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This paper aims to provide an in-depth examination of culturally and linguistically diverse older adults’ perceptions of and experiences with the Toronto Police Service to inform the development of a training curriculum for police officers working with older persons.

A qualitative descriptive study using virtual focus groups with 26 older adults from Toronto was conducted.

Three main themes emerged: understanding intersectionality; the impact of police officer attitudes and biases; and the need for age-friendly policing. Although many older adults rely on police services to keep them safe, there is dissatisfaction with some aspects of how police interact with older adults, particularly from minority groups.

Participants were older adults from culturally, ethnically and linguistically diverse backgrounds who are not usually included in studies on improving police services.

The racial diversity of the Caribbean stemmed directly from the historical processes of colonialism, imperialism, slavery, and indentureship. Since the early 17th century, slaves have been imported from Africa to work in the Caribbean. In the British West Indies, slavery was abolished in 1834 but these African slaves worked on the sugar estates until the apprenticeship was abolished on August 1, 1838. Even before 1838, planters frequently complained of labor shortages and appealed to Britain for the approval of imported labor. Thus, there were attempts by the planters in colonies, such as Trinidad, to introduce Chinese labor to the plantations. As early as 1806, there was the importation of 192 Chinese from Macao and Penang into Trinidad. However, this experiment soon failed. In 1834 and 1839, laborers from Portugal were imported into Trinidad. This soon ended as Portuguese workers could not withstand the rigorous conditions of the contract labor system.

For the past two decades, Toronto has experienced an incredible transformation from a young emerging city into one of the world's leading, global financial competitors. Among its several distinguishing factors, Toronto's multicultural population is perhaps its most unique characteristic. With a widely pro-immigration sentiment, as well as high urban density levels, Toronto's cultural and racial heterogeneity has stimulated its economic vitality, growth, and sustainability. The built environment of Toronto also reflects the integrated, dynamic nature of the city, with most neighborhoods incorporating mixed-use spaces populated by a wide range of income level residents. The transportation system reinforces this unity, connecting the city's region through an extensive network.

While Toronto is a city with relatively low levels of ethnic tensions as compared to its Western contemporaries, the city has been significantly afflicted by evident racial and ethnic disparities related to sprawl, gated and enclosed communities, the “ghettoization” of minorities, and other neoliberal conditions. Despite the growing prevalence of gangs such as the 14K Triad and MS-13, Toronto has one of the lowest crime rates in North America and is thus recognized as one of the safest North American cities. Toronto is also recognized for having one of top-ranked educational systems in the world. Furthermore, the government structure of the metropolitan area has taken a unique, comprehensive approach to politics that reinforces the city's unification. Because of the collaboration of each of these societal elements, Toronto has evolved into a city that sees its diversity as a strength and a tool for success.

Toronto's heritage program is reporting year over year growth in both the number of listed and designated properties and the amount of money secured for heritage projects. At the same time, it is widely recognized that heritage trade skills are in decline. The purpose of this research is to examine Toronto's heritage policy in its regulatory and economic context to understand why heritage trades are struggling while the heritage program and the market for heritage professional services flourish and to suggest solutions based on existing policy tools.

This research looks at the policy documents at the federal, provincial and municipal level that determine the minimum standard for heritage conservation in Toronto. It refers to secondary research on the economic context for these regulations to understand how they are applied and why they tend to produce certain outcomes. It introduces the regulatory context set by Canada's Standards and Guidelines for the Conservation of Historic Places and the Ontario Heritage Act. It goes on to analyse Toronto's local policy in more detail including density bonusing programs, the Toronto Official Plan and Heritage Conservation District planning standards.

Toronto's heritage policy creates asymmetrical opportunities for heritage professionals and heritage specializing tradespeople. While the work that heritage professionals do is required or strongly encouraged by policy and increases reliably with the amount of funding secured for heritage projects, heritage tradespeople do not enjoy similar advantages. Their work is not required in the same way as heritage professionals' or encouraged to the same degree, and money secured for heritage projects does not necessarily go towards work that would engage the building trades necessary to maintain heritage structures.

The value of job creation in heritage trades is a mainstay of heritage economic advocacy, and there is growing interest in the value of these trades skills as a resource for sustainable building practices. There is relatively little research considering how heritage policy and theory affect career opportunities for workers with these trades skills, and none that addresses those systemic pressures in the context of municipal heritage programs in Canada.

The purpose of this paper is to situate the idea that the City of Toronto is a leader on addressing issues of diversity, racism and democracy within the context of diversity discourse and the racial norms that are incited by it.

A genealogy and critical discourse analysis of City of Toronto documents from 1975 to 2017 involving consultations with racial Others on issues of diversity, race and/or racism was conducted.

The author shows how the specific racial norms that continue to make up diversity discourse as “truth” in the City of Toronto are reproduced through the commodification of racial Others and the re-framing of their racial claims, to re-generate the narrative of the diverse City of Toronto where all are welcome to participate and belong.

Implications for senses of place are discussed.

This paper adds critical depth to understanding increased participation of racialised communities as a mechanism for achieving socio-political change in government and non-government institutions. Initiated in a local context, the findings of this paper are intended to contribute to a global reservoir of critical knowledge on diversity, race, democracy, political participation and power.

The emergent Housing First model, focused on new means of rapid rehousing of the homeless, is popular in North America among policy makers and the mass media. Yet little has been written on the Housing First model's transferability to Canadian municipalities. This report documents, analyses and interprets Toronto's Streets to Homes (S2H) programme, using primary and secondary research including semi‐structured key informant interviews. The report concludes with a brief consideration of the article's implications for leadership.

The former municipality of Metropolitan Toronto was Canada’s largest government and a unique body. It was abolished on 31 December 1997 and a new unified City was ushered in on 1 January 1998. It consists of all the former municipalities of the Metropolitan Council and has reduced the former two‐tier system to a single tier. There was considerable opposition initially to the establishment of a unicity by local politicians and the citizenry at large. This has to be seen against a background of general opposition to some of the policy decisions of the Ontario Provincial Government at that particular point in time. Despite the opposition, legislation was enacted establishing the new City. The councillors initially elected in late 1997, the top management team of the Council and virtually all the residents have since accepted the decision on unification and have committed themselves to building the new City. The transition team appointed by the Province and the political and management component of Toronto have done considerable groundwork in developing the unified City to meet present and future challenges locally, regionally and internationally. The amalgamation of the municipalities has resulted in savings of $150 million resulting from inter alia, reduction of departments and divisions, staff, information technology systems, office space, consolidating of the corporate fleet and the City Service Boards. It should be noted that amalgamated programmes only constituted 27 per cent of the budget of the new City. However, coincidental with the amalgamation process was the implementation of the “Who Does What” policy introduced by the provincial government and the Council had to take on significant additional responsibilities. Provincial assistance was provided by way of a one‐off grant of $50 million and a $200 million loan. Consequently, any actual savings achieved initially will have to be viewed in this context.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the place branding dimensions of a city undergoing a concerted effort to build a distinctive brand for itself.

A qualitative, exploratory approach is adopted, applying the ICON model of place branding to the multistakeholder city branding strategy of Toronto. A combination of interviews, participant observation, content analysis and professional reflection inform the study.

Toronto’s emergence as a creative city with global standing has been achieved, in part, through a holistic and collaborative approach that is integrated, contextualized, organic and new.

Place and destination promoters are offered a practical application of the ICON model of place branding, informing future initiatives and offering insight into good practice.

Viewed through the lens of the ICON model, the paper provides insights into the collaborative and innovate practices that characterize effective city branding.

This paper aims to present a panel data econometric model of the main determinants of house prices in the ten largest census metropolitan areas (CMA) in Ontario, Canada, for the years 2001, 2006 and 2011. The impact of immigration on the housing market in Canada is little researched; however, immigration plays an important role into the economy of Canada. According to Statistics Canada, not only is immigration key to Canada’s population growth but also without immigration, in the next 20 years, Canada’s population growth will be zero. The motivation for this study is the bursting of housing bubbles in some developed countries (e.g. USA). The authors analyze variables that are related to the immigration policy in Canada, accounting also for the impact of the interest rate, income, unemployment, household size and housing supply to analyze housing price determinants. The study investigates the magnitude of the impact of the top three leading categories of immigrants to Canada, namely, Chinese, Indian and Filipino, on the housing prices in Ontario’s largest cities. The results show the main factors that explain home prices over time that are interest rate, immigration, unemployment rate, household size and income. Over the 10-year period from 2001 to 2011, immigration grew by 400 per cent in Toronto CMA, the largest receiving area in Ontario, while the nonimmigrant population grew by 14 per cent. For Toronto CMA, immigrants, income, unemployment rate and interest rate explain the CA$158,875 average home price increase over the 2001-2011 time period. Out of this, the three categories of immigrants’ share of total home price increase is 54.57 per cent, with the corresponding interest rate share 58.60 per cent and income share 11.32 per cent of the total price growth. Unemployment rate contributes negatively to the housing price and its share of the total price increase is 24.49 per cent.

The framework for the empirical analysis applies the hedonic pricing model theory to housing sales prices for the ten largest CMAs in Ontario over the years 2001-2011. Following Akbari and Aydede (2012) and O’Meara (2015), market clearing in the housing market results in the housing price as a function of several housing attributes. The authors selected the housing attributes based on data availability for the Canadian Census years of 2001, 2006 and 2011 and the variables that have been most used in the literature. The model has the average housing prices as the dependent variable, and the independent variables are: immigrants per dwelling (Chinese, Indian, and Filipino), unemployment rate, average employment income, household size, housing supply and the interest rate. To capture the relative scarcity of dwellings, the independent variable immigrants per dwelling was used.

This study seems to suggest that one cause of high prices in Ontario is large inflows of immigrants together with low mortgage interest rate. The authors focused their attention on Toronto CMA, as it is the main destination of immigrants and comprises the largest cities, including Toronto, Mississauga, Brampton and Oakville. Looking over the 10-year period from 2001 to 2011, the authors can see the factors that impact the home prices in Toronto CMA: immigration, unemployment rate, household size, interest rate and income. Over the period of 10 years from 2001 to 2011, immigrants’ group from China, India and the Philippines account for CA$86,701 increase in the home price (54.57 per cent share of the total increase). Income accounts for CA$17,986 increase in the home price (11.32 per cent share); interest rate accounts for CA$93,103 of the average home price increase in Toronto CMA (58.60 per cent share); and unemployment rate accounts for CA$38,916 decrease in the Toronto average home prices (24.49 per cent share). Household size remain stable over time in Toronto (2.8 average household size) and does not have a contribution to home price change. All these four factors, interest rate, immigrants, unemployment rate and income, together explain CA$158,875 increase in home prices in Toronto CMA between 2001 and 2011.

The housing market price analysis may be more complex, and there may be factors impacting the housing prices extending beyond immigration, interest rate, income and household size. Finally, the results of this paper can be extended to include the most recent census data for the year 2016 to reflect more accurately the price situation in the housing market for Ontario cities.

The fact that currently, in 2017, the young working population cannot afford buying a property in the Toronto CMA area means there is a problem with this market and a corresponding decrease in the quality of life. According to The Globe and Mail (July 2017), a new pool in 2017 suggested that two in five Canadians believe housing in this country is not affordable for them. Further, 38 per cent of respondents who consider themselves middle or upper class believe in no affordability of housing. The Trudeau Government promised Canadians a national housing strategy for affordable housing. Designing a national housing strategy may be challenging because it has to account for the differential income ranges across regions. Municipal leaders are asking the government to prioritize repair and construct new affordable housing. Another reason discussed in the media of the unaffordability of housing in Toronto and Vancouver is foreign buyers. The Canadian Government recently implemented a tax measure on what it may seem the housing bubble problem: foreign buyers. Following Vancouver, in April 2017, Ontario Government imposed a 15 per cent tax on foreign buyers who are not Canadian citizens or permanent residents. This tax is levied on houses purchased in the area stretching from Niagara Region and Greater Toronto to Peterborough.

Few studies use Canadian data to explain house prices and analyze the effect of immigration on housing prices. There is not much research on the effect of the immigrants and immigrants’ ethnicity (e.g., Chinese, Indian and Filipino immigrants), on the housing prices in Canada cities. This study investigates the impact of the most prevalent immigrant races (e.g., from China, India and the Philippines) on housing prices, using data for Canadian major cities in Ontario within a panel data econometric framework. This paper fills this gap and contributes to the literature, which analyzes the determinants of housing prices based on a panel of cities in the Canadian province of Ontario.