office to begin thinking through possible strategies. 

 

"This could have a profound impact on Ontario customers, small businesses and innovators," says Joe Greenwood, program director at MaRS "and we at MaRS are very excited to be a part of that and to bring custumers, the government and technology partners together to discuss this important opportunity."

 

"It's really about utilizing the information we're getting from smart meters. It's about providing the initial first step to make that information the most useful."

 

The Ontario Non-Profit Housing Association (ONPHA) presented York Region's Ja'Fari Islamic Housing Corporation with an Award for Excellence at ONPHA’s annual four-day conference this month.

 

This year's conference, the largest nonprofit housing conference in North America, was held from November 15 to November 18. ONPHA, an umbrella organization representing almost all of Ontario's nonprofit housing sector, uses its annual awards to showcase member organizations doing especially interesting and innovative work. 

 

"The awards were developed really to serve two functions," says John Wilson, manager of communications and marketing with ONPHA. "First, to reward groups that are trying new things that really push the envelope in the way that we do our job. But also, at the same time, to inspire the rest of the people in the room to maybe try something new or to do something differently."

 

Since 2004, the Ja'Fari Housing Association has worked tirelessly to build partnerships with community members and community organizations, a strategy, says Wilson, which the awards committee wanted to celebrate. 

 

"What stood out for the group in this case is really two things. One, how attentive Ja'Fari is to their tenants and their needs, and also how it works to secure the partners it needs to meet those needs."

 

About five years ago Ja'Fari's board recognized that their already marginalized tenants were having difficulty accessing culturally sensitive social services as well as services in languages they could understand. Ja'Fari board members and staff reached out to the wider community in order to provide much needed services for their tenants, including language interpretation, legal advice and employment counselling. 

 

One of Ja'Fari's biggest partners, York Region's Sandgate Women's Shelter, was offered onsite space to provide support services for Ja'Fari tenants. Ja'Fari has also recently partnered with York Region Police in order build trust between its community and the police force. And Ja'Fari's affiliated youth-focused charity, the Crescent Village Fund, has built basketball courts and shared work and activity spaces for younge people in the community. 
 

To top it off, Ja'Fari has also partnered with a local yoga instructor to provide subsidized yoga for its tenants three times a week.  

 

It's these kinds of partnerships, Wilson hopes, that will inspire other nonprofit housing boards.

 

"A lot of our members work with very difficult communities. But also, at the same time, many of our members are funded as landlords, not as community developers and not as social workers. Making a healthy community when you don't have the internal capacity can be difficult. So what we liked about Ja'Fari’s approach is they brought the community into their building. By housing those services it also brought the wider community in and also situated Ja'Fari in the context of the wider community."

 

As it does with all its award winners, ONPHA produced a video documenting Ja'Fari's many successes and challenges (check it out here) and shared the Ja'Fari story with audiences over the course of the four-day conference. 

 

Three Toronto health institutions—the Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids), the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), and the University of Toronto (U of T)—are collaborating to improve the lot of children and youth struggling with mental illness. 

 

The announcement of the new partnership was made this week at the MaRS Discovery District, where MaRS and CAMH were co-hosting a discussion series on "innovations in mental health and addiction." Monday's event, the first of the series, featured Dr. Peter Szatmari, who will be leading the new integrated Child and Youth Mental Health Program on behalf of the three institutions. 

 

"SickKids, CAMH and U of T form a remarkable health science powerhouse with a shared commitment to improving child and youth mental health, a field that is struggling to meet the growing needs of our young people and their families," said Szatmari. "I am honoured to have been selected to fill this exciting new position."

 

Szatmari is currently head of child psychiatry at McMaster University and is known for his work researching and advocating on behalf of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. In his new role, Szatmari will lead a team of researchers and clinicians investigating mental illness among children and youth, as well as investigating the care (or lack of care) received by children and youth. Szatmari and his colleagues will also be training future psychiatrists and mental health practitioners to deal specifically with youth and children.

 

Szatmari will take over his new duties in March 2013. He will become both the chief of the Child and Youth Mental Health Collaborative at the two hospitals, as well as director of the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the University of Toronto.

 

"Today, children's mental health is being recognized as the issue of our time. With this collaboration under the leadership of Dr. Szatmari, we are poised to make significant advancements," stated Dr. Trevor Young, chair of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto in a press release. "This means hope for our children, and a better future for us all."

 

Last Monday, Scarborough's McGrogror Park Arena got its own solar roof. It's already generating energy that will feed into the city's electric grid.

The roof is the result of a partnership between the City of Toronto and Toronto Hyrdo that will see 10 city-owned buildings, including McGregor Park, outfitted with photovoltaic (PV) panels to generate power for Toronto Hyrdo.

According to Toronto Hydro projections, the energy from the project is expected to generate more than $16 million in gross revenues for the city over the next 20 years and will result in a reduction of approximately 480 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions per year. 

 

"We've been working on this program with Toronto Hydro for just over two years," says Rob Maxwell, manager of the city's Renewable Energy Office. The roofs of city buildings, says Maxwell, are underused assets. "It's empty space for the most part and we wanted to take advantage of that asset in order to meet both environmental and financial objectives of the city."

 

Council approved the project in 2011 and awarded the contract for engineering and installing the panels to Vancouver-based Carmanah Technologies. After that, Maxwell and his colleagues got to work combing through possible candidates for the project. While the city has more than 1,500 buildings in its portfolio, narrowing those down to 10 ideal sites, says Maxwell "was a very elaborate and complicated task."

 

"For example, we needed to understand the condition of the roof, we needed to sure it was not scheduled to undergo major maintenance over the next 20 years—that's the life of the contract we signed for generating electricity—because we don't want to have to remove the system in order to do major roof maintenance."

In addition, says Maxwell, the roofs in question had to be both structurally sounds, not situated in shaded areas or "anywhere where it is likely that a building built adjacent to in the future may cause shading problems."

 

The 10 city owned buildings chosen for the project are:

Mimico Arena – 31 Drummond Street

York Mills Arena – 2539 Bayview Avenue

Goulding Park Community Centre/Arena – 45 Goulding Avenue

Police College – 70 Birmingham Street

Agincourt Park Arena – 31 Glen Watford Drive

Victoria Village Arena – 190 Bermondsey Road

Malvern Community Centre – 30 Sewells Road

Grandravine Community Centre/Arena – 23 Grandravine Drive

Roding Community Centre/Arena – 600 Roding Street

McGregor Park Arena – 2231 Lawrence Avenue East

 

The electricity produced by panels will be purchased by the Ontario Power Authority (OPA) through its feed-in-tariff program (also known as FIT), which pays a premium price for electricity from renewable energy sources. 

 

"The total capacity we're looking to develop is two megawatts and these 10 buildings in the initial phase of the program will generate one megawatt. So when we finish installation on these 10 buildings we're halfway to our target."

 

However, due to the recent review of the FIT program, the OPA is not currently accepting reapplications.  

 

"We're kind of on hold with the next phase of the project. We're just waiting to see when they will start processing reapplications. But we do have applications before the Ontario Power Authority for number of other sites."

 

Writer: Katia Snukal

Source: Rob Maxwell, Manager Renewable Energy Office, City of Toronto

"When we had our kids here, we found that we were just a little lost," says Simone Miller of her and friend Nina Binkowska's experience having their children in Toronto hospitals. 

 

Now, four years later, Miller and Binkowska are hoping to make the first few days of new motherhood a little less overwhelming. They're doing it by showering new mothers with gifts the day they give birth. 

 

The two friends started Mom's Day One last February and officially launched the nonprofit's signature initiative—the Mom’s Day One Box program—on November 1. Now, new mothers who have their child at St. Michael’s Hospital or North York General Hospital, are provided with a gift box complete with free product samples and list of resources for new moms in Toronto. 
 

"We both have young children, I have a four year old and a three year old and Nina has a four year old and a 13 year old," says Miller. "We really wanted to get back out there and do something, but we wanted to do something that would actually make a difference. And we wanted to find something key to both of us and we thought, you know, we're moms. I have a background in education and Nina has a background in marketing and advertising. And we thought we should use that experience to do something to support new mothers. We're also both immigrant mothers—she's from Poland and I'm from Jamaica, and we both felt lost when we had our children in Canada. So we thought this was a great idea to support moms to give them information as well as as gifts."
 

The Day One Box program is only a month-in but already more than 300 boxes have been delivered, with more than 17,00 packed and ready for shipping. The feedback had been pouring in. 

 

"The mothers are happy, the nurses are happy," says Miller. "When you get a gift on day one, it's really special so I've heard that the mothers are absolutely raving."

 

So far, Miller and Binkowska have 15 partner companies on board, including Huggies, Aleva, Mother's Choice and Dyson, who provide free product samples. They've also teamed up with Toronto courier company Speedy Transport Limited, which is delivering the boxes to the hospitals free of charge. 

 

Mom's Day One also worked closely with Nick Eliades, publisher and editor-in-chef of Oh Baby Magazine, who shared contacts and advice.

 

Miller expects the program grow beyond this current trial, expanding not only to other hospitals in the GTA, but eventually Canada-wide.  

The two women also want Mom's Day One to be about building a community of new mothers. In January, Mom's Day One will begin hosting free workshops on topics important to new moms. 

"We want to work on using our website and using our boxes to get moms together. And it will all always be free, that's what new moms deserve."

 

Writer: Katia Snukal

Source: Simone Miller, Co-Founder, Mom's Day One Inc.

 

Thirty OCAD undergraduates have published an e-zine aimed at Toronto teens. It covers technology, culture and life in the city. And it was made in just three days. 

 

The OCAD students, enrolled in the university's new Digital Futures Initiative (DFI) program, not only had to create and publish an e-zine, they had to do it to the satisfaction of their three clients, high school students invited in as "guest editors." 

 

Despite the challenging task, over the course of three days (and a few sleepless nights), the team produced more than 60 articles, designed a website and maintained an active progress report on Twitter and Facebook. 

 

Called Torontosaur, the e-zine officially went live on November 8, just 72 hours after the first editorial meeting. Complete with photographs, videos and comics, Torontosaur covers everything from the future of gaming to advice on how to make pancakes. 

 

While the project was student-driven, the students weren't entirely on their own. Experienced Toronto journalists were on-hand to offer advice and help out along the way. The guest experts included Yonge’s own Hamutal Dotan, senior editor and co-owner of Spacing magazine (also former Yonge Street managing editor) Shawn Micallef, and MyCityLives founder Adil Dhalla. 

 

"The guest experts worked really closely with the students" says Tom Barker, chair of the Digital Futures Initiative. "They were really hands-on and certainly helped direct the magazine."

 

"By the time the experts arrived on the first night, the students were already so organized, working together and divided into separate departments. So each editor worked closely with a separate department."

The high-school guest editors also contributed to the final product. They worked closely with the team, providing feedback on what they like to see online and, says Barker, "even producing content."
 

The project is officially finished, though Barker anticipates that the DFI students will continue to update the magazine as volunteers.  

 

"Torontosaur is not over," the team tweeted late Sunday night. "We just needed to sleep."

The Regional Municipality of York will soon be introducing a paperless meeting platform in an effort to increase meeting efficiency and reduce waste.

On November 1, after a competitive public bidding process, the city awarded a contract to eSCRIBE, a Markham-based software company that specializes in electronic meeting management. York deputy regional clerk Christopher Raynor says councillors attending York's regional board and committee meetings will be able to request electronic agendas by early 2013. Raynor estimates that more than 25 per cent of council members currently use some kind of smart device like a tablet or smartphone. So the move to paperless meetings just made sense. 

 

"We were getting inquiries both from council and our senior management on how we could provide them with less paper," says Raynor. "And since the region has a number of programs and initiatives aimed at environmental sustainability, a paperless meeting process is a natural fit."

 

The hope is that the move to eSCRIBE will also mean that reports and other documents will soon be circulated and approved electronically. 

 

"Their product seems to allow for a good deal of automation without significant change to our existing processes. It also delivers an iPad application that can help users manage meetings and agendas," says Raynor.

 

While councillors will begin receiving electronic agenda packages in early 2013, the transition to electronic meetings will be a gradual process. "Not all our councillors have mobile devices that can take advantage of the technology. However, the software allows us to deliver electronically and to continue printing so we can meet the needs of council."

 

Writer: Katia Snukal
Source: Christopher Raynor, Deputy Regional Clerk, Regional Municipality of York

A new York University bridging program is making it easier for internationally educated Human Resources professionals to find work in their field in Canada. 

 

The program will help participants fill in knowledge gaps and, perhaps more importantly, help them get overcome the frustrating Catch-22 so many newcomers face—needing Canadian experience to get a job in Canada. 

 

"Many of the students in our [bridging programs] have masters and PhDs from their home country. They're very educated and capable," says program manager Nora Priestly. "They'd likely be able to learn what they need on the job, but not having that Canadian experience is a big barrier."

 

In addition to helping immigrants get experience and connect with employers, the new HR program also provides students with language instruction and skill upgrades. But because the program is individually tailored to each student, every participants get only what he or she needs. 

 

"You don't need Accounting 101 when you were an accountant in your home country. But you may need some very specific accounting training as in taxes," says Priestly. "Our program—like many college and university bridging programs—is very holistic and geared to each individual student."

 

Priestly says that while most newcomers have a command of English, they often have difficulty with sector-specfic terminology. And it's exactly this more nuanced English education that bridging programs can provide. 

 

"They need business English," she says. "They need the lexicon of business language that they didn't have in their home country but need to get."

 

York only launched the program a few months ago, but already, says Priestly, the program is attracting interest. 

 

"We've got a handful of students in pre-qualifying and foundation courses now. We've been offering IT and business bridging programs for three years now and we're excited to have HR in the mix."

 

The bridging program, like others offered at York and throughout the province, is funded by the Ontario Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration.

 

Writer: Katia Snukal 

Source: Nora Priestly, Program Manager, Human Resources Bridging Program, York University

 

Toronto courier service Good Foot Delivery has had a pretty good year. 

First, CAMH awarded Good Foot first place in the first-ever Social Entrepreneurship in Mental Health Equity Awards. Then, Good Foot launched a new lunch program, teaming up with local restaurants to provide meals for their on-duty couriers. And, to top it off, they launched their own apparel line. 

Good Foot celebrates all this and more this week at the Centre for Social innovation's Annex location, during their third annual fundraising party, Good Foot Gets Down, on Thursday, November 8. A very Toronto event, the party will be catered by chef Rodney Bowers of Little Italy’s famous Hey Meatball.

Tickets to the party cost $100. Greg Kasparian, Good Foot's managing director, says they want to raise $50,000. "Enough money to support an additional five couriers," he says.

Launched in February 2010, Good Foot Delivery is a nonprofit that provides point-to-point courier services in Toronto and provides employment opportunities for adults with developmental disabilities. 

Writer: Katia Snukal
Source: Greg Kasparian, Managing Director, Good Foot Delivery

 

Toronto now has two more kilometres of paved recreational space in the Don Valley, thanks to the recent completion of the East Don Trail.

The new path, which links Milne Hollow Park—at Lawrence Avenue and the DVP— to Moccasin Trail Park, and a bridge leading into the Wynford-Concorde neighbourhood, officially opened in a ceremony this month.

 

Built in four stages, the East Don Trail is a result of a partnership between the City of Toronto, which contributed $1.19 million to the project, and the Government of Canada which contributed $697,000 through the Infrastructure Stimulus Fund. The path's completion is part of ongoing City of Toronto project to bring more recreational activity down into the city's natural ravines and valley.

 

"Trails in our natural areas and ravines allow for passive and active recreational opportunities for more residents," says Wendy Strickland, natural environment specialist with the City of Toronto. "By building trails, we are able to concentrate use onto a single area which has been built with that carrying capacity in mind, thereby ensuring the protection of natural areas."

 

The finished trail comes complete with signs describing local features, two canopies under the CN Rail line, handrails and new bridges which provide street access and which lead users over the East Don River.

 

"The response from the local community to the trail has been fantastic," says Strickland. "Community members are very happy to have access to natural environment parkland, especially the Wynford Heights community, which had little access to parkland prior to the opening of the trail."

 

While the trail is currently expected to cater mostly to local residents, there is a possibility, says Strickland, that the East Don Trail might one day connect with the Lower Don Trail which connects to the Martin Goodman Trail at Lakeshore Boulevard.

 

"The City of Toronto will soon begin an Environmental Assessment to look at the connection [to the Lower Don Trail]," says Strickland. 

 

 

The Canadian Centre for Diversity (CCD) has been active for 65 years—a big feat for a small non-profit.
 

While CCD's annual fundraisers are always big productions, regularly attracting more than 1,000 attendees, they're going all out for the November 8 anniversary event at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. 
 

"This year’s annual dinner will be as much an anniversary party as a fundraiser," says Carla Wittes, director of community and government relations with the CCD. "Sixty-five represents a remarkable achievement for a small organization to stay viable, relevant and up-to-date."

 

Hosted by Ben Mulroney, the evening will feature performances by Juno Award-winner Newton-Davis and the Toronto All-Star Big Band. The night will also include the presentation of CCD's two annual awards, the Human Relations Awards and the Partners in Diversity Award, given to people and organizations that share CCD's vision. 

 

This year's Human Relation Award is being presented to Salah Bachir, president of Cineplex Media. Bachir was most recently in the news for his work as chair of Toronto's 519 Community Centre Capital Campaign, where he helped raise $6 million in commitments. The Partners in Diversity Award will be awarded to CIBC for the bank's ongoing support of the Centre's activities. 

 

This landmark year also represents a chance for CCD to reflect on challenges going forward. 

 

"Our longevity also presents one of our challenges: as we continue to address issues around diversity in its broadest definition, we need to be constantly assessing and measuring our programs to ensure we really are addressing current needs."

 

"While it often seems that our vision—a Canadian society without prejudice and discrimination, one that values diversity, difference and inclusion—is so far from being realized, we know that we are making progress," says Witte. "Social change is slow, and as we have demonstrated, we are in this for the long haul."

 

The money raised at the November event will be used to fund CCD's core program, the Peer Leaders Network, which provides tools for Canadian youth to help overcome fear and prejudice in their schools. 
 

Writer: Katia Snukal

Source: Carla Wittes, Director, Community & Government Relations, Canadian Centre for Diversity 

 

GTA environmental organization Partners in Project Green (PPG) has recognized four Toronto-area companies for engaging employees in reducing their "green bottom line."

 

PPG, a network of businesses that came together in 2009, has a mandate to promotes sustainable business practices in the Pearson airport area. The goal is to create an internationally recognized eco-business zone in Southern Ontario (read Yonge's earlier article on PPG here) . 

 

"One of the ways we encourage and acknowledge the efforts of companies we work with is through our annual Sustainability Awards," says Jennifer Taves, project manager with Partners in Project Green.