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The pandemic has given us pause to consider how the Toronto Region can come back stronger and what type of region we want to rebuild. This is by no means an end to big cities, but instead, an opportunity to make our cities better. The region’s ability to compound innovation and productivity by converging the talent of ambitious and creative people will be more than enough to offset the destructive power of a global pandemic. And this is happening in all areas of the Toronto Region.
Our downtown core is strong, but so are the opportunities across the region. We are building critical infrastructure to complement the needs of businesses and talent in the region. Progress and development have not stopped over the past year, as we collectively work toward building something even better. This signals a positive and encouraging trend. Strengthening the region as a whole stands to strengthen each individual municipality.
This playbook was inspired by the cooperation and collaboration of three levels of government, businesses and Canadians in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. It is intended to serve the municipal, provincial and federal governments by identifying quick-wins to better the Toronto Region, and proposes a framework for a regional economic strategy and recovery plan. Embodying the spirit of cooperation, it also identifies actions that can be taken on by the Board of Trade and the business community to contribute to coming back stronger than ever.
Co-chairs of the Steering Committee, Marcy Burchfield and Terrie O’Leary, discuss the recommendations in the playbook and how planning for regional economic prosperity starts right now.
To help businesses build back better, the Toronto Region Board of Trade put forward a framework for economic recovery – the Reimagining Recovery Framework – and Toronto Global played a large role in this initiative. Chair of the Toronto Global Board of Directors, Mark Cohon, was a member of the Steering Cabinet, overseeing six work tracks to help inform government policy. Additionally, as co-chair of Sector Recovery Plans, Daniel Hengeveld, Vice President of Investment Attraction, was instrumental in developing a report featuring six recommendations to ensure the region remains a great place to invest, live, and work, titled “Fast Forward: Sector Strategies for Accelerating the Toronto Region’s Recovery.”
Businesses will face increasingly uncertain market conditions, trade restrictions, and cross-border access, all in the face of heightened competition. Where firms once optimized for efficiency and cost, they are now choosing to build for security and resiliency to reduce global risk. This creates an opportunity to build supply chain capacity regionally, for both foreign-headquartered and domestic companies, and play a role in both the recovery and future-proofing of the Toronto Region’s economy.
Toronto Global has launched the Supply Chain Onshoring Resilience and Expansion (SCORE) Program, aimed to optimize and build a more resilient local supply chain. The program seeks to identify and address critical gaps exacerbated by the global pandemic, either through recruiting and relocating international companies across the global supply chain to the region, or by working with existing foreign-headquartered businesses operating in the region to secure expansion opportunities.
The development of the SCORE program was made possible by Fed Dev Ontario. Working with our colleagues at Fed Dev the project will over the long-term build regionalized supply chains that enjoy a greater level of independence than traditional, global networks that are subject to external economic shocks and factors. To further enable the sharing of best practices we will also be working with the Consider Canada City Alliance (CCCA) Organization in our engagement with our CCCA Partners in Ontario to help coordinate these efforts. Toronto Region municipalities, and the Province of Ontario will help identify SMEs to participate in the program. Toronto Global’s municipal partners will be key interlocutors for local firms wishing to expand their supply chain.
SCORE will help lead the development of a regionalized supply chain across the Toronto Region, enabling the economy to emerge from the global pandemic stronger than ever. SCORE is built on four strong pillars:
This pillar seeks to build capacity and resiliency within the participants’ supply chains – preparing businesses for not only today’s recovery, but tomorrow’s economic shifts, uncertainty and competition.
This pillar seeks to encourage the development of regional networks – from supplier, to producer, to seller – building prosperity and ensuring the economic benefits are felt across the region, province and country.
This pillar seeks to leverage leading research and expertise to help businesses optimise and renew their operations. By hedging against risk and leveraging digital solutions to innovate, participants are placed at the front of the pack on a global scale.
This pillar seeks to apply a transformative lens to participants as they manage global disruption. To reopen, businesses must be able to reinvent and restructure their supply chains to respond to the unpredictable – helping participants achieve a market-leading position.
