Yesterday evening more than 15 "civic champions" converged on the ground floor of the
Centre for Social Innovation (CSI) Annex location to answer questions about city politics, civic participation, and how to get your voice heard in Toronto.
The champions, which included politicians, activists, and representatives from advocacy groups and Toronto-based non-profits, were taking part in the inaugural
Turnout Toronto event, a new event series that uses the traditional job fair model to promote civic engagement.
The goal of Turnout Toronto--an event founded and organized by members of the CSI community--is to "educate on the opportunities to get involved [in Toronto politics] which hopefully leads to things like higher voter turnout, civic participation and love for TO."
"After a CSI networking event, we were talking about a lot of the bad press Toronto was getting, some of our problems, our mayoral issues, and we decided to set up an event that would give people an opportunity to get more involved with the city," says Erin Kang, an events coordinator at CSI and co-organizer of Toronto Turnout. "We though a lot of people probably felt similarly about the need to take action, but maybe they didn't know how in a big city. There are so many organizations and projects. So we had this idea to have a job fair model of civic engagement."
"We want help shift the paradigm in Toronto so that people feel able to champion issues rather than think it's all up to the Mayor and all up to City Council. We want people to have ownership of their city. A feeling of ownership which can potentially lead to more voting, more youth engagement, and just a desire to shape the city we want to see."
By reaching out to members of their personal networks, says Kang, the organizers were quickly able to amasses a impressive list of what Toronto Turnout has dubbed "civic champions". Last night's participants included Councilor Mike Layton (Ward 19), representatives from the
TCC Riders Union and
Better Budget TO, as well as members of the Etobicoke-based civic engagement organization the
Our Place Initiative.
"It was really humbling how many people were interested," says Kang. "We started reaching out to our contacts…we just tapped into the brain trust we already have here [at CSI]."
Though, says Kang, despite the high participation rate, she hopes in future that Turnout Toronto will be able to attract more groups from beyond the downtown core.
"I reached out to a lot of different groups [outside the downtown core], but because of the short notice a lot of people we unable to make so in future we'd really love to hold this event in other parts of the city. It's very important to think between these divides between downtown and North York and Scarborough and really stand in solidarity. We are one city and we should be focusing on things that we can do together."
Source: Erin Kang, Events Coordinator, CSI and Co-organizer of Toronto Turnout 2014
Writer: Katia Snukal