Toronto City Summit Alliance
Encyclopedia
CivicAction is a coalition of civic leaders in the Toronto region. CivicAction was formed to address social, economic and environmental city-building challenges such as: greening initiatives, diversity in leadership, expanding knowledge-based industry, poor economic integration of immigrants, decaying infrastructure, and affordable housing. CivicAction adopted its current name in December 2010.
CivicAction convenes partners from the non-profit, private, labour, and government to work together to develop and support initiatives addressing issues critical to the future health and wealth of the Toronto region.
following a 2002 summit of business and community leaders. Pecaut led a 40-member steering committee that generated Enough Talk: An Action Plan for the Toronto Region, which provided the roadmap for the organization's focus on issues where there was a clear consensus for action and where it felt progress could be made quickly.
Following Enough Talk, the committee created a non-profit corporation to convene leaders from all sectors to work together to tackle specific social and economic challenges. CivicAction is led by a 10-person Board of Directors and a 55-leader Steering Committee.
In 2010, John Tory
was appointed chair of the alliance succeeding David Pecaut
who passed away in December 2009. CivicAction's day-to-day operations are led by CEO Julia Deans and 14 full and part time staff.
Over 6000 people in the Toronto region have been involved in projects CivicAction has developed and supported, including:
• Toront03 Alliance: raised and invested over $11 million in post-SARS tourism recovery and branding, leading to over $80 million in economic benefit for Ontario;
• Toronto Region Immigrant Employment Council (TRIEC): developed in partnership with The Maytree Foundation, TRIEC's Mentoring Partnership has created 4200 mentoring matches and Career Bridge has facilitated over 1000 internships (close to 80% of Career Bridge interns have secured full-time work in their field);
• Strong Neighbourhoods Task Force: a collaborative effort of United Way Toronto, the City of Toronto and the Alliance, the Task Force created a plan to revitalize neighbourhoods, identifying 13 as priorities for investment;
• Modernizing Income Security for Working-Age Adults (MISWAA) Task Force: developed a roadmap to modernize income security to ensure the full economic participation of working-age adults. An initiative of the Alliance and St. Christopher House, MISWAA helped to bring about the federal Working Income Tax Benefit, the new Ontario Child Benefit, and a provincial dental plan;
• Toronto Region Research Alliance
: unites governments, technology-based companies, colleges and universities and financial institutions in attracting major investments and promoting research in the Golden Horseshoe;
• Luminato
: this annual $15 million international festival capitalizes on Toronto’s strong cultural and tourism assets. It features artists from across Canada and abroad and attracted over one million participants in 2007 and again in 2008; and
• Canada's first Social Entrepreneurship Summit: together with MaRS Discovery District, the Centre for Social Innovation and The Boston Consulting Group, the Alliance brought together 160 Canadian social entrepreneurs and others to support social entrepreneurship and award the Schwab Foundation's first Canadian Social Entrepreneur of the Year award.
CivicAction convenes partners from the non-profit, private, labour, and government to work together to develop and support initiatives addressing issues critical to the future health and wealth of the Toronto region.
Organization
CivicAction (www.civicaction.ca) is a not-for-profit, non-partisan organization formed to address challenges to the Toronto region’s social and economic future. It was created by David PecautDavid Pecaut
David Kent Pecaut, was an American-born Canadian civic leader, city builder and a strategist. He was known for his visionary initiatives, and solutions-based approach to social issues. He was able to convene different stakeholders, and implement holistic solutions. He was instrumental in...
following a 2002 summit of business and community leaders. Pecaut led a 40-member steering committee that generated Enough Talk: An Action Plan for the Toronto Region, which provided the roadmap for the organization's focus on issues where there was a clear consensus for action and where it felt progress could be made quickly.
Following Enough Talk, the committee created a non-profit corporation to convene leaders from all sectors to work together to tackle specific social and economic challenges. CivicAction is led by a 10-person Board of Directors and a 55-leader Steering Committee.
In 2010, John Tory
John Tory
John Howard Tory is a Canadian businessman, political activist, former leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario, former Member of Provincial Parliament and broadcaster...
was appointed chair of the alliance succeeding David Pecaut
David Pecaut
David Kent Pecaut, was an American-born Canadian civic leader, city builder and a strategist. He was known for his visionary initiatives, and solutions-based approach to social issues. He was able to convene different stakeholders, and implement holistic solutions. He was instrumental in...
who passed away in December 2009. CivicAction's day-to-day operations are led by CEO Julia Deans and 14 full and part time staff.
Projects
Following are the projects currently underway by CivicAction:- Greening Greater TorontoGreening Greater TorontoGreening Greater Toronto, is an organization of over 120 civic leaders from business, NGOs, and government joined together to develop a regional environmental vision to achieve the goal of making the Greater Toronto Area the greenest city-region in North America...
http://www.greeninggreatertoronto.ca/: The 120-member Greening Greater Toronto Task Force and Working Groups charted a plan to help the GTA become the greenest city region in North America. Launched in June 2008 and led by Co-Chairs David Pecaut, Eva Ligeti (Executive Director, Clean Air Partnership) and Mike Pederson (Group Head, Corporate Operations, TD Bank Financial Group), the plan identifies key drivers of the region’s environmental issues. Greening Greater Toronto is currently driving major commercial retrofitting and procurement initiatives, has created a domestic emissions reductions fund, and is helping to develop demonstration and education centres to help residents easily see and take advantage of environmental technologies.
- DiverseCity http://www.diversecitytoronto.ca/: The Greater Toronto Leadership Project: Guided by a 40-leader Steering Committee, the Alliance and The Maytree Foundation have developed a roadmap to help ensure that the Toronto region’s leadership landscape becomes as diverse as its population and draws on the growing number of visible minorities and recent immigrants who live in the region. To this end, we have created eight concrete, practical and measurable initiatives to help diversify the leadership of public, private, non-profit and political institutions and create the conditions for maximizing the benefits of diversity.
- Emerging Leaders Network http://elnonline.ca/: Launched in 2006, the ELN is a diverse network of 380+ emerging leaders whose mission is to advance the Toronto region through awareness, influence and action.
Over 6000 people in the Toronto region have been involved in projects CivicAction has developed and supported, including:
• Toront03 Alliance: raised and invested over $11 million in post-SARS tourism recovery and branding, leading to over $80 million in economic benefit for Ontario;
• Toronto Region Immigrant Employment Council (TRIEC): developed in partnership with The Maytree Foundation, TRIEC's Mentoring Partnership has created 4200 mentoring matches and Career Bridge has facilitated over 1000 internships (close to 80% of Career Bridge interns have secured full-time work in their field);
• Strong Neighbourhoods Task Force: a collaborative effort of United Way Toronto, the City of Toronto and the Alliance, the Task Force created a plan to revitalize neighbourhoods, identifying 13 as priorities for investment;
• Modernizing Income Security for Working-Age Adults (MISWAA) Task Force: developed a roadmap to modernize income security to ensure the full economic participation of working-age adults. An initiative of the Alliance and St. Christopher House, MISWAA helped to bring about the federal Working Income Tax Benefit, the new Ontario Child Benefit, and a provincial dental plan;
• Toronto Region Research Alliance
Toronto Region Research Alliance
The Toronto Region Research Alliance is a regional economic development organization promoting increased investment in research and innovation to further economic prosperity...
: unites governments, technology-based companies, colleges and universities and financial institutions in attracting major investments and promoting research in the Golden Horseshoe;
• Luminato
Luminato
Luminato - Toronto Festival of Arts and Creativity, is a publicly-attended, multi-disciplinary arts festival held annually for 10 days each June in Toronto, Ontario, Canada...
: this annual $15 million international festival capitalizes on Toronto’s strong cultural and tourism assets. It features artists from across Canada and abroad and attracted over one million participants in 2007 and again in 2008; and
• Canada's first Social Entrepreneurship Summit: together with MaRS Discovery District, the Centre for Social Innovation and The Boston Consulting Group, the Alliance brought together 160 Canadian social entrepreneurs and others to support social entrepreneurship and award the Schwab Foundation's first Canadian Social Entrepreneur of the Year award.