The Art of Wise Giving™ of CANADA About This Report
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RONTO ONE OF COMMUNITY FOUNDATIONS The Art of Wise Giving™ OF CANADA About This Report About the Toronto Foundation Established in 1981, the Toronto Foundation is one of 191 Community Foundations in Canada. We are a leading independent charitable foundation that connects philanthropy to community needs and opportunities. Our individual and family Fundholders support causes they care about in Toronto and across Canada, through grants to any registered Canadian charity. We currently have more than 500 active Funds, including endowments and assets under administration of more than $300 million. A growing number of Torontonians support the Vital Toronto Fund, our community endowment that helps mobilize people and resources to tackle community challenges in innovative and inspiring ways. To find out more, please visitwww.torontofoundation.ca About the Report The Foundation partners with many researchers to produce the Toronto’s Vital Signs® Report. The Report is compiled from current statistics and studies, identifying progress we should be proud of and challenges that need to be addressed. It is a consolidated snapshot of the trends and issues affecting the quality of life in our city and each of the interconnected issue areas is critical to the wellbeing of Toronto and its residents. Citations at the end of the Report, and live web links throughout, will take you directly to the sources used in this year’s Report. The Report aims to inspire civic engagement and provide focus for public debate. It is used by residents, businesses, community organizations, universities and colleges, and government departments. In addition, the Report is a model now being used for strategic planning by cities around the world. Your guide for discussion and action As you read through this Report, consider the Vital Questions posed throughout. We have lots to be proud of, but there are also things we need to think about in order to shift some troubling trends. Ask yourself: • What issues do you care about? • What data surprises you? • Have you been inspired to act? Please share your thoughts by filling-out a short online survey at www.torontofoundation.ca About the Community Knowledge Centre At www.ckc.torontofoundation.ca you will find an online showcase of more than 250 organizations working on solutions to the issues identified in this Report. Through video and prose, it presents stories of innovations taking place in our city and provides you with an opportunity to get involved. At the end of each issue area section in this Report, you will find lists and descriptions of groups that are addressing the trends and data reported through their innovative community-based programs. Live web links connect you to their profiles on the Community Knowledge Centre. About Community Foundations Community Foundations are independent public foundations that strengthen their communities by partnering with donors to build permanent endowments, which support community projects, and by providing leadership on issues of broad community concern. Community Foundations of Canada coordinates the nation-wide Vital Signs project, which measures the vitality of our communities, identifies significant trends, and supports action on issues that are critical to our quality of life. Since the first Vital Signs® publication was published by the Toronto Foundation in 2001, the Report has been adopted by 49 communities across Canada and by 17 communities internationally across 6 countries and 4 continents. Understanding this Report: 1. “Toronto” or “the city” refers to the former Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto, which consisted of the former municipalities of Toronto, Etobicoke, North York, Scarborough, York and the Borough of East York. “The City of Toronto” or “City” refers to the municipal government. The “Province” refers to the Ontario provincial government. 2. The “Toronto Region” or “Region” refers to the Toronto Census Metropolitan Area (CMA), the largest metropolitan area in Canada, stretching from Ajax and Pickering on the east, to Milton on the west and Tecumseth and Georgina on the north. Almost half the population of the Toronto Region resides in the city of Toronto. The Toronto Region is an area slightly smaller than the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) and is comprised of the city of Toronto plus 23 other municipalities: Ajax, Aurora, Bradford-West Gwillimbury, Brampton, Caledon, East Gwillimbury, Georgina, Georgina Island, Halton Hills, King Township, Markham, Milton, Mississauga, Mono Township, Newmarket, Tecumseth, Oakville, Orangeville, Pickering, Richmond Hill, Uxbridge, Whitchurch-Stouffville and Vaughan. 3. The Greater Toronto Area (GTA) refers to the entire area covered by the Region of Halton, Region of Peel, Region of York, Region of Durham and city of Toronto. The area is slightly larger than the Toronto CMA. 4. The Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA) refers to the GTA region and the City of Hamilton – a combined population of more than 6.5 million people. Source: City of Toronto, Toronto Economic Development and Culture. The Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA) 5. The Report is divided into 12 sections for ease of reference. However, each issue area is intimately connected to all the others. Readers will discover the plethora of examples, such as indicators dealing with “walkability” and diabetes in the Health and Wellness section, illustrating the connection between active transportation and health, and employment as well as demographics data in the section on Leadership, Civic Engagement and Belonging, pointing to linkages between leadership representation, voting patterns, and sense of belonging. 6. Throughout the Report, there are a number of Vital Questions raised. These questions are intended to stimulate your own questions, and act as a catalyst for reflection, conversation and action. 7. Links to organizations directly cited are included in relevant indicators. Citations are made at the end of each indicator (which may contain several bulleted points). 8. Ideas and Innovations that point the way forward for Toronto are identified with the following icon: 9. See Glossary at the back of this document for a list of definitions. 10. This Report occasionally uses data from the Statistics Canada 2011 National Household Survey (NHS). The NHS excludes a portion of the 2006 (and earlier) census population, and data were collected in a voluntary survey, making the results vulnerable to non-response bias. As a result, NHS data cannot be compared reliably with those from earlier Census releases. Comparisons with previous census periods should be considered with caution. 11. In this year’s Toronto’s Vital Signs Report, we have included a précis at the start of each issue area. They list some of the key indicators we look to year after year to help us understand where Toronto is making progress and where there has been decline, along with summary comments that speak to why the data is important, and what some of the key trends and new findings are. Further detail is provided in the text that follows, along with indicators from relevant recent research and occasional reports. 12. To ensure clarity and accuracy of the data being presented, we have opted to use the same terminology used in the research and studies referenced. As a result, there may be instances throughout the Report where inconsistent terminology is used to describe the same thing. 13. The Toronto’s Vital Signs Report 2014 draws particular attention to data, ideas and innovations that come from outside Canada to help provide international context for interpreting Toronto’s experience. Throughout the Report, global data, ideas and innovations are identified with the following icon: 14. In Toronto’s Vital Signs Report 2014 we have included several “community snapshots” in each of the issue areas to give you a sense of the statistics at the level of some of Toronto’s 140 neighbourhoods, using data garnered from the City of Toronto’s award-winning website Wellbeing Toronto, as well as other sources, as cited in the text. The Wellbeing Toronto website contains a wealth of data across 11 different issue areas. The site’s maps also allow you to locate services and public institutions across Toronto such as libraries, shelters, settlement agencies and community gardens. To access data for your own neighbourhood or to compare neighbourhoods across the city, just follow the link: http://www.toronto.ca/wellbeing/. Toronto’s Vital Signs® Report 2014 message from John Barford and Rahul K. Bhardwaj It’s about time. Toronto, it’s about time we stopped asking ourselves whether we’re a world-class city; we’re near the top of the class. The Economist has declared Toronto the fourth most livable city in the world for the sixth year in a row. We were named the 2014 Intelligent Community of the Year by the Intelligent Community Forum, recognized as the Youthful City of the Year by the YouthfulCities Index, and we continue to rank highly on many leading international indices. What does it take to be world class? It helps to be recognized as a good place to do business. Toronto is the most tax competitive of 51 international cities, one of the least expensive places in the world to do business, and we’ve been ranked third among 422 metro areas in the Americas for attractiveness in business investment. Construction, considered a key indicator of economic vitality, is strong. This spring, 147 high- and mid-rise buildings were under construction in Toronto, more than in any other North American city. The Toronto Region’s importance in the national jobs landscape has been growing since the financial crisis of 2008. Almost one in three jobs created in Canada between 2010 and 2013 was in the Region. Our cultural economy is booming, too. Toronto’s creative workforce has grown 34 per cent since 2001, more than twice the rate of the overall labour force. Arts and culture contribute $11.3 billion annually to the city’s GDP; in 2013, film, television, and other screen-based media production spending exceeded $1 billion for the third year in a row.