Board of Trade urges thinking and voting

NRU
January 8, 2014

On January 7, the Toronto Region Board of Trade began its campaign—Think Twice, Vote Once—to encourage residents to carefully consider who they vote for during the municipal and provincial elections that will be occurring in the GTA in 2014.

Speaking to media and colleagues at First Canadian Place, board president and CEO Carol Wilding said that over the past year the organization had expressed some fundamental concerns about how politicians across the GTA were dealing with regional issues. She cited issues such as the cancelled gas plants in Mississauga, the politics that led to the proposed Scarborough subway, and the drama surrounding Mayor Rob Ford, as distractions.

“We need to shift from frustration to aspiration,” Wilding said. In a discussion paper, the Board of Trade recommends that a common plan be developed for the region. It recommends that municipal and provincial leaders should show how they are committed to four issues:

1. building regional transportation;

2. Increasing fiscal capacity to upgrade civic infrastructure;

3. promoting regional job creation; and

4. closing the “prosperity” gap between the region’s best and worst neighbourhoods.

Wilding said that the board will be ideas that can improve the GTA city-region in the next six months, and hopes that candidates will do the same. She said in a scrum afterwards that the board will not be endorsing candidates in either the municipal or provincial elections.