Transcriber: Denise RQ Reviewer: Elisabeth Buffard
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
I had the privilege to be elected for 16 years and I have to say
never ever in those 16 years did I follow a sex therapist on the stage.
(Laughter)
Which makes coming here and saying I want to talk about city building
an entirely different thing.
But it is what I want to talk about and I want to talk about
how we together commit to making the kind of city we believe in
and how we redefine government to meet those needs.
I want to talk about that for two reasons.
First of all, because TEDx invited me to do that, but secondly
because people in Toronto at the moment are incredibly gracious to me.
And they stop me everywhere in the city and they say really, really lovely things.
They say things like: "We miss you!" and I always say: "I do too!"
(Laughter)
What I mean is I miss having a progressive mayor in office.
(Laughter)
(Applause)
Which I think is what they mean too.
(Laughter)
But when I think about it, although it's a compliment,
it's actually the wrong thought.
Because although we need to elect the right people, of course,
if we want to build a city that we are proud of,
it actually isn't just about waiting for a saviour to come along.
It's not about a saviour, it's about us.
And it's about the commitment we make to this city.
And it's particularly important in cities,
we are in an urban age.
Because cities aren't something you consume.
You don't buy it, you make it.
And you make it together as residents of that city and as citizens.
And it's very true in Toronto because most of us in Toronto
are not born here.
Little bit more than half were born outside Canada, like me,
and another significant portion comes from other parts of Canada.
And we're literally making Toronto together, right now, today.
And the people who'd come from other parts of Canada
or weren't born here, have chosen Toronto.
I chose to live in Toronto!
In fact, I chose to live in Canada and I chose to live in Canada twice.
Although the first time I didn't have much of a say because I was 8 years old
and it was my mother's decision.
But the second time, I had a real say.
It was 1981, I was in University in the United States,
and I could have stayed.
I had tremendous opportunities opened to me and I didn't want to stay
in the US, because at the time, a man named Ronald Regan
had been elected the president.
And I wanted to come back to Canada.
I wanted to come back to a country of common values,
I wanted to come back to a city where, like most of us,
I chose Toronto because there was opportunity,
because it's a city where everyone is welcome and has a real chance,
it's a city that's green, it's a city that has subways,
a city that has street cars,
and I chose Canada because of our shared values.
And I think our shared value is that we judge our society
by how well we treat those with the least,
not by how many millionaires we create.
(Applause)
And that's what it was like in the US in 1981.
Ronald Regan got elected with this mantra that all he had to do was cut taxes
and everything would be fine.
He got elected at a time when people ignored scientific evidence
and prominent politicians said things like he did,
that acid rain came from trees,
not from all of the coal-fired power plants in the Ohio Valley.
A time a little bit like ours.
And I wanted to be here.
When I came here, I wanted to help build the city
and eventually ran for municipal office because I wanted to commit
to building this city.
And that's the first thing I think we need to do.
It's commit.
But there's a second thing.
And that's about redefining.
And I am going to speak about both at little more length,
but we need to redefine the language that is used when we talk about
our governements and talk about ourselves.
Because ever since Ronald Regan and Margaret Thatcher,
there's a word used, and it's used everywhere to describe us.
And it's wrong, because it only describes a little part of us and that's tax payer.
You read it everywhere in the newspapers, tax payers said this.
Ok, I pay taxes, you pay taxes everybody pays taxes.
But that's not who we are.
We are neighbours,
according to the previous speaker we are lovers,
we are friends, we are residents, and we are citizens.
And that's a very different relationship with government than tax payer,
which suggest that government is all about
a purchase of service-consumer kind of society.
Because citizens elect people and citizens are engaged everyday
to build their city.
That's what citizens do, that's what residents do,
that's what neighbours do that's what friends do.
That's what we do.
Now I think it's time, to reclaim that language
and I think it's time to reclaim our commitment
to build a great city.
And they'll tell you it can't be done.
They say it all the time!
The first thing they'll say is there's no money.
Even if, in an hypothetical example
somebody leaves government with a massive surplus,
(Laughter)
his successor will say there's a massive deficit, nearly a billion dollars.
So we can't do it, we can't do it.
We're always told we can't.
Well, it's not true.
And I am going to point at one example when I was mayor but there are many.
And not just when I was mayor.
If we can't do it, why do we have the best public library system
in the world right here in Toronto?
We built that, generations of commited Torontonians
built that public library system.
Why do we have childcare? In schools, all over the city?
Generations of Toronto build that child care.
Why do we have a transit system? Generations of Torontonians built that.
Torontonians who were residents and citizens built that kind of city.
And we did it when I was mayor too.
And one of the priviledges you have as an elected official
is the people talk to you, they tell you their hopes, dreams and their aspirations
and sometimes, they tell you you are wrong too.
But that's ok, that's part of it.
And I literally spoke to tens of thousands of people
as mayor of Toronto and in running for mayor of this great city.
And people shared a very similar vision.
No matter what their politics, they wanted to live in a city
that was marked by social justice, a city of equality,
like the city I came to in 1981.
They wanted to live in a city of high environmental values,
they wanted to live in city of prosperity and opportunity and most of all,
they wanted to live in a city where no one was left behind.
Those were the kind of values that we tried to use in our decisions
when I was mayor of the city of Toronto.
And they all came together in one project. And that project you all know,
because I talked about it, and that's Transit City.
All of those values came together in this Public Transit Project.
Why? For a couple of reasons.
First of all, Transit City only happened because we committed collectively.
Secondly, Transit City just isn't about transportation.
Of course it's important,
it's a network that goes to every neighbourhood in this city,
and any great world city has a rapid transit network,
not one or two rapid transit lines, a network.
Because that's the only way people will choose to get out of cars
and on to transit: by having a network.
And this network goes to every neighbourhood
and gives people that choice and that opportunity.
So it's also about the environment and transportation,
but it's about much more than that.
It's about jobs, it's about jobs building Transit City, the cars, the Thunder Bay
the parts being supplied all over Southwestern Ontario,
and it's also about the jobs that were created,
when we see the growth that will happen inside Toronto
on all of these lines.
And unlike rail transit lines you tend to get much smaller buildings,
eight to ten stories, but you do get growth
and you get private sector investment
and you get jobs and you also get a city that grows inside itself
and doesn't sprawl, helping the environment.
But that's not the most important thing about Transit City.
The most important thing about Transit City
is that it's about social justice.
It's about including people, in neighbourhoods in this city,
who don't really have a chance,
who live in neighbourhoods marked by poverty,
the kind of neighbourhoods, I think, that none of us expected
when we moved to Toronto, that we've begun to see.
I rode the Sheppard East bus just as we were starting construction
on the Sheppard LRT, to talk to people on that line.
I met a woman, and I think her name was Donna.
And she told me what she did everyday of her work life.
She took two buses to the Sheppard subway,
then took the Yonge subway to the Finch bus and she got to work.
That takes probably an hour and a half.
Then she took the Finch bus back to the Yonge subway, but she didn't go home.
Because like many people in this neighbourhoods,
she had two part-time jobs.
That's what she needed to put food on the table for her family.
She went downtown, to a hotel, for her second job.
And then went back on the subway and then on another subway
then the Scarborough RT and another bus.
And I've lost count,
but it's something like four buses and five subways in the RT
just to get to work.
Imagine the change to her life if instead of being in a bus in mixed traffic
in which the service by definition is erratic and slow
because it gets stuckin rush hour like everyone else,
she'd been able to get on rapid light rail transit
running on its own native way, she would save literally hours
out of her life every week, and hundreds of hours a year.
Hours that would allow her to get a full time job, or perhaps,
go back to school, and upgrade her skills
or perhaps, she would take some time with her family.
It's that important to the social integration of our city.
And how did Transit City happen?
It didn't just happen because I ran for mayor on a platform of Transit.
It ran because Torontonians were committed
to meeting our environmental and transportation challenges.
We committed collectively,
for years people spoke about gridlock in cafés
and on talk radio with their friends.
They said: "Why haven't we built rapid transit?"
I've heard it everywhere.
Why haven't we built it? In two generations?
All the major cities have rapid transit, why haven't we?
And people kept up that conversation.
And they talked to their politicians, and they wrote letters,
and the Board of Trade took it up, the number one issue for business in city.
And the Labour Council, and non-profits, and we all committed.
And we committed in a way that brought the elected officials on site.
Premier McGuinty, He announced on June 15th 2007,
full funding for Transit City, entirely to be completed by 2020.
And I remember that day because it was my wedding anniversary
and I am sure the previous speaker would not have advised
to phone your partner and say: "Would you like to spend
your wedding anniversary in a bus garage in Mississauga?"
(Laughter)
No matter what you are wearing.
(Laughter)
That's not in my notes!
(Laughter)
The Premier committed, Prime Minister Paul Martin committed.
Newspapers ran massive headlines:
"Time for a new deal for the city! We all committed!"
Billions were committed by the Federal Government
the Provincial Government, the City Government.
We bought buses, we started ridership growth
and we started Transit City.
Because we committed.
All of us.
And then, what happened?
We took it for granted. Collectively.
We took it for granted. 2010 budget, crack began.
Premier McGuinty announced that the funding
for the Finch line would be canceled.
The Finch line! That goes to Jane and Finch
and racks toward the other neighbourhoods
where people line in the streets everyday, to take the Finch bus.
People who desperately need rapid transit.
It would be canceled.
And what happened?
The Board of Trade for example that had been trumpeting
the importance of Transit City, sent up one press release:
"We disagree."
Silence.
We'd collectively taken it for granted because we didn't commit.
We'd made the commitment for years,
we thought we had victory and we didn't.
At the time we needed to speak up together, we didn't.
Now, we've seen the people are speaking up.
We've seen what's happened at City Hall the past few weeks
and people spoke up and said "No!"
"We don't want that kind of city!" "We don't want libraries closed!"
We don't want giant Ferris wheels!
(Laughter)
I think that's what they said.
(Laughter)
And that's great.
But just like the Transit City, we can't take victory for granted.
We have to commit.
Because if you don't buy a city, you don't consume it.
You build it everyday. And it's an obligation.
And if you want a great city, and if we want a great city,
we have to make that same commitment.
It's easy to know what we don't want, it's hard to know what we want.
And when we find it, we have to speak up everyday.
And if we really want our voices to be heard, we have to go back
to that issue I've mentioned at the beginning.
This issue is defining who we are.
Since Ronald Regan and Margaret Thatcher, the radical right have defined us
as consumers of government.
That makes goverment something separate from us.
We are tax payers, we consume and we buy it!
But that's not what government is about!
Government is about all of us coming together
because we are residents and we are citizens
coming together to create a common vision and making it happen.
It's about everyday.
And we've let that language get away from us.
It happens all the time, it's in the CBC it's in the Star, it's in the Globe
of course it's in the National Post!
(Laughter)
I'll probably be the first person today to mention the Toronto Sun.
(Laughter)
It's everywhere.
And it's time we spoke up, in the same way we need to commit
to our city, to commit to those fundamental values of Toronto:
of social inclusion, of prosperity of livability, environmental standards,
great public transit, great public parks, great public services.
Not lousy ones, great ones.
That's what we want, that's what we deserve,
that's how we build a great city,
and we also need to commit to a common language.
And I am asking you, after TED, to do two things:
to not just write an email when there is an issue,
at the city or any other government, [but] to organize, to be with other people
and to commit, to stay the course, to put yourself into it,
to be there with your friends and colleagues and commit.
That's the first thing.
The second thing is to change our discourse, because that's about us.
When the CBC says something about taxpayers,
send them a note by email, say that's exclusionary language.
I've heard people in public meetings stand up, low income people,
who'd say: " I'm not a tax payer!",
but of course they are, everybody pays taxes
but they don't see it, it's hidden in the rent.
"I'm not a tax payer!" it excludes them.
And write to the CBC, write to the Star write to the newspapers.
Speak to your friends, talk about this.
"I'm not just a tax payer, I'm a citizen! I'm a part of the city!
I'm a resident, this is my Toronto this is my country!"
And let's change that discourse.
And if one or two people say it, people say: "That's nice."
What if five people said it, all at the same time
to the Globe and Mail and the Star?
What if 100 people said it?
What if 500 people started saying "This is my city! I'm going to take
my city back, because I want to build it for my children and grandchildren!
And I know my neighbours do! I know other residents do!
I know other cititzens do!"
Because as citizens, we have rights.
We have duties, we'd be called for jury duty,
at a time of war, we can call for that duty,
we have other duties. But we have rights.
And we need to take that language back because we have a right to a great city
where everyone is welcome, where everyone is included
and that has great public services.
We have that right! (Applause)
And we should take it back and we should start today!
(Applause)
Thank you! Thank you very much! Thank you TEDx!
(Applause)
Thank you!
(Applause)