Alan Christie

Azeezah Kanji tells the story of a poster in a Texas restaurant showing a man wearing a turban being lynched, with the words: “Let’s play cowboys and Iranians.”

That poster is an indication of the ingrained racism in North America, rooted in history and practiced today through racial profiling and the racialization of national security policies, Kanji told an audience at the Hart House Theatre on Feb. 9.

Kanji is programming co-ordinator at the Noor Cultural Centre and received her Juris Doctor from the University of Toronto's Faculty of Law. She delivered the 15th annual Hancock Lecture, and later did a question and answer session with Desmond Cole, a freelance journalist who has written extensively about racial profiling by the Toronto police force.

The Texas poster Kanji describes appears in a book by Arun Kundnani, called The Muslims are Coming! Islamophobia, Extremism and the Domestic War on Terror. That book was made into a movie in 2014, with Muslim comedians relating their stories about meeting Americans.

Kundnani found the poster while travelling through the U.S., researching the book, Kanji told the audience. And what the poster reveals, she said, is the interconnection between the historic anti-black and anti-Indigenous sentiment with today’s anti-Muslim, anti-Arab, anti-Iranian views of many North Americans.

“The poster, as in real life, shows how the multiple discourses of violence are intertwined, reinforcing and nourishing each other to the constant spectre of racially different threats, of bodies that need to be violently eliminated, or subjugated, or deported or surveilled for the nation to be secure.”

Kanji referred to ��˾��ֱ�� law professor Audrey Macklin, “who observed that Canadians have long tolerated serious abrogations of rights and freedoms for non-citizens that would likely not be permitted against citizens.”

She said “addressing the discriminatory nature of national security policy requires us to pay attention to laws wielded against non-citizens. Not only those against citizens.

“It is inadequate to simply defend the rights of Canadians, to proclaim a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian even though that sentiment is very welcome” Kanji said, “without reflecting on the vulnerability of those who are not Canadian who may be subject to state power and violence in the name of national security and border control.”

She said the “colonial legacy sustains itself through divisions by cutting apart what is connected. It sustains itself through divisive logic such as race, to distance us from each other, so we cannot see how our experiences and struggles are related”

Kanji spent much of her lecture on Bill C-51, the anti-terrorist legislation that was passed last year under the former Conservative government. The Liberals supported the legislation but vowed to examine it and propose amendments once in power.

Public hearings on the law are being held now and Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale has suggested the government will make changes if necessary. The law allows governments to share information about individuals more easily and expands the mandate of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS).

Kanji quoted civil rights lawyer Clayton Ruby, who suggested in 2015 how easily Muslims could be arrested and detained for doing nothing: “Six Muslims who don’t speak English could be standing in front of a Mosque discussing the latest Drake album, or video games, or sports, or girls, or the overthrow of the Harper government.”

But police can arrest them simply on the assumption that they might be discussing something harmful to the state, Kanjii said, because “yesterday what was freedom of speech and assembly is today ‘arrestible’.”

Award-winning journalist and activist Desmond Cole, whose book The Skin I'm In will be published by Doubleday Canada in 2017, moderated the lively question and answer session that followed the talk.

During the session, a young man named Richard said he was one of those “white male voices” who dominate all sectors of Canadian life and asked Kanji “I would like to help but I don’t know what to do.”

Kanji said, “it is not about guilty by association. But you can acknowledge the privileges you have” and not see Muslims as a threat.

The Hancock Lecture is named after Margaret Hancock, a social justice advocate who was Hart House Warden from 1997 until 2007. She is now executive director of Family Service Toronto.

She told the audience that the lectures are a vehicle for “emerging leaders, people flying under the radar a little bit” to express their views. An organizing committee composed largely of students selects the lecturers.

(Below: Kanji with her mother, Samira Kanji, president of the Noor Cultural Centre)

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Catherine McKenna to ��˾��ֱ�� students: “what is your big idea to help tackle climate change?”

sgupta — Wed, 10 Feb 2016 11:56:37 +0000

Catherine McKenna to ��˾��ֱ�� students: “what is your big idea to help tackle climate change?” sgupta Wed, 02/10/2016 - 06:56

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After the event, Minister McKenna held a private meeting with some ��˾��ֱ�� students (from left) Digvijay Mehra, Kirstyn Koswin, Maria Baginska, Emile Lavergne and Mustafa Sayedi (photo above by Caitlin Workman/ all other photos by Johnny Guatto)

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“We are going to need all hands on deck,” environment minister tells Munk School of Global Affairs

Environment Minister Catherine McKenna says she wakes up every night thinking about how to reduce carbon emissions.

Now, she has personally challenged University of Toronto students to help her fulfil her dreams.

McKenna spoke on Feb. 9 at ��˾��ֱ��’s Munk School of Global Affairs – where she previously taught – about “new thinking for a new way forward” in the wake of the historic climate change agreement in Paris in December, 2015.

In the audience were some of McKenna’s former international relations students, who posed some probing questions for the minister.

Professor Janice Stein, who taught McKenna when she was a student at University of St. Michael's College at ��˾��ֱ��, moderated the question and answer session. Stein is President Meric Gertler’s special adviser on international initiatives and founding director of the Munk School.

(Below, from left: Matthew Hoffmann, co-director of the Munk School's Environmental Governance Lab; Jutta Brunnée, Metcalf Chair in Environmental Law at ��˾��ֱ��'s Faculty of Law, Minister McKenna and Professor Stein)

Signing on to the Paris accord was great, but “now we have to bring it home,” McKenna said. “We have to show we can deliver.”

The previous government wasn’t committed to dealing with climate change, she said, adding that causes challenges.

“So every night I wake up and think about emission reductions. How do we reduce emissions in housing, in more buildings, in transit, in electricity, in energy? I do this over and over.”

The good news, she added, is “we have a prime minister who is committed to working on this.”

Looking at the students, McKenna said “and then there is you. Sometimes it seems so big, that tackling climate change seems so huge. But the evidence is clearly there, and the question is how do we individually take action?”

She said “I see a lot of young people here. This is about your future. I have three kids, seven, nine and 11. I worry about their future.”

McKenna said that when she taught her civil society class at Munk she posed this question to her students: What is your big idea?

“And this is the challenge I give to you: what is your big idea to help tackle climate change?

“You could be the next negotiator to help establish a price on carbon around the world, or you are going to figure out the device that we can use in homes that will actually drastically reduce emissions and really create incentives for that device to be adopted by municipalities and by Canadians.

“We are going to need all hands on deck. You are all very smart. I know that because I taught you and you are at the Munk School, but smart isn’t good enough here folks. We need to be practical.”

The Munk School goes a great job in linking challenges to solutions and creating big ideas, McKenna said. “We hope we can foster that spirit across Canada. No matter who you are, you are thinking about how do we work together to tackle climate change.”

Whether you are in business, government, an NGO, or academia, “how do we all just come together, because just talking about it is not going to do anything. We have to take action.”

Stein asked her own question towards the end of the session. “What is your big idea,” she asked McKenna. “Your own personal big idea?”

“What I hope to see after four years (the first mandate of the Liberal government) is: what does success look like?," McKenna replied. “Success is multi-faceted. We absolutely have to be on the right track with regard to things such as emissions, but success is more a total shift in how we think about the environment. How we think about what a sustainable future looks like.”

She acknowledged that “we [the government] are still really struggling. How do we communicate in a way, and engage Canadians in a way that they think we are serious, that it is going to be real, that we need to act and we are in this together.

“I want everyone to part of this project. We are on a path where we are going to have a much more sustainable future and my kids will have the same options that I that I have – because otherwise I have failed.”

Almost 500 sworn in as citizens at ��˾��ֱ��'s Convocation Hall – including undergrad and professor

sgupta — Mon, 08 Feb 2016 10:43:55 +0000

Almost 500 sworn in as citizens at ��˾��ֱ��'s Convocation Hall – including undergrad and professor sgupta Mon, 02/08/2016 - 05:43

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Yaser Nabib (pictured here with Vice-President and Provost Cheryl Regehr) is in his first year of civil engineering at ��˾��ֱ�� (all photos by Johnny Guatto)

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“I love the country of my birth but I love Canada,” Suzanne Stevenson says. “It has the social values that I admire.”

Becky Upfold sat on the steps inside Convocation Hall, keeping a watchful eye on 16-month-old Elsie, who has a tendency to wander. Elsie will learn when she’s older just how special the day was for her mom.

Upfold was one of 487 people who became Canadian citizens at a ceremony at the historic venue on Feb. 6. It was special not only because it was the first-ever swearing-in at the downtown Toronto campus, but because of the direct connections of some of the people to the university – including a faculty member and a student.

It was a day when bursting with pride was not simple hyperbole; a day when waving a tiny Canadian flag was done with enthusiasm and vigour and when taking a selfie was anything but self-indulgent behaviour.

It was a day when O Canada was belted out, not mumbled.

But most of all it was a day about family.

President Meric Gertler, while congratulating everyone, noted how many families were in attendance. We are all fortunate, Gertler said “to live in this wonderful country,” and the country is also fortunate to have new citizens, who become a “source of our nation’s strength.”

The ceremony has “special significance for the University of Toronto and the Toronto region more generally,” Gertler said.

“Our community, like Canada itself, reflects the diversity of the world. More than half of Toronto residents were born outside Canada and more than half of our students identify as so-called visible minorities.”

See a photo gallery of the ceremony

Upfold came to Canada in May, 2011 from Britain. Her husband Chris, seven-year-old son Stanley and Elsie are all Canadian. She said “it is so lovely that all of our family now is Canadian. It is a privilege to become one.” Elsie, when not exploring through people’s bags, took a Canadian flag from Chancellor Michael Wilson.

Yaser Nabib, 18, was there with his mom Iftasum, both becoming citizens after arriving here from Bangladesh five years ago. Nabib is in first year of civil engineering at ��˾��ֱ��.

“I’m so proud of him,” Iftasum said. “He is a really good student.”

Suzanne Stevenson, born in Virginia, has been in Canada for 16 years. It was her son Kiva who said she should become a citizen.

A professor of computer science at ��˾��ֱ��, Stevenson (pictured below) said she became quite emotional while being sworn in as a Canadian. “My son said it would mean a lot to him for me to do this. I love the country of my birth but I love Canada. It has the social values that I admire.

“I became quite emotional taking the oath, and I am quite emotional just talking about it now.”

In an email to ��˾��ֱ�� News on Feb 8, Stevenson said that when she returned to Santa Barbara where she is on sabbatical, her husband, ��˾��ֱ�� Professor Sven Dickinson, was holding a Canadian flag.

“Probably the first time that has ever happened in little Santa Barbara,” she said.

Twenty-four-year-old Jeanette Salvador and her sister Alexis, 14, from The Philippines, were both sworn-in. “It’s a great feeling,” she said. “My mother worked very hard for this.”

It was also an emotional day for Shirley Hoy, vice-chair of the Governing Council and chair elect. Born in China, she said the ceremony brought back memories of when she became a citizen. Hoy (pictured below) said she experienced “the undeniable challenges you have overcome to be here today.”

John McCallum, the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, administered the oath the new citizens repeated, first in French, then English.

Speaking before giving the oath, McCallum (pictured at right with Gertler) said there are “certain parallels” between the people who are now Canadians and the 25,000 Syrian refugees Canada is accepting.

“It tells you something about the nature of the country you are about to join,” he said. The government’s plan to find homes for the refugees is a “national non-partisan project. It speaks to why Canada seeks out newcomers to build our country.”

The civil war in Syria has created “the worst refugee crisis for decades, and during a time when other countries are reticent to receive refugees, we are standing out as a welcoming beacon,” McCallum said.

He said “once you become a citizen, no one can take that away from you.” All Canadians, he said, no matter how long they have been in the country, “have equal rights and equal responsibilities.”

McCallum said it is a huge pleasure for him to take part in a citizenship ceremony, “especially in one of Canada’s top universities.”

Chancellor Wilson urged the new citizens to “learn more about your country, read our history, vote in elections and become engaged in your community.” Such things, he said, will help them get “the full measure of being a Canadian.”

Gertler said “throughout our history, Canada’s greatest strength has been its people. We are blessed with abundant natural resources and a favourable location on the globe, but Canadians built and continue to build this great country, its institutions and its values.”

Canada, he said, “embraces the broadest range of people, encourages the free expression of perspectives and ideals,” and the ��˾��ֱ�� community is like Canada in that “we prize inclusion, respect and civility in our shared pursuit of the common goals.”

Gertler said as he looked out upon the new Canadians and their families, “I am immensely optimistic about our future. Your ideas, your traditions, your perspectives will make our great nation more vibrant, more dynamic, more successful and a better place for us all.”

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Scarborough students need and deserve better transit, municipal expert says

sgupta — Mon, 08 Feb 2016 08:58:37 +0000

Scarborough students need and deserve better transit, municipal expert says sgupta Mon, 02/08/2016 - 03:58

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“Students are commuting extremely long distances and we know that their academic experience is shaped by their ability to reach campus,” Siemiatycki says (photo by Jason Krygier-Baum)

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Siemiatycki: proposed stop at UTSC “has the potential to really change the way the campus functions”

The new transit plan that includes a stop at the University of Toronto Scarborough will be a major “boon for future students” Associate Professor Matti Siemiatycki says.

The long commutes today’s students must endure to get to school negatively affect their academic experience, the expert in municipal infrastructure says.

Siemiatycki, who teaches in the department of geography and planning, helped design an unprecedented survey of the transit needs of Toronto university students. The results will be released in a few weeks.

What the Ghomeshi trial reveals about journalism and media consumers: ��˾��ֱ�� expert explains

sgupta — Thu, 04 Feb 2016 10:19:33 +0000

What the Ghomeshi trial reveals about journalism and media consumers: ��˾��ֱ�� expert explains sgupta Thu, 02/04/2016 - 05:19

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(photo courtesy Joe Gratz via flickr)

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Digital culture allows people to immerse themselves in minutiae, says Jeffrey Dvorkin: “It’s almost like news pornography”

The intense media interest in high-profile trials, including the Jian Ghomeshi trial that started Feb 1, could have a major impact on the judicial system itself, ��˾��ֱ��’s Jeffrey Dvorkin says.

Dvorkin, director of the journalism program at the University of Toronto Scarborough campus, says the media interest surrounding the Ghomeshi trial – with newspapers and television networks around the world covering it – “is only intensified by the digital culture, what I call digital deviance, where people immerse themselves in the minutiae of the story. It’s almost like news pornography.”

The media frenzy sparked by the sex assault trial of Ghomeshi, the former CBC radio star, is similar to the murder trial of O.J. Simpson, more than 20 years ago. That was the first time CNN broadcasted a trial directly from the courtroom. Today, there are no cameras in the Ghomeshi courtroom but the trial is live-tweeted by reporters in real time as witnesses testify and are grilled by the defence attorney.

Read PhD student Nathan Gorham's Globe and Mail article on Twitter versus cameras at the trial

Dvorkin points out that Ghomeshi is being tried by judge alone.

“My impression is that there are fewer and fewer jury trials in part because defence lawyers claim their clients can’t get a fair trial – because no one is coming into the courtroom with a completely neutral state. It is hard to find a jury these days that hasn’t been influenced by the media in some ways.”

Dvorkin, a former managing editor and chief journalist at CBC Radio, says the trial poses a challenge for CBC given that “people at the CBC are being forced to relive this.” The broadcaster is covering the trial but has also brought in counsellors to help employees deal with the trial, he said.

The Ghomeshi trial in Toronto was not the only high-profile trial in Ontario this week. But the “prurient interest” in the Ghomeshi case meant that after the first day, it led the news on both the local and national CBC and CTV networks. Meanwhile, the trial in Hamilton of two men charged with the kidnapping, murder and cremation of Tim Bosma, shot while showing his truck to two men, was relegated to the second story.

Coincidentally, these two headline-grabbing trials began during the same week that the FX network launched a heavily promoted, 10-part drama series on the Simpson trial. The former football star was acquitted of the murder of his wife and male friend in 1995, with his lawyer, Johnny Cochran, using the now infamous “if the glove don’t fit you must acquit” defence.

Dvorkin said the O.J. case really changed the “journalistic landscape” for television, both in the U.S. and in Canada. It allowed news organizations to cut costs by simply putting a camera in the courtroom (or share a feed) without having to rely on reporters.

“It was a real downside to the O.J. Simpson trial. It cheapened the value of journalistic efforts, something that media organizations really haven’t recovered from.”

The first complainant in the Ghomeshi trial was the first witness on Feb. 1, and was subjected to an intense drilling from the defence lawyer who said the woman had lied and that her memory was faulty.

That type of cross-examination is indicative of what thousands of complainants go through in sexual assault cases, according to a study done for the ��˾��ֱ�� Law Journal.

The study, done by Dalhousie University professor Elaine Craig, says “a sexual assault complainant’s capacity to be believed in court, to share in the production of meaning about an incidence of what she alleges was unwanted sexual conduct, requires her to play a role in certain rituals of the trial.

“Many of these rituals are hierarchical, requiring complainants to perform subordinate roles that mirror the gender, race and socio-economic status based on societal hierarchies in which the problem of sexual violence is rooted.”

Craig examined many court transcripts and gave specific examples of women being “brutalized” by the process, including one woman who refused to return to the stand after being cross-examined and who only returned when she faced arrest.

(Visit flickr to see the original of the photo used above)

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Canada Next: MaRS CEO on the future for startups

sgupta — Tue, 02 Feb 2016 08:08:21 +0000

Canada Next: MaRS CEO on the future for startups sgupta Tue, 02/02/2016 - 03:08

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A young man interested in entrepreneurship speaks to representatives from MaRS at the 2015 Startup Career Expo. "��˾��ֱ�� is increasingly a “driving force” for startups", says Ilse Treurnicht, CEO of MaRS Discovery District.

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Canada is good at creating startup companies but not enough of them are high-growth enterprises, the so-called gazelles of the industry, says Ilse Treurnicht, CEO of the MaRS Discovery District.

But the good news, she says, is that ��˾��ֱ�� is increasingly a “driving force” for startups, helping them not just to thrive but to succeed in Canada so that the economic benefits accrue to this country.

The Global Entrepreneurship and Development Institute recently released a global entrepreneurship index that placed Canada second, behind the United States.

��˾��ֱ�� News asked Treurnicht for her analysis of the survey and her views about some recent stories in the media about Canada and entrepreneurship, including an op-ed piece in the Globe and Mail co-authored by President Meric Gertler: “Southern Ontario should be an innovation cluster, not a farm team.”

The survey, she said, was a valid one and “another indication that entrepreneurship is important everywhere, and that Toronto has some good fundamentals in place, and that we have some areas where we can probably grow.”

Data on startups in Canada is relatively sparse but statistics from the U.S. and the U.K. suggest “that out of 100 startups somewhere between four and 10 become high-growth industries, the so-called gazelles.”

Treurnicht (pictured at left) described a gazelle as a company that that increases its revenues by at least 20 per cent annually for four years or more, starting from a revenue base of at least $1 million.

Gazelles “grow quite quickly and are major job creators, major contributors to revenue and economic growth,” Treurnicht said. “Starting up a company is important but it is not sufficient, you have to start more robust companies and more of them have to grow to scale.

“Canada is pretty good at starting companies but we don’t have enough of them that grow to scale.”

Our companies face “small local markets, and eco-systems that are still maturing,” she said. “We don’t have the serial entrepreneurs that they have in Silicon Valley.”

In Canada, the capital contributions made to startups is about one-third of what it is in the U.S.

“A lot of startups have to be international companies because the markets are so small here," she said. There are good reasons why so few become gazelles. “It’s not like we are stupid.”

Still, there are grounds for optimism, Treurnicht said.

“Over the last 10 years ��˾��ֱ�� has helped build the ecosystem in Toronto and the GTA. There is now a huge appetite among students to participate in such companies, and a growing appreciation among faculty, especially young faculty, to participate.”

The survey suggests Canada is poised to do great things, she added.

Treurnicht said the barriers to starting a company are very low, especially in the high-tech field. Companies focused on health care, “advanced materials” or artificial intelligence – firms with “hard-core intellectual property heft" – take a bit longer to develop so they require more investment.

But the “deep technology competency and the feeder system” coming out of ��˾��ֱ�� “is as good quality as the rest of the world,” she said. That means that more companies “will grow right here, with the economic benefits accruing to Canada.”

“This is a story about the growing momentum of ��˾��ֱ�� being a key force in making startups more successful. That is the message we want to get out. Stay tuned. There is a lot more come.”

Three to Watch

The majority of companies that have homes at the MaRS centre “have serious roots back to ��˾��ֱ��,” Treurnicht said. They include Nanoleaf, Teabot and Chipcare.

Gimmy Chu, one of the University of Toronto alumni behind startup success Nanoleaf, with the revolutionary light bulb backed by investors around the world. Photo by Johnny Guatto.

Mock trial with a Shakespearean twist: moot court based on Othello raises funds for outreach program

sgupta — Thu, 21 Jan 2016 12:15:20 +0000

Mock trial with a Shakespearean twist: moot court based on Othello raises funds for outreach program sgupta Thu, 01/21/2016 - 07:15

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Iago on Trial is organized by second-year Law student Alayna Dueck (photo by Colleen Sullivan via flickr)

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University in the Community provides free classes for vulnerable adults

“Trifles light as air. Are to the jealous confirmations strong. As proofs of holy writ. This may do something.”

Students and professors at ��˾��ֱ��’s Faculty of Law are staging what they call a literary moot on Jan 21.

It's a benefit on behalf of the University in the Community, a little-known outreach program for vulnerable adults established through a partnership between ��˾��ֱ�� and the Workers’ Educational Association, a pioneer in the field of adult education.

This is the third year in a row for the fundraiser but the first time they've tackled Shakespeare. This year’s mock trial is based on Othello, with archetypal villain Iago (quoted above) facing criminal charges as “a party to the offence.”

Read about last year's event

Law professors Brenda Cossman, Anthony Niblett and Martha Shaffer will testify as characters in the play. Dean Edward Iacobucci will preside in this court of last resort.

University in the Community provides free-of-charge, educational and humanities programming for vulnerable adults in the GTA. Classes are held once a week at Innis College and are taught by professors from a cross-section of departments at ��˾��ֱ�� and Ryerson University. They volunteer their time and experience.

Joanne Mackay-Bennett, co-ordinator of the University in the Community, told ��˾��ֱ�� News that “although UitC does not offer credits, it offers anyone with a desire to learn something that is equally valuable: the chance to attend weekly classes given by outstanding faculty and to feel included as members of ��˾��ֱ��’s remarkable community of learners.”

By supporting the program, “��˾��ֱ�� recognizes that the flow of knowledge between university and community, and between community and the university, is a crucial contributor to a healthy and vibrant civic life,” she said.

Another program UitC supports is “Thought for Food” part of CAMH’s new integrated day treatment service. The program helps people with mood and anxiety challenges relax, socialize, develop new skills and have fun, according to the CAMH website.

Alayna Dueck, a second-year Law student, is the prime organizer of the event. She got interested last year while watching the faculty’s version of Oliver Twist. It did The Great Gatsby the year before.

She told ��˾��ֱ�� News that the literary moots “provide fascinating interactions between policy and social determinants.”

Tickets are $20 but students can pay what they can, though $10 is suggested.

(See the original of the photo used above on flickr)

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Five ways cities can avoid cost overruns on infrastructure: Matti Siemiatycki

sgupta — Thu, 21 Jan 2016 11:33:59 +0000

Five ways cities can avoid cost overruns on infrastructure: Matti Siemiatycki sgupta Thu, 01/21/2016 - 06:33

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The report cites cost overruns for major projects such as the overhaul of Union Station in Toronto and the construction of Lansdowne Park Stadium in Ottawa (photo by Neil Howard via flickr)

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Institute on Municipal Finance & Governance report provides roadmap for better planning

Toronto is heading into a massive period of investment in infrastructure, and a new ��˾��ֱ�� report suggests ways it can be done without equally massive cost overruns.

The report was prepared for the Institute on Municipal Finance & Governance and released at an event at the university’s Munk School of Global affairs on Jan. 21. It was written by Matti Siemiatycki, an associate professor in the department of geography and planning and an expert in municipal infrastructure.

The report says “cost overruns and schedule delays on infrastructure megaprojects are a common news story in the media, in Canada and around the world. Millions of dollars here, months of delays there. International evidence suggests that the bigger the project the more likely it will go over budget and miss its deadlines.”

In an interview with ��˾��ֱ�� News, Siemiatycki said concerns about cost overruns “are important and timely because we are entering a period where infrastructure has become this key buzzword, everyone is recognizing across the political spectrum that now is a good time to build it and infrastructure is the bedrock for prosperity, both here in the city and more broadly across Canada.”

See the complete report

The report lists some very public examples of cost overruns: the construction of the Spadina subway extension; the redevelopment of Union Station; the purchase of new TTC streetcars; the revitalization of Nathan Phillips Square; the upgrading of Queen’s Quay Boulevard; the building of new city halls in Vaughan and Guelph and the construction of Lansdowne Park Stadium in Ottawa.

(Image below of new streetcars by wyliepoon via flickr)

“Poorly executed public works can burden governments with hundreds of millions of dollars in unexpected expenses, put the financial viability of projects at risk and exacerbate construction related disruptions for residents and businesses,” the report states.

Siemiatycki suggested five remedies for city officials to consider:

Improved performance monitoring, reporting and information sharing.
Government tracking of the best-performing companies and contractors to ensure more predictable outcomes.
Better training of staff overseeing projects in management skills such as enforcing contracts and resolving disputes.
Drawing on more precise forecasting techniques based on data about previous projects.
Explore public-private partnerships to make it easier to control costs and enforce deadlines.

Siemiatycki noted that cost overruns “really have the potential to undermine the level of support from the public for these big, critically important projects. If people can’t believe that governments can deliver these projects effectively, then they won’t support them.”

If governments keep their promises to fund infrastructure projects, “we will be heading into the greatest period of spending in Canadian history,” Siemiatycki said. The federal government is promising major funding which could come in the spring budget or even sooner. Toronto Mayor John Tory is proposing a special property tax levy to help fund infrastructure projects.

Public/private partnerships (P3s) are “essentially a model to transfer risk from the public sector to the private sector, especially around construction. The government buys insurance against the cost of the project escalating and that can be a real benefit for major projects. But the government pays a significant premium on the front end to ensure cost certainty.”

Siemiatycki stressed that cost overruns “don’t just only plague public sector projects. Look at the oil sands, energy projects in the private sector. They demonstrate many of the same phenomena as government. This is a much broader challenge.”

(Visit flickr to see the original of the photo of Union Station)

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Analyzing SmartTrack: ��˾��ֱ�� expert Eric Miller on John Tory's transit plan

sgupta — Tue, 19 Jan 2016 16:43:25 +0000

Analyzing SmartTrack: ��˾��ֱ�� expert Eric Miller on John Tory's transit plan sgupta Tue, 01/19/2016 - 11:43

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“The more capacity you can build in the downtown, the better off everyone is, including ��˾��ֱ��,” says Eric Miller (photo by Roberta Baker)

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Transportation Research Institute releases its report

Some future ��˾��ֱ�� students might find it a little less crowded getting to the downtown Toronto campus by subway if Mayor John Tory’s SmartTrack transit plan is implemented.

Tory asked Professor Eric Miller, head of ��˾��ֱ��’s Transportation Research Institute, to analyze the ridership potential of his plan which would provide service from the Airport Corporate Centre in the west, southeast to Union Station and northeast to Markham in the east.

It would have 22 new stations and five interchanges with the TTC. The line would be built in seven years, with service starting in the early after 2021.

The report was released at City Hall on Jan. 19. (Read The Star coverage of the report.)

Miller told ��˾��ֱ�� News afterwards that while the report doesn’t specifically look at travel to and from the downtown campus “given where ��˾��ֱ�� is located I think the major impact would be to the extent that it does seem to offer some relief to the Yonge subway line.

“SmartTrack would free up some space and provide some capacity for people on Yonge St., so that could be good news for students coming from the north [of Bloor].”

Coming in from the east or west, though, would mean going to Union Station and backtracking to the St. George campus.

“Anything that improves service into the downtown area is probably helpful for ��˾��ֱ��,” though it is not the primary focus of who would benefit from SmartTrack, he said.

After the report was released, Tory, a ��˾��ֱ�� alumnus, told reporters that using TTC fares and frequent service (five minute headways) SmartTrack could attract “more than 300,000 daily riders, which is more than the daily ridership of the entire GO system.”

In general, Miller said, “the more capacity you can build in the downtown, the better off everyone is, including ��˾��ֱ��.”

But he added that “no one line is going to be a huge benefit to everybody,” noting that the institute, part of the department of civil enginering in ��˾��ֱ��'s Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, is also studying the impact of a proposed downtown relief line. That report will be made public in a few weeks.

Miller’s report looked at potential ridership in 2031 and 2041, and Tory’s boast about adding more than 300,000 riders is based on using TTC fares and a five-minute headway for trains. “It would attract huge ridership if those things happen, but there are still a lot of technical questions to be addressed,” Miller said.

“Until you have the cost side of the equation you can’t declare victory,” Miller said. “At some point you might not be able to run five-minute headways for technical reasons, or it will cost you multi-millions of dollars to do it.

“There are many miles to go on this one.”

Another report done by City planning staff suggested that the heavy rail portion of SmartTrack, from the Mount Dennis neighbourhood, centred at Eglinton Ave W. and Jane St. west to the Mississauga Airport Corporate Centre, would be too costly and disruptive to neighbourhoods.

Tory agreed and suggested light rail would be more efficient and cheaper. The plan “won’t exactly be the same concept we discussed during the (election) campaign,” but it remains “bold and transformative.”

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Health minister says drug costs are “way out of control” but change is on the way

sgupta — Mon, 18 Jan 2016 06:15:10 +0000

Health minister says drug costs are “way out of control” but change is on the way sgupta Mon, 01/18/2016 - 01:15

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Alan Christie

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Alan Christie

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Dr. Jane Philpott brings years of ��˾��ֱ�� experience to a crucial cabinet position

Dr. Jane Philpott would love to be in Addis Ababa in a few weeks to see the first students graduate from a family medicine program she was instrumental in establishing while at the University of Toronto.

Unfortunately, she will have to miss the graduation. She is too busy running Canada’s health-care system.

In November, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau named Philpott minister of health. It is perhaps the most important portfolio in government, after the prime minister and finance minister and an extraordinary achievement for a neophyte MP elected to the riding of Markham-Stouffville.

It was a remarkable posting in another way: she is the first medical doctor to become federal minister of health.

Philpott’s connection to ��˾��ֱ�� goes back to the 1980s when she spent a year doing a fellowship with Dr. Jay Keystone on tropical medicine after completing her family medicine residency at the University of Ottawa.

In 2012 she completed her master’s degree in public health at ��˾��ֱ�� and holds a clinical, part-time appointment with the department of family and community medicine at ��˾��ֱ�� at the rank of associate professor.

“I had an absolutely fabulous experience studying as a mature student at ��˾��ֱ��,” Philpott told ��˾��ֱ�� News. “It was very helpful at that stage of my career.

“I can’t say enough about the Faculty of Medicine. I worked with a lot of outstanding colleagues over the years. And as a graduate student, the amount of courses available was absolutely stunning.

“My experience really deepened my understanding of the health-care system and health policy. It was tremendously enriching for me both personally and professionally.”

Another enriching experience was her leadership role in the Faculty of Medicine’s Toronto Addis Ababa Academic Collaboration.

Alan Christie

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