Is street hockey the answer?

I have read with great interest many of the wonderful ideas Torontonians have suggested to improve the city. Although the upcoming municipal election is unlikely to solve all our issues, perceived or real, it does have the capacity to set us on the right course for the next decade.

And why is the next decade so important? For many reasons, but perhaps none so important as that we expect have close to 1 million more people arrive in Toronto over that time, and many of those coming from other countries. How and how quickly these newcomers embrace Canada and Canada embraces them will have a lasting effect on the quality of life in Toronto.

This is where street hockey comes in; and it's a personal story.

Last month I was moderator at the Get Active Toronto Summit. At the summit some of our panel participants shared stories about how sport affected them and, in some cases, changed their lives. It got me thinking about my own story.

I moved from London, England to London, Ontario in the late 1960s. I arrived in the late summer, as an anomaly; a young South-Asian boy in the heart of hockey central in Southwestern Ontario. In the late fall, I was on skates, and loved it. I would have loved it more had we known to sharpen them. Well, you live and learn.

Since I was an only child at that time, my parents and I were constantly on the lookout for things to keep me busy. Most days I was sent out to play - to just go and play. One particular day my mother could see boys playing road hockey in a parking lot across the street from where we lived. She told me to go and join them. So, since I feared her more that them, I wandered over not knowing what to expect. I was still the new kid on the block, and very obviously so.

I watched in amazement as the ritual began. All the kids tossed their sticks into a pile at "centre ice." So I did the same. The big kids started throwing the sticks, one to the left, and one to the right - voila two teams. I saw my stick fly into a pile. I stood and stared. Then I heard the voice that may have changed my life. You can never really be sure, but if what happened didn't happen, things may very well have turned out differently.

A kid looked at me and screamed - "Hey, you're on our team - let's go!" At that moment I became a Canadian. I picked up my stick and never looked back. I spent many years experiencing the sweet, oh-so- Canadian pain of frozen tennis balls against frozen jeans, yelling "car" and adopting the pose a la Ken Dryden, and praying the games would never end.

I embraced Canada quickly, because Canada embraced me. Those are the type of opportunities that we need to create, because they will have a lasting impact on the type of city we have. Maybe street hockey is the answer, if not, we need to find one, and fast!

About Rahul Bhardwaj

Let’s make the most of the 2010 municipal election

Rahul Bhardwaj.

It's tough to love the city you live in during an election because we tend to publicly air all our dirty laundry and then look forward to a good cleaning. But make no mistake about it, despite what you may hear this is a great city, and at times, even world class.

Our Toronto's Vital Signs Report tells us that we're creative, diverse and tolerant, and more prosperous, safer and greener than we've been before.

But it's also true that we are facing many challenges in the city. Our physical and social infrastructure is hurting. From public transit to public spaces we’re nowhere near what we should be. And if you're poor, you’re getting poorer. If you're old, you're more likely to be poor. If you're new to this country, the recession has hit you the hardest, and, if you're young, well, brace yourself for what's ahead.

As the candidates stake out their territory in this year’s municipal election we will be constantly reminded of "the good, the bad, and the ugly" in Toronto, and even worse, the price tag of each. And this is where I respectfully ask the candidates to please “put on the brakes." We’ve had a non-stop chorus about deficits and spending reduction from all three levels of government - we get it. But you don't get a world class city on the cheap either!

Please Mr. and Ms. Candidate, do not let this election be fought over "money" alone - whether it be municipal finance, spending, taxes or public wages - because, if that's what we focus on we miss an enormous opportunity to shape the future of this city. When what we need is a full and open discussion about the vision that will guide the city, we risk getting stuck in the most mundane and reductionist of discussions - what's it going to cost and who's going to pay for it?

Yes, we're coming out of a recession, but we also know that during a period of unprecedented prosperity in Toronto we failed to invest in it, and as a result we have inferior infrastructure and have created a stark city of "haves" and "have nots."

If all we focus on in the 2010 election is how we manage our city’s finances, then let's not complain when we get a world-class manager when what we say we really need is a world-class leader.

This city has what it takes to raise its collective eyes above the horizon and develop a vision for a brighter future for the city, and this election is precisely the time to discuss what that future will look like. If we don't seize the opportunity, well, there goes another election and all we managed to agree on is the "price of everything and the value of nothing."

Let’s innovate. Let’s give the next Mayor a better mandate than that.

About Rahul Bhardwaj