The Greater Toronto region needs "a war cabinet" made up of politicians and economic development officers to promote the area as well as a financial services task force to come up with new strategies to focus on Canada's banking strength.
Those are two key recommendations in the final report of the Greater Toronto Region Economic Summit, to be released today, on how to ensure a swift economic recovery for the region that stretches beyond Toronto and the 905 municipalities to Waterloo, Niagara, Barrie and Peterborough.
The report, Choosing Our Future: An Action Plan for Economic Recovery, emphasizes the need to think regionally. The ideas emerged from a summit held in May in Markham, co-chaired by Mississauga Mayor Hazel McCallion and Torstar Corp. board chair John Honderich, which brought together 250 of the region's leaders.
Participants from business, academia, labour and politics – as well as Premier Dalton McGuinty, federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty and Toronto Mayor David Miller – discussed challenges, from raising venture capital to rebooting the manufacturing sector.
McCallion is planning on convening a meeting of the "war cabinet" this fall to focus on the economic health of the whole region.
"I don't think we can be parochial," McCallion said in an interview yesterday. "If Toronto wins a company, that's great. If Markham wins a company, that's great because people from Mississauga will be working there."
The `war cabinet' would include regional chairs, mayors, economic development officers and the provincial government.
Other proposals include having the provincial government, with the private sector, create a single economic marketing agency for the region. The first goal should be launching a global "Think Toronto" campaign to attract jobs, talent and investment here, the report says.
The region should also focus on the strength of the financial sector, noting how Canadian banks have been praised for sound management through the economic crisis.
The report calls for the creation of a task force to report by Oct. 1 on strategies to attract new international financial regulatory institutions, create or expand degree and diploma programs in finance services, and showcase the financial services industry when Canada hosts the G8 summit next year.
While there have always been challenges to get the region to work together, including the now defunct Greater Toronto Services Board, Honderich called the summit a good first step, conceding a mindset is hard to change.
"This was the impetus to push the barriers and to start thinking regionally," he said. "We are one economic region. We have to start thinking and acting like it."
Other recommendations include efforts to better coordinate help for the unemployed. That includes expanding employment and apprenticeship fairs, promoting the existing "211" phone help line for social services and a renewed call for changes to eligibility rules for Employment Insurance. Workers in Ontario must work more hours to qualify for EI than workers in other parts of the country.
While governments have focused on stimulating the economy through public funds for infrastructure projects, the report calls again for money to be distributed to cities on a formula basis instead of on a project basis.