Green Technology Webinar Series - Powersmiths WOW Sustainability Management Platform

Event Date:  December 15, 2011

Event Time:  1:00 - 1:45 p.m. EST

Cost: FREE (registration is required)

More Information:  These monthly Green Technology Webinars take place on the third Thursday of every month at 1 p.m. and are brought to you by the Clinton Climate Initiative, Partners in Project Green, Greening Greater Toronto and the Canada Green Building Council – Greater Toronto Chapter.

To register, click here

THE first applications for the Parent and Grandparent Super Visa will be accepted today, Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney announced on December 1.

The Parent and Grandparent Super Visa is one element of Phase I of the Action Plan for Faster Family Reunification, announced in November. The Super Visa will allow applicants to remain in Canada for up to 24 months at a time without having to renew their status.

To be eligible, the applicant must:

• Be a parent or grandparent of a Canadian citizen or permanent resident;
• Provide a written commitment of financial support from their child or grandchild in Canada, including proof that the child or grandchild meets the minimum necessary income (Low Income Cut-Off);
• Undergo the Immigration Medical Examination;
• Submit proof that they have purchased comprehensive Canadian medical insurance, valid for at least one year; and
• Satisfy the visa officer that they meet all other standard admissibility criteria.

Current processing times through the Family Class indicate that many parents and grandparents could wait for eight years or more to be accepted to Canada. With the Super Visa, they could be enjoying the company of their family in about eight weeks.

For more details on applying for the Parent and Grandparent Super Visa, please see the attached backgrounder.

Building a stronger Canada: Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) strengthens Canada’s economic, social and cultural prosperity, helping ensure Canadian safety and security while managing one of the largest and most generous immigration programs in the world.

• Applying for a Parent and Grandparent Super Visa
• Frequently asked questions: Visiting Canada – Parent and Grandparent Super Visa

TORONTO Public Health Youth Grants (TPHYG) is offering grants for youth agencies and organizations.

These grants help motivate and create opportunities for youth engagement and action on health issues within Toronto. Funded projects are youth-driven, community-based and emphasize partnerships.

You can apply for a grant if you are an agency serving youth or an organization with existing youth groups and your participants are between 13 – 19 years old. Contact us by e-mail at beyourbestself@toronto.ca for more information.

Check out some of the work the youth involved in TPHYG have created

TORONTO Public Health will be producing several promotional videos and are looking for youth to take part and be in the videos.

The videos will each:

• cover a specific health-related subject, particular to youth
• inspire Toronto youth to share their own "second take" experiences by submitting a video to the campaign contest
• require 15-20 youth participants*

To be eligible to appear in the Be Your Best Self TPH promotional videos, youth must:

• reside in the Toronto
• be between 13 and 24 years old
• be available for a telephone interview between December 3 and 6
• be available for 2-3 hours after school or on the weekend between December 3 and 9 (date TBD)
• be passionate for health promotion & being your best self!

* All chosen participants will receive an incentive.

If you are interested and eligible, contact us by 4 p.m. on Monday , December 5, 2011.
Phone: 416-338-8487 and leave your name and contact information.

Free dental care for youth under 17

Toronto Public Health provides free non-emergency and emergency dental care for eligible youth under 17 years.

Call or visit one of our clinics to get more information about Toronto Public Health dental services. See a list of all the clinics around the city.

Youth Health Action Network (YHAN)

YHAN is a Toronto Public Health youth engagement initiative. Youth are involved in planning, coordinating and taking action on current and emerging health issues affecting youth within Toronto. If you are between 16 - 24 years old and live in the City of Toronto, consider applying to be part of our network. For more information contact us by e-mail at beyourbestself@toronto.ca or register online.

Introducing our 2011 Youth Health Action Network (YHAN). Read YHAN profiles to find out what health issues concern them most, what skills and interests they bring, and what they hope to accomplish as a YHAN member.

McDougald acclaimed as of chair for unprecedented 14^th term, school to be named in her honour

AT their annual meeting on Dec. 1, trustees of the Peel District School Board acclaimed Janet McDougald, trustee for Mississauga wards 1 and 7, as chair. McDougald has been a trustee for 23 years, has served as chair for 14 years and was previously vice-chair for three years. Suzanne Nurse, trustee for Brampton wards 2 and 6, was acclaimed as vice-chair. Nurse is starting her sixth year in public office. Trustees also made the decision to officially rename Hartsdale Avenue Public School in honour of McDougald.

Trustee Beryl Ford announced the renaming of the school. In her comments she noted, “Since becoming trustee in 1988, Janet has worked hard as a member of the board—and as my vice-chair—a role she held from 1994 to 1997,” said Beryl Ford, trustee for wards 7 and 8 in Brampton. “She has an incredible work ethic, and a deep commitment to what is very best for the children of Peel. She is a passionate, and even some would say, relentless advocate for our students at the local, provincial and national level.”

Joined by family at the surprise announcement, McDougald noted, "This is so special—to have a school named for me, and especially for the school to be in my community. "Thank you to all of my trustee colleagues. This is truly an amazing hounour."

Upon returning to the role of chair, McDougald highlighted, “It’s truly a privilege to serve the board in this capacity—and a privilege that I take respectfully and seriously," McDougald said in her inaugural remarks. “I want you to know that I never take this role—or your support—for granted.”

McDougald added, “As a board, our ability to disagree civilly, work together well, reach consensus and always treat each other with respect makes us not only highly effective, but I believe a model for other boards. Why? Because underlying how we treat each other, how we work together, how we support each other is the key belief that what we do is not what is politically expedient, or what might make headlines, or even what is ‘popular’, but rather what we absolutely know to be best for the students of Peel.”

“As I reflect on my 14 years as chair, and my over 20 years as a trustee, I’m struck by how well that guiding principle—students first—has served this board, our students and this community,” said McDougald. “In good times and bad, our unwavering commitment to the needs of children has guided us and made sure that our decisions were the right decisions for the right reasons. That is something we should be proud of as a board—it is our greatest strength.”

Tony Pontes, director of education, shared some of the major achievements and stories of the past year in his annual report to the board. “When you think about an annual report, you might picture graphs and numbers—an overwhelming amount of data. Although data is important—and a ministry requirement—it’s never the main focus of our reports. That’s because we’re about so much more than numbers. We are about the stories behind the numbers.” The printed annual report will be available at the end of January 2012.

Janet McDougald Public School will be located at 498 Hartsdale Avenue in Mississauga.

View the complete text of McDougald's and Pontes’ remarks at www.peelschools.org.

By JACK DIAMOND

IT’s the level of services in a city that puts the urbane into urban life. It’s the quality of life of Canadian cities that ensures their competitiveness. It’s the services that our cities provide that give them their competitive edge.

The assumption that cities across Canada can somehow balance the books by eliminating what has been called gravy is clearly mistaken. Attempts to cut “fat” end up cutting muscle and bone from the urban body. Squeezing public services to address a structurally defective funding system is like raiding the piggy bank to pay a mortgage.

Selling the family jewels, another exercise in futility, will only result in short-term gain for long-term pain. This is particularly true of the sale of social or rent-supplemented housing, a critical component of ensuring social equity, surely a Canadian value.

What municipalities need is increased revenue. But our Constitution gives no fiscal power to cities. That infrastructure planning, investment, construction, maintenance and the funding of services require long-term commitments and stable financing only makes that lack of power more acute.

While there’s little or no gravy to be found in current city operations, there’s enormous wastefulness in the form of our cities. But there are, at the federal, provincial and municipal levels, more effective means to reduce or even eliminate such excess without constitutional change.

To understand where the wastefulness exists, consider the layout of 21st-century cities. The Golden Commission analyzed the cost of operating different forms of urban configuration and found that the extra cost of operating a widespread, low-density city such as Toronto, compared with a more compact city such as Zurich or Vienna (to say nothing of Manhattan or Hong Kong), was an average of $1-billion annually over 20 years. And that was 1996!

Indeed, municipalities in which the predominant land use is that of single families or other low-density forms of accommodation find that real-estate taxes simply don’t meet the cost of providing hard (street lighting, garbage pickup etc.) and soft (libraries, parks etc.) services. To continue building cities in this way can only plunge municipalities even deeper into debt.

Given our constitutional constraints and the extent of low-density suburban growth already in place, how do we address this seemingly intractable condition?

First, the federal government could review the way in which it has provided infrastructure funding, which has not been made on the basis of the most effective long-term benefits. In 1997, Ottawa created the Canada Foundation for Innovation, with $4-billion sequestered for health care and biomedical research. Applicants compete on the basis of objectives, means and targeted outcomes. The fund has attracted the very best from around the globe and stimulated research that brings kudos to Canada and will be of enormous benefit worldwide.

Why not apply this model to infrastructure funding? The federal government could demand performance standards designed to reduce the cost of operating cities and, at the same time, improve their productivity and quality of life. Cities with proposals that best met the performance standards would win the necessary funding. Consideration of this model is particularly timely, as Ottawa is to hold talks with the provinces and cities on what a long-term infrastructure plan should look like. (The Building Canada Plan expires in 2014.)

An essential criterion might be to improve the modal split – that is, to increase the ratio of public ridership versus automobile use. Another might be to increase average residential density. (This wouldn’t mean no single-family housing, only a more balanced residential portfolio.) One result would be that investment in transit could pay its way.

Second, the provinces could introduce full cost pricing. Currently, they fund expressways, water and sewage trunk services – in effect, subsidizing the developer at the expense of the city. Such a measure would benefit the city’s configuration and its servicing costs.

And third, at the municipal level, improvements can be made through zoning and city bylaws. These could be rewritten, for example, to allow development of any land use, whether residential, commercial or industrial, only within 1,000 metres of a transit stop. This would tie land use and density to transportation capacity (Planning 101) and also ensure jobs accessibility and reduce commuting times. It also would encourage the integration of all modes of transportation across city regions.

The large parking areas now surrounding shopping centres should be rezoned to allow their development as town centres; and single-family housing should be permitted to convert to duplexes, potentially doubling the existing residential capacity without further land consumption.

If this approach is too radical, consider the alternative: Besides increasing debt, there’ll be more sprawl and needless consumption of agricultural, recreational and conservation land, yet longer commuting times, lower productivity, less efficient emergency services, more pollution and a diminished quality of life.

The efforts at all levels of government, particularly municipal, should be focused on land-use planning where the true avoidable costs are, rather than raiding the piggy bank to try short-term fixes.

Jack Diamond is a principal of Toronto-based Diamond + Schmitt Architects.

ARE you or your spouse eligible to receive the City of Burlington’s $450 Low-Income Seniors Property Tax Rebate for 2011? To be eligible you must meet following requirements:

• You or your spouse are 65 years of age and receive the Guaranteed Income Supplement (pursuant to the Old Age Security Act.)

• You or your spouse, are and have been, for the past one year, the assessed owner and occupant of the residential property in the City of Burlington.

• An application must be submitted each and every year.

Contact the City of Burlington Tax Office at 905-335-7750 for an application form or visit the website at www.burlington.ca. Must ensure that applications be received by the city by Dec. 31, 2011, either in person, by mail or in the Locust Street night depository.

NOTE: Burlington City Hall will be closed from Monday Dec. 26, 2011 to Friday Dec. 30, 2011.

Applications may be mailed to:

The City Of Burlington

426 Brant St., P O Box 5080

Burlington, Ont. L7R 4G4

THE City of Brampton has started construction on a new transit terminal at Shoppers World. This facility is crucial to the development of the City's public transit system, especially , the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) service. The new terminal will replace the existing one at Shoppers World. It will be located on the northwest corner of Main Street and Steeles Avenue and will support Brampton Transit conventional buses, as well as  service along Main Street (launched in September 2011) and Steeles Avenue (beginning Fall 2012).

The terminal building will have a customer information centre, washrooms, enclosed waiting areas and digital displays featuring real-time information. The covered platform will have 17 bus bays, including seven that are on-street and will be connected to the terminal building by a covered walkway. Enquiries can be directed to the Brampton Transit website or the Brampton Transit Customer Service Centre at 905.874.2999.

The printed guides will be available through a broad distribution network, including the Festivals & Events Ontario website and office, the Ontario Tourism Marketing Partnership Corporation website, information centres, call centres and associated tourism related channels throughout the province. Ensure that your festival/event(s) are submitted to the FESTIVALS AND EVENTS ONTARIO self-managed database/website at www.festivalsandeventsontario.ca by the December 7th, 2011 deadline.

Courtesy: .Insider, Town of Halton

THE City of Mississauga walked away with an Award of Excellence and three Awards of Merit at the 30th Annual Mississauga Urban Design Awards on November 22. The awards program is the longest running municipal urban design competition in Ontario.

Mississauga Celebration Square and the University of Toronto Mississauga Instructional Centre garnered Awards of Excellence in Urban Design, while the City's Burnhamthorpe Library Redevelopment and the pool additions at the Clarkson and Malton Community Centres each took home an Award of Merit.

The City's winning entries were four of the City's Infrastructure Stimulus Fund (ISF) projects recently completed through the ISF program's combination of municipal, provincial and federal funding.

For an additional twist to the evening, Citizen Development Group has presented on the design and construction of the iconic Absolute tower, widely known as the 'Marilyn' building. Acclaimed architect Yansong Ma, who won an international urban design competition in 2006 for designing the Marilyn tower, was in attendance.

As Canada's sixth largest city, Mississauga is home to 734,000 residents and 55,000 businesses, including 63 Fortune 500 companies with Canadian head offices or major divisional head offices. A diverse, progressive and award-winning municipality located on the shores of Lake Ontario in the heart of the Greater Toronto Area, Mississauga is "Leading Today for Tomorrow" by focusing on delivering services, implementing its Strategic Plan, delivering value for money, maintaining infrastructure and continuing to be an employer of choice.