Day 1 | Opening: Setting the Stage and Why Downtowns Matter to the Canadian Economy

Full Panel Transcript

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Full Audience Chatroom Transcript

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Canadian Urban Institute: Welcome to the Summit on the City: Recovering Canada’s Downtowns 00:57:08 Andrew Peck: Hello from Ottawa! 00:57:23 Canadian Urban Institute: Please change your chat settings to “all panelists and attendees” or to “everyone” so that all can see your comments. 00:57:29 Elizabeth Lawrence: Hello from St. John’s, NL, economic development 00:57:39 Clint Wensley: Ye, the music is great. Hi Mary from sunny Central California 00:57:47 Canadian Urban Institute: We encourage folks to share the traditional territories on which they reside. 00:57:48 Angela Macdonald: Hello from sunny Bloor West Village, West Toronto! 00:57:50 Michael Phair: From Edmonton, Michael Phair 00:57:51 DARAMFON Morgan: Hello from Halifax, NS, Economic Development 00:57:56 Debi Croucher: Hello from Downtown Windsor 00:57:57 Betsy Hogan: Hi from Halifax 🙂 00:57:58 Canadian Urban Institute: Attendees: where are you tuning in from today? 00:58:12 Rhiannon Hayes: Hello from Downtown Winnipeg! 00:58:15 Clint Wensley: Near Fresno California 00:58:17 Lindsay Dandeneau: Hello from Winnipeg 00:58:19 Philippa Von Ziegenweidt: Love Mary’s infectious enthusiasm! 00:58:20 Meg Marshall: Meg with the Queen Street West BIA! Hello! 00:58:24 korine deol: Hi From Surrey British Columbia 00:58:24 Canadian Urban Institute: HOUSEKEEPING: A friendly zoom reminder, you can see and hear us but we can’t see or hear you. 00:58:34 Donald Goertz: Good morning from Calgary 00:58:37 Anneke Smit: Hello from Windsor Law’s Centre for Cities at the University of Windsor! 00:58:38 Rylan Graham: Hello from the University of Northern British Columbia in Prince George 00:58:42 Tanishah Nathoo: Hello from Toronto and the Environics Analytics Team! 00:58:43 Vikranthbalaji Vijayan: Hello From Toronto Ontario 00:58:51 Canadian Urban Institute: Our summit is being offered in both French and English. Please click on the globe at the bottom of your screen and select your preferred language. We are recording today’s session and will share it online at www.canurb.org/citysummit 00:59:01 paul mackinnon: Enthusiasm yes, but not sure we want to hear the word “infectious 00:59:04 paul mackinnon: LOL 00:59:16 Diego Almaraz: Hello from what is known today as Waterloo, Ontario:  traditional territory of the Neutral, Anishinaabeg and Haudenosaunee peoples, and includes part of the land granted to the Six Nations that includes six miles on each side of the Grand River. 00:59:56 Frank Murphy: Good morning from Nanaimo! 01:00:09 cowboy dallas: COWBOYDALLAS.COM DALLASPAISLEY.COM I’M IN REGINA SK  01:00:28 fredrica walters: Good morning from the Pickering, Ajax area 01:00:31 cowboy dallas: 1-416-474-2357 1-888-456-2357 01:00:52 Zelda Brown: London (The Forest City), 🌳🌲🍃, Ontario, Cheers! 01:00:56 cowboy dallas: I am a general contractor 01:01:11 cowboy dallas: paisleyscontracting.com 01:01:16 Tasha Morizio: Hello from Montréal! 01:01:30 Chantal Larmond: Hello from Sault Ste Marie, I am a student at Algoma University 01:01:30 Bashar Al-Hussaini: Hello from Mississauga 01:01:44 Taylor Jaehrling: Hello from CityStudio Sault Ste. Marie! 01:01:45 Shannon Bowler: Hello from sunny Tkaronto! Here with Culture Days and looking forward to all the sessions. 01:01:53 Jennifer Findlay: Kenora 01:01:58 Stephen Watt: Port Coquitlam, BC 01:01:58 Annie MacInnis: Hello from Kensington BIA in Calgary 01:02:11 Laura Ispas: Hello from Duke Heights BIA, Toronto 01:02:44 Kay Matthews: Hello from the Ontario BIA Association, representing more than 310 BIAs across Ontario, 96% of which represent neighbourhood, community and main streets, 01:02:48 Canadian Urban Institute: We hope this summit is as interactive as possible, so please feel free to share comments, references, links and questions in the chat. 01:02:53 Andrea Steenbakkers: Good afternoon from Ottawa 01:02:56 Emma Harper: Hello, Environmental Planner in Kitchener ON 01:03:05 Anne Poirier Basque: Hello from Downtown Moncton, NB 01:03:07 Michelle Warren: Good afternoon everyone from sunny Toronto!  🙂 01:03:07 Katie Cassin: Hello from Oshawa ON 🙂 01:03:11 paul mackinnon: Mary, will you be selling some of your jams and jellies and preserves later? 01:03:12 Sueling Ching: Hello from the Ottawa Board of Trade. Thank you for hosting, Mary et al! 01:03:13 Mary Chevreau: Hi Everyone, CEO Kitchener Public Library 01:03:13 Anthony Haddad: Good morning from Penticton, BC! 01:03:17 Sandra Severs: Good morning.  Hello from Victoria and the Downtown Residents Association. 01:03:19 Erwin Dreessen: Hello from Ottawa. Hoping Ottawa’s new Official Plan will come up — con- or destructive of Ottawa’s downtown? 01:03:20 Catherine Deegan: Hello from Leslieville Toronto 01:03:22 Dinesh Burad: Hello from all of us, Architects Orchestrating Architecture, here in Edmonton AB at sa-i,ca, 01:03:25 Rhonda Jessup: Hi! CEO, Whitby Public Library in Ontario 01:03:25 Amy Malyon: Hi! From Cornwall Ontario. 01:03:26 Dawne Taylor-Gilders: Hello from Uptown Waterloo BIA 01:03:29 Canadian Urban Institute: Our summit is being offered in both French and English. Please click on the globe at the bottom of your screen and select your preferred language. 01:03:30 Angela Evans: Good Morning from Vancouver – Collingwood BIA 01:03:30 Jose Fernandez Garcia: Jose – City of Vancouver, Planner 01:03:35 Purshottama Reddy: Hello, from Durban, South Africa. 01:03:44 Kiran Chhiba: Hello from Dillon Consulting in Oakville – Urban Designer and Planner 01:03:44 Louroz Mercader: Hello from the York-Eglinton BIA in Toronto! 01:03:48 Catherine McKenney: Hi from City of Ottawa. 01:03:53 Kent Roberts: Good afternoon from the Halifax Chamber of Commerce. 01:03:56 Suzan Prett: Good morning from Vancouver! 01:04:01 Suzanne Kavanagh: Hello from the St. Lawrence Neighbourhood, Toronto 01:04:02 Sue Uteck: Hello from the best coast- Halifax! 01:04:02 Samantha Staresincic: Hello from Downtown Kitchener, Ontario! 01:04:02 Jayne Engle: Bonjour and greetings from the island of Tiohtià:ke! Also called Montréal. Grateful to be a conscious steward on these unceded traditional homelands of the Mohawk and other Indigenous Peoples. 01:04:03 Kelly Haussler: Hello from Ottawa 01:04:13 Celia Smith: Hello from Luminato Festival Toronto – looking forward to seeing you out in the streets, parks and plazas across the region in June! 01:04:23 Donald McConnell: Hello from Sault Ste. Marie 01:04:25 Janice Solomon: Hello from Toronto Downtown West BIA 01:04:35 Neil Betteridge: Neil from Gooderham and Worts Neighborhood Association — Distillery District in downtown Toronto 01:04:43 Gay Stephenson: Good morning from the west coast of Canada! 01:04:43 Jeff Hrynkiw: Hello From Nipawin Saskatchewan 01:04:45 Arto Keklikian: Greetings from the National Capital Commission in Ottawa. 01:04:47 Canadian Urban Institute: A friendly reminder, please change your chat settings to “all panelists and attendees” or to “everyone” so that all can see your comments. 01:04:55 Jade Williams: Hello from City Place/Fort York BIA! 01:04:55 Stephanie McCracken: Hello from Church-Wellesley Village BIA in Toronto. Great to see you Councillor! 01:05:04 Paul Bedford: Or as my partner likes to say “As the main street goes, so goes the community.” 01:05:05 Debbie Chapman: Hello from Kitchener. 01:05:09 Adrian Cammaert: Hello from Newmarket 01:05:11 Craig Walker: Hello from St. Albert, Alberta. 01:05:12 Chiara: Hello from Downtown Tkaronto! 01:05:13 Canadian Urban Institute: This Summit would have not been possible without the incredible support of our partners and sponsors. Please visit www.canurb.org/citysummit for the full list of sponsors. 01:05:18 Pilar Martinez: Hello from downtown Edmonton! 01:05:19 Richard Mahe: will the recordings be made available? I would like to have access and not have to make too many notes today. 01:05:25 Clint Wensley: There are many proven ways to redevelop city cores through innovated shows that bring tourism at levels you would never believe. We at Media Façade created the largest City Scape show on earth in Shenzhen China, drawing millions of people annually. We are working on a few projects in Canada now www.MediaFacadeAmericas.com 01:05:27 Wendy Pollard: Good morning from Prince George, BC 01:05:33 Samar Chandra: Hello! from Whitby 01:05:37 Canadian Urban Institute: CUI’s Case for the Core: Provocations for the Future of Canada’s Downtowns affirms the critical roles of central business districts to our national recovery after the pandemic. Read the report here: https://bringbackmainstreet.ca/case-for-the-core-report 01:05:50 Paisleys Contracting: good morning from Regina SK 01:05:57 Maryam Mahvash: Hello from Vancouver! 01:06:07 Alia Abbas: Hello Everyone, Its Alia Abbas from Toronto Global. https://www.linkedin.com/in/aliaabbas21/ 01:07:37 Max Williams: Hello from Sarnia ON 01:07:49 Jane MacCarthy: Good morning. I’m a communications consultant joining from foggy North Vancouver/traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations 01:08:31 Canadian Urban Institute: Please change your chat settings to “all panelists and attendees” or to “everyone” so that all can see your comments. 01:08:37 Clint Wensley: This is what we can do for your cities 01:08:39 Clint Wensley: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1n-aFwkGqc 01:08:49 Al Smith: Hello from the St Lawrence Market Neighbourhood in Toronto 01:08:54 Terry Skidnuk: Hi from Edmonton 01:09:05 Terry Guiel: Mental health, homelessness and addictions are easily more of an issue Councillor Tam   01:09:05 Patrick Farrar: Tuning in from the Halifax Innovation Outpost in Nova Scotia – supporting food security and climate action! https://ca.linkedin.com/in/patrickjfarrar 01:09:10 Inara Awadia: Will the recording be made available later? 01:10:16 Scott Cluney: Hello from Downtown St. John’s Newfoundland. The most easterly BIA in North America Canadian Urban Institute: COMING UP: Why Downtowns Matter to the Canadian Economy (12:15pm – 12:45pm ET) with Amarjeet Sohi Mayor, City of Edmonton and former Minister, Infrastructure and Communities, Government of Canada; Goldy Hyder (Ottawa), CEO, Business Council on National Issues, Ottawa; and Michael Emory, President and CEO, Allied REIT. 01:10:27 Inara Awadia: Can you share the link here? 01:11:20 Cherie Klassen: Yeah! Our Mayor in Edmonton! 01:11:57 Terry Skidnuk: Hi Mayor Sohi – great that you are here! 01:12:29 Canadian Urban Institute: Mayor Amarjeet Sohi is a Canadian politician who is currently serving as mayor of Edmonton, recently elected in October 2021. Sohi previously sat as a member of Parliament (MP) and served in the federal Cabinet from 2015 to 2018 as the minister of infrastructure and communities, and from 2018 to 2019 as the minister of natural resources. Sohi was born in India and is the first visible minority to serve as mayor of Edmonton. 01:12:39 Canadian Urban Institute: Goldy Hyder is President and Chief Executive Officer of the Business Council of Canada. He is chair of the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada’s Asia Business Leaders Advisory Council, a board member of the Business + Higher Education Roundtable, an executive committee member of the Century Initiative and co-chair of Canada’s World Trade Organization Business Advisory Council. He sits on the advisory boards of two leading organizations promoting advancement of women leaders: Catalyst Canada and the 30% Club (Canada). 01:12:56 Canadian Urban Institute: Michael Emory founded Allied REIT, where he serves as President and CEO.  Prior to entering the real estate business in 1988, he was a partner at the law firm of Aird & Berlis LLP, specializing in corporate and real estate finance.  He is also a Director of Equitable Group Inc. and Equitable Bank. 01:13:19 Cathy Quinton: Hello from Little Portugal Toronto! 01:13:43 Gwen Bang: Hello from Kensington Market, Toronto! 01:14:04 Terry Guiel: YES, Mayor Sohi, that is what needs to be dealt with or their will be no recovery 01:14:36 fredrica walters: Thank you Mayor Sohi for addressing the issues such as homelessness.  Some cities think by ignoring it, it will go away. 01:14:38 Terry Guiel: You can’t vacinate away homelessness, mental health, addiction and crime. 01:14:51 Jamie (she/her), Canadian Urban Institute: We have enabled closed captioning for the audience.  If you do not require CC, please click on the button at the bottom of your screen and disable.  Thank you! 01:14:58 Paisleys Contracting: Trudeau is incompetent 01:15:36 paul mackinnon: Interested to hear from Mayor Sohi how we can get the Fed government to tackle urban issues more holistically. All of the key challenges seem to be concentrated in our downtowns. 01:15:45 Jennifer Findlay: Have attended the Edmonton Fringe Festival and fell in love with the downtown area 01:16:11 Roland Dorsay: Hi, from the Federation of Citizens Associations of Ottawa. 01:16:23 Terry Guiel: You won’t bring people back to downtown until it is safe.  Until the homelessness and addiction and crime issues are not dealt with. 01:16:41 Cherie Klassen: Awesome to hear Jennifer F. Fringe is our home grown festival in Old Strathcona. We’re the south-side downtown in Edmonton. 01:17:07 Rino Bortolin: Amazing to see how similar the issues are. Even more evidence that at any level municipal leaders need to be at the heart of all these conversations. 01:17:27 Shiv Ruparell: Great to hear the Business Council’s/Goldy’s voice on this issue 01:18:04 Angela Macdonald: ^Agree – Goldy’s voice on this issue is essential! 01:18:08 Terry Guiel: Downtown’s are the center for the homeless, the addicted, those with mental health crisis and those who are criminals.  I wish Covid was all I worried about.   01:19:21 Canadian Urban Institute: Please change your chat settings to “all panelists and attendees” or to “everyone” so that all can see your comments. 01:20:18 Terry Guiel: Working from home ( Municipal staff and elected staff) is part of the problem.  They are needed to work in the downtown (lunches, vibrancy) and to actually SEE the homeless and addiction issues.  Working from home makes our municipal leaders blind.  Some not even in the same city when they work from home. 01:21:23 Janet Rodriguez: Substance use disorder is  public health matter and political decision is needed to include a line in the budget for this and for housing 01:21:24 paul mackinnon: It’s a chicken/egg issue – vibrancy and great businesses, events, etc, will draw people back. But how do we attract biz and events without people? 01:21:35 Janet Rodriguez: No need to dehumanize people who live disabilities 01:21:56 Tim Kocur: SRRA’s Toronto Office Occupancy Index just emailed now.  7% in downtown core right now.   Highest since pandemic had been around 15% in last quarter of 2021. 01:22:07 Purshottama Reddy: People are working from home – which is fine. What about those large office towers and neighbouring coffee shops – what are the financial implications for municipalities looking specifically at their rates base. ? 01:23:11 Shiv Ruparell: Will recordings of each panel be available after the summit? @CanUrb 01:23:46 Jamie (she/her), Canadian Urban Institute: Hi Shiv! Yes, recordings will be made available at www.canurb.org/citysummit 01:23:48 Sandy Craik: In the GTA, there is approximately 180 million square feet of office space- 90 million in the suburbs, 90+million downtown- vacancy in the suburbs is +18-25% versus sub 10% – suburbs are cities too. ESG will dictate diversions from long commutes- 2.5- 4hours per day are not uncommon. This should not be us or them- shouldn’t it be about people and planet? 01:24:15 Patrick Sullivan: As Goldy suggested Confidence is so important. POST https://postpromise.com/ provides a great kit to assist in confidence building. 01:25:11 Wesley Reibeling: We do have to make a point though that some can still die. Immunecomprimised people are still a very high risk. I think it is a balancing act between safety (and confidence) and finding ways to really actually support SMEs.  Are their other cities around the world that we can look up to on their own recovery, at their own placemaking, at their own ways to bring culture and people back to downtown? 01:25:42 Stephanie McCracken: That’s a hopeful message, Michael. 01:25:48 fredrica walters: Thank you for being honest Mr. Emory. Businesses were more concerned about what they could get that what would ultimate benefit the overall good of our citizens. 01:25:48 Terry Guiel: Government was not ahead the crises before the pandemic ( mental health, addiction, homelessness ) so when Covid came they really failed downtowns because they couldn’t deal with the massive increase the pandemic created.  01:27:15 Terry Guiel: I thought this was about downtowns…not cities 01:28:29 Canadian Urban Institute: Please change your chat settings to “all panelists and attendees” or to “everyone” so that all can see your comments. 01:28:47 Graham Singh: We’ll be picking up @Michael’s point about overseas investors later this afternoon @4pm, as we look at the faith communities of new Canadians and how our traditional church properties respond.  Our challenge is making sure that good urban planning + social impact finance, gets to these questions before overseas funded REITs do (@Michael, we’ll need your help with this!) 01:31:32 Gwen Bang: I really agree with what you just said  Mayor Sohi 01:31:57 Duncan Maclennan: Goody is right that labour shortage has been mainly North American but working from home and shifts to well-connected suburbs and small towns s not. A major issue in Europe and Australia, and it has predated Covid-19 and has a lot to do with young people rationed out of city cores by housing up affordability. 01:32:19 Angela Macdonald: Pandemic put incredible pressures on capacity of inefficient Health Care System. 01:32:19 Terry Guiel: The Mayor is on point.  The others, not so much. 01:32:52 paul mackinnon: Some impacts are delayed. Downtown Halifax’s assessment base is down 6.4%, mostly due to re-assessments for large hotels. The other shoe will drop as office leases end or get re-negotiated. Not sure municipalities are forecasting for this sort of drop, and curious as to whether this is common in other Cdn cities. 01:33:06 Janet Rodriguez: @Mayor Sohi, Ontario is supposed to be fully accessible by Jan 1 2025, that’s less than 3 years. 01:33:07 Mark van Elsberg: All levels of government have to start focussing infrastructure funding from on our downtowns in a similar way that we have invested in recovery efforts rebuilding our highways and bridges after the natural disasters.  Our Cities have experienced a human flood of people leaving the cores, and with this exodus we are undermining our competitive edge.  All levels of govt must start investing in those who chose to STAY in the downtown.  Investing in our cores entice businesses, residents and tourists is good for each sector and the same investment improves all.    We are getting the private sector to invest in the private land, but 50% of our cores are PUBLICLY owned.  Michael is correct, the world is investing in our private property in our cores, but the investment in public properties is not keeping up. 01:33:45 paul mackinnon: Right on, M van E! 01:34:30 Janet Rodriguez: Since 2005 when the AODA (Accessibility for Ontarians with Disability) was enacted, little has effectively happened to have more accessible and deeply affordable housing.