Backgrounder

The Toronto City Summit Alliance represents a coalition of civic leaders from the private, labour, voluntary and public sectors in the Toronto region, as well as a network of hundreds of volunteers.

We formed this alliance because we care about the future of the region. In June of 2002, many of us participated in the Toronto City Summit - a conference of leaders representing the city's diverse communities - to assess our urban region's strengths and challenges, and shape a Framework for Action that could move us forward over the next five to ten years.

We heard that our economy has been performing well: growth in employment and output have been strong. But we were disturbed by evidence of threats to our prosperity because of growing income disparity, the deterioration of our inner city, a drop in tourism, our decaying infrastructure, and the weakening of our public services. We heard about a once-great city on the verge of decline.

This was not cause for despair but a call to action. The Toronto City Summit Alliance was formed to address the challenges the Summit identified as critical to our shared future - finance, infrastructure, education, immigration and the underlying health of our regional economy.

We were emboldened by the need to rebuild the city region and determined to get on with the job. There has been enough talk and hand-wringing. We know there are problems, and we know there are solutions. Now is the time to act on them.

We have not tried to address all of the issues facing the region, but have picked a limited number of areas where there is a clear consensus for action and where progress can be made quickly. We have aimed our recommendations, contained in our report Enough Talk, published in April 2003, at all levels of government, municipal, provincial and federal, as well as the private sector, voluntary organizations and citizens at large. Governments alone cannot address the challenges we face.

The members of the Toronto City Summit Alliance are personally dedicated to seeing these initiatives contained in Enough Talk happen. We urge all governments, political parties and mayoral candidates to endorse our recommendations. We will work to encourage community groups, voluntary organizations, the business community, organized labour and citizens of the city region to join us in this effort. In the time since the publication of Enough Talk we have worked to convene stakeholders, engage the public and work with organizations, individuals and governments to realize the recommendations contained in that report.