• rTraction - a highly skilled, well-respected web development and online marketing firm that services many non-profits in the city
• Echidna Solutions – another great web development firm who has donated a lot of their time to efforts like Emerging Leaders
• Info-Tech Research Group – one of the top 10 IT research firms in the world, rated as the best IT research firm by Outsell (full disclosure: I work at ITRG)
• Resolution Interactive Media – a very talented group of web developers best known for their online training site built for LHSC, and highly interactive websites for several Ontario colleges
• Big Blue Bubble – a local video game development company, probably best known for Burn The Rope right now
• Antic Entertainment – local video game development company that has won awards for their game Junk Battles
• Start Communications – an Internet service provider, with their own network around downtown London, that customers have been raving about ever since the UBB debate flared up earlier this year
• Aaron McGowan – a well-respected, and very talented, freelance programmer that specializes in mobile apps and mobile websites
• Digital Extremes – a large video game developer that’s produced several blockbuster titles like BioShock, Unreal Tournament, Homefront and Dark Sector

And there are lots of others, most of which can be seen on TechAlliance’s Member Directory. For instance, I bet you didn’t know that DirectDial.com is owned by EK3 Technologies, which is based in London. I’m not going to sit here and boast about my company, Orpheum Hosting Solutions, but I do believe Orpheum’s providing a much needed service to freelancers and small business owners!

So really, I won’t sit here and listen to people complain about the lack of a tech industry in London. No, we’re not Santa Clara, California (in the heart of Silicon Valley). But that doesn’t mean there isn’t an industry to break into, or a need that’s going unserved. In fact, if you’re feeling frustrated with your attempts to find a job as a developer or networking professional, London has enough small businesses that the right business plan and marketing will get you the opportunity to do plenty of work. I used to freelance and got the opportunity to build computer networks from scratch for several businesses, and I knew a lot less then than I do now.

Here’s the video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Joe Preston – Conservative Party Candidate

• Twitter – @joe_preston
• Facebook group
• Website – joepreston.ca

Graham Warwick – Liberal Party Candidate

• Twitter – @graham_warwick
• Facebook page
• Website - http://grahamwarwick.liberal.ca/

Fred Sinclair – New Democratic Party Candidate

• Twitter – @freddysinclair
• Facebook page
• Website – None at the moment

UPDATE: Ryan Dolby dropped out and Fred Sinclair is in for the NDP. Both the Conservative and Liberal candidates have made themselves very available online on both big social networks, along with their own websites where more contact information exists. Fred’s on Twitter and Facebook, but his Facebook page currently has 0 likes.

Again, if there are other parties you’d like me to dig up the information for, please let me know. I know of the Christian Heritage Party, and other fringe parties, but we all know they don’t get many votes. However, I will still dig up the information if you want me to.

As someone who speaks to vendors of high tech equipment, and consumers of the same high tech equipment, several times a week, I feel I can bring somewhat unique insight into the usage-based billing (UBB) debate happening across Canada. I don’t think I’ll say anything spectacularly special here, but looking at the issue from both the telecom side (including both the business and technology) and the consumer side yields some key things that need to be considered.

1. The CRTC is supposed to ensure a healthy level of competition amongst the industries it regulates. Moving from the current gateway access service (GAS) to only allowing smaller ISPs, essentially, to resell Bell’s existing packages at a 15% discount will easily put providers like TekSavvy and Primus out of business.
2. Bell and Rogers laid their respective infrastructures in my neighbourhood when it was built, 13 years ago. Given the inherent oligopoly, I’m certain both companies have gotten a decent ROI by now. There are a few homes with wireless antennae on the roofs, mine included, that I believe are intended to be used with Execulink however I don’t believe anyone is using wireless at the moment.
3. There have been no upgrades in my neighbourhood past the nodes since that time. In fact, Bell hasn’t upgraded anything other than laying down fibre and new DSLAMs in London in several years. The new Fibe service isn’t available in Kilworth or Komoka, and Bell can’t provide me with anything better than 6Mbps. And, I know from experience, that Bell throttles streaming video (legitimate or not) very harshly from 9am till 9pm (give or take an hour).
4. Rogers cannot provide me with anything faster than 15Mbps. The bandwidth cap on this plan is 80GB (it was 95GB until just a few weeks ago). I went over my 60GB cap during my two most recent billing cycles. The problem: I use Primus TalkBroadband VoIP service instead of a traditional landline, and watch video from legitimate sources like ctv.ca, citytv.com, globaltv.com, treehousetv.com, etc.
5. Bell’s net income last fiscal year was $1.738 billion, for a profit margin of 11.7%. Rogers’ net income last fiscal year was $1.478 billion, for a profit margin of 12.5%. Based upon typical standards of trying to achieve profit margins between 10 and 15%, it’s clear both companies are doing just fine.
6. Claims that Rogers and Bell need to recoup the costs of their infrastructure investments are fine. As a business owner, I know companies exist in order to make money. What it sounds like many people don’t know is that Primus, TekSavvy, Execulink, et al all pay Bell for the privilege to resell their services to the tune of $15 per subscriber per month (I’ve received confidential data to confirm this). So even if Bell doesn’t have you as a customer directly, but you’re using DSL, Bell is making money off the infrastructure (a.k.a. copper phone lines) it delivered to your house with very few exceptions (areas served by Eastlink for example).
7. Until recently, only Bell was mandated to allow resellers to use its infrastructure because a large portion of Bell’s “last mile” was paid for my Canadian taxpayer money. The inherent oligopoly that has existed in most areas since the dawn of cable, and in some areas it’s actually a monopoly (like Aylmer, ON where EastLink owns both the phone and cable infrastructures) allowed Bell and Rogers to simply charge whatever they wanted for high-speed access until the CRTC opened up Bell’s lines to everyone. If Rogers never started offering @Home, and then eventually its own high speed offering, Bell would effectively have a 100% market share on high speed internet wherever they own the phone lines.
8. Middlesex County awarded Bell Aliant a contract several years ago to build up wireless internet capabilities all across Middlesex County. So here is an instance where Bell forked out very little cash, and will profit any time someone living in rural Middlesex County, where DSL and cable internet aren’t available, and sign up for wireless internet service instead. Bell is actually several years behind the curve, as EastLink (formerly known as Amtelecom, and also a former employer of mine) was rolling out wireless access across most of Elgin County back in 2001. Being a publicly traded company at the time, surely if Amtelecom felt they couldn’t make money off the wireless service they wouldn’t have bothered putting it up in the first place.

I have followed this issue (broadband speeds, infrastructure, and access in Canada) for over a decade already. One conclusion I have come to is that Bell and Rogers are not interested in keeping ahead of competitors (because there really aren’t any) or providing you with great service (especially Bell). Their only concerns are shareholders and the bottom line, period. Yes, I know that’s capitalism, but at the end of the day we’re all getting screwed. TekSavvy has indicated they’re going to start laying out their own infrastructure. Start Communications (based in London) already has fibre covering the downtown core, and has indicated they will be extending it as well. Unfortunately the edge of their fibre network still only supports 5Mbps speeds.

Don’t forget to look at places like Chattanooga, TN which has laid out its own fibre-to-the-home network across an area very similar to London’s geography (medium-sized city in the middle, lots of rural areas around it), and they’re providing great speeds at decent prices… synchronous 30Mbps for $57.99 per month, no caps. Amsterdam is laying a FTTH network that will be open access, and so is the entire nation of Australia. So Amsterdam/Australia will provide the network, à la Bell, and then let independent providers resell internet, phone and TV service on top of it. Brilliant, and you know there will be plenty of competition because Australia has actually paid Telstra AUD$43 billion to ditch their legacy copper network.

The internet services offered here in Canada suck, and UBB only makes it worse. We’re ranked 22nd in the world by the OECD… wait until the next ranking, I bet we’ll be ranked 40th or 50th.

Backing up a little bit, I know there are other fees that Bell and Rogers (along with other telcos in their respective areas of the country) have to fork out, like “right of way” fees that municipalities charge for telcos to have the privilege of laying their infrastructure down in our neighbourhoods, and putting up those ugly grey mini-towers all over the places. I will admit I don’t know as much about the “right of way” fees charged by various municipalities as others do, but until Bell/Rogers are more transparent about the types of fees they incur, and how these have to be passed onto the consumer, it’s hard for the average person to make up their own mind on whether it’s fair or not, isn’t it? And yes, of course there are operating costs.

Again, though… the net profits speak for themselves. Maybe dealing with Toronto and Hamilton is a logistical nightmare, but Bell and Rogers seem to be making a healthy profit margins. And then, of course, the premise of heavy bandwidth users needing to pay more than others has been given serious treatment, and determined to be false.

The reality is that UBB is a desperate attempt to keep people from further cutting their expenses, while shifting their video watching habits to web-based services. Instead of compete with Netflix, Rogers and Bell would rather gouge the average customer and prevent them from even using the web to watch video (again, legit or not) in the first place. I’m part of a minority that “cut the cord” 2 years ago. It isn’t easy, but it’s doable. I bet Rogers, Bell, Shaw and Cogeco are freaking out at the idea of consumers moving to Netflix.

But when you think about it, I’m using much of the same infrastructure Rogers actually puts into place to watch TV shows online, instead of via traditional cable. I’m really not using anymore bandwidth than I did before. At the end of the day, the same infrastructure that carries all these bits & bytes also carries voice and TV signals. It’s all data. Internet service fees are not the only way to recoup costs and generate a profit. This goes back to the same point many bloggers and columnists have made about getting to a realistic cost/profit number.

Hell, I’m probably using far less bandwidth than a traditional TV customer uses given the video quality actually available to me online. And I cause less bandwidth on the local head end (similar to a central office, but used to deliver video), instead pumping my traffic via fibre-optic lines between the servers located in Toronto (most likely given I typically only watch on Canadian websites) and Kilworth.

There are many reports that show people using their smartphones more and more, therefore cell phone towers, in lieu of their internet connections. Anyone who saw Cisco’s press release the other day about this would have seen the report, along with those produced by many other vendors and publications. If so many people are shifting their habits over the wireless access, why the huge change in our land-based internet access services?

I’m left asking myself… why UBB on internet services, but not on phone lines, cable, and satellite (especially the first two)? They use the same modern infrastructure to transfer the phone calls and TV shows we’re all watching.

Someone suggested to me that electricity rates were billed using a UBB scheme. True, but hydro is a bad analogy given the fact that we have to generate electricity and transport it to where it’s going to be used. Fibre optic lines are laid, connected to routers, and then sit there in anticipation of traffic. I remember someone telling me about all the dark fibre (a.k.a. unused) that Hamilton once laid in the hopes that businesses would flock there for the capacity. If that infrastructure is still there, then one big component of the capacity already exists.

Lastly, I’ll address the cost per GB sanctioned by the CRTC. $1.90 per GB, and $2.45 per GB in Quebec, is absolutely ridiculous. Hugh Thompson goes through much of the argument here, and he’s right. Even when you factor in all of the other costs associated with running this infrastructure, and then all of the other services that generate revenue from it, you’re left with the billions of dollars in profit that Bell and Rogers are generating.

So call/mail/email your MP, do the same for the CRTC commissioner representing your area of the country, and give them a piece of your mind (or mine). UBB is unnecessary, plain and simple.

You need to open up more. WAY more. The lack of communication we get at the municipal level is abysmal. Compare yourselves to Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty, Ontario Ombudsman Andre Marin, MP Tony Clement, former Toronto Mayor David Miller, or MP Glen Pearson, and you’ll see the difference between your approach and theirs.

Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty

In fact, Glen Pearson blogs, tweets and even uploads videos to YouTube! He’s a pretty good example of what more politicians ought to be doing long before they run, during a campaign, and especially after being elected.

Do I expect the politicians themselves to always be the ones communicating with us via the various channels? No, of course not. I know full well their staffers will be doing some of it, and that’s fine. The difference is accessibility, and at least attempting to appear to be a normal person that just happens to be in an elected position of power vs. someone in a position of power telling you what they believe you should be thinking about.

I adore the fact that Dalton McGuinty has a Twitter account, and will tweet about seemingly innocuous things like coming home from his recent trip to China, where his dog showed more enthusiasm for his return than his kids did. It’s real, we all feel that way sometimes, and he actually replies to many tweets himself (according one or two directed at me).

There are a few area politicians who are leading the way, like Nancy Branscombe and Judy Bryant; unfortunately they are the exceptions to the rule in our area.  Middlesex Centre Mayor Al Edmondson, whom I’ve exchanged emails with in the past, has a website that was launched for the recent municipal election that hasn’t been updated since the election. Newly elected London Mayor Joe Fontana recently deleted his Twitter account after saying, during the campaign, he intended to continue communicating with citizens via his Twitter account (which lead to the events surrounding my previous blog entry).

I know what some of you are thinking: Who cares? Why should politicians blog, tweet, or have Facebook pages?

Middlesex Centre Mayor Al Edmondson

At a purely selfish level (for them), to help them get re-elected. If you’re a politician, and you strong believe you’re still the right person for the job, you need to get your positions, accomplishments, and message out there in as many ways as possible. If you think I’m wrong, you might as well not run in 2014. Get done what you can now, then get out.

In four years Twitter, Facebook, blogs – or whatever other medium comes in to replace or supplement those communication platforms – will be far more important than they are now. Much of the electorate in the London area is still catching on to social networking/media sites (for reasons other than sharing funny cat videos), but I myself maintain two Twitter lists full of London-based accounts – right now they track 840 individuals, businesses and organizations.

That’s 840 Londoners on Twitter who talk to 10 friends, who talk to 10 friends, etc. – the math starts to add up quickly! Oh, and that doesn’t count the Londoners with “protected” accounts – you can’t add those to Twitter lists. So the number’s probably closer to 900, if not more.

On a more altruistic level, politicians need to open themselves up in order to show they can take criticism and praise with equal grace, to show they really do care about their constituents whether it’s a riding or a ward, and to help increase their profile overall. It’s important to know who you should speak to regarding issues in your community regardless of the issue falling under municipal, provincial or federal jurisdiction – having name recognition makes your constituents feel better about having a real voice at city/town hall, Queen’s Park or Parliament.

I’m talking to London, Strathroy, Mt. Brydges, Kilworth, Komoka, Dorchester, Arva, Ilderton, St. Thomas, Glencoe, Newbury politicians… get more engaged; whether for the more selfish reasons I outlined above, or more community-building and altruistic reasons. At the moment, I’m not overly concerned why you do it – just do it.

• Yesterday afternoon several people, including myself, noticed that @londonsmayor had been re-registered by someone after former Mayor Anne-Marie DeCicco-Best had changed her Twitter handle to @DeCiccoBest.
• It looked like Joe Fontana, the new Mayor of London, was the person tweeting (or someone on his behalf, which is more likely), despite a misspelled name on the account’s profile (it was ‘Joe Fontama’ before being changed to simply ‘Joe F.’)
• @londonsmayor even replied to someone about the name change/handover saying that it was a simple administrative issue (which is true).
• I noticed a tweet from @londonsmayor last night, asking if anyone knew where he had to go tomorrow (for the swearing in ceremony) and it CC’d @LondonComms. I thought this was pretty funny, and knew immediately that the account was in fact a parody/spoof.
• This morning it was very evident it was a parody since a tweet was sent out saying Joe had been hit by something while riding his bike to the swearing in ceremony, even though Joe was being sworn in just as this was tweeted.
• I called out the fact that it was a parody/spoof account this morning, and several people agreed. No big deal, I still thought it was funny and harmless.
• @LondonComms tweets that they have reported this “hack” to Twitter.
• I take issue of the word “hack,” which this clearly was not.
• @LondonComms tries to reply to me, instead turning the reply into a retweet making it looked like I supported the City reporting the account to Twitter. I took issue with this and dealt with it via direct message, though others called @LondonComms out for it publicly — I appreciate the backup folks!

This led to Deb finding Orpheum’s website and getting my number via the Contact Us page. I end up being quoted in an article about the issue.

Unfortunately, Mayor Fontana is saying he has no intention of continuing to use Twitter after shutting down @JoeForMayor. This is unfortunate, and also a contrast to when he said, during the campaign, that he had intended to continue using Twitter to keep in touch with the populace even after the election.

It’s dumb, really, that he won’t continue to use Twitter to engage the public and connect with potential, future voters. And it’s also extremely shortsighted.

Thankfully the person that had registered @londonsmayor after Anne-Marie relinquished control is back on the beat with @NOTLondonsMayor. I’m really looking forward reading the tweets from London’s own version of @notstevejobs.

If you’re coming, I hope to see you there and I really hope my talk on MuniFibre gets you thinking about the possibilities!

I know this story is several months old now, but it isn’t too late to talk about it. St. Joseph’s Hospital and London Health Sciences Centre embarked on restructuring the hospital system here a long time ago and both hospitals say they are very well “integrated” now. Cliff Nordal, the current CEO of both hospitals, had a significant role in this restructuring.

Cliff Nordal is retiring, and good for him. Why wouldn’t he? He took in almost $800,000 in salary and benefits last year! Considering he’s been the CEO of St. Joseph’s for over 20 years, I’m sure he’s got a very comfortable nest egg to retire on.

Then the debate began: should LHSC and St. Joe’s continue under one CEO or go back to two? Well, St. Joe’s decided they wanted to go back to having their own CEO because “St. Joseph’s remains a health-care centre with a mandate based on Catholic values.”

I thought this was an interesting argument for a publicly funded organization. While some of the folks over at the blog of AM980′s Nathan Smith (a very well written blog entry at that) pointed out that Catholic-funded schools obviously promote “Catholic values,” they are also required to teach a provincially mandated curriculum. Don’t think for a second the potential similarities haven’t crossed my mind!

What I find most interesting is the “Catholic values” they want to promote, and the experiences friends of mine have had at the hands of the practitioners at St. Joseph’s Hospital.

So, exactly what “values” are the staff so concerned about protecting and promoting that patients can’t get elsewhere?

• The Catholic Church is anti-contraception. Given the seemingly rampant increase in sexually transmitted infections being seen in seniors engaging in promiscuous sex, would St. Joseph’s Hospital staff still promote the use of condoms?
• Gluttony is one of the Seven Deadly Sins. Would overweight/obese patients be treated differently, given staff may believe the patient is going to Hell? (Yes, it makes me laugh a little every time I see an overweight Catholic)
• Greed is also one of the Seven Deadly Sins. Would very wealthy patients be given the cold shoulder because they spent their lives pursuing wealth? After all they’re going to Hell too, aren’t they?
• What about members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities? I can only imagine what treatment they might receive!

Publicly funded healthcare institutions should adhere to the Canada Health Act and be done with it. Promoting Catholic “values” is irrelevant to providing good diagnostics, treatment and bedside manners. Leave your personal beliefs at home, stop costing taxpayers more than needs to be expensed (e.g. hire a single CEO to replace Mr. Nordal) and get on with providing the healthcare patients so badly need!

Photo by plousia

London implemented a pilot project last summer that supposedly cost $140,000. The project? Letting people park overnight on city streets. The $140K cost comes from the apparent revenue loss of parking tickets that are normally issued to the poor saps caught leaving their vehicles on the road in the middle of summer.

A lot of people loved being able to leave their cars on the street. House parties, people too drunk to drive home or hail/call a cab (admit it, you’ve been there!), or a simple lack of parking in your driveway or on the lawn. The reasons you may need to leave your car on the street are numerous.

And yet when it came to studying the pilot project and deciding whether or not to allow this permanently, city council voted no. Why? Well, heaven forbid they lose that $140,000 for a second year in a row!

The travesty of it all!

If I recall correctly, and something that Gina Barber pointed out in her blog earlier today, is a system that Judy Bryant proposed. While Ms. Bryant is a city councillor I respect very much, I disagree that her system of issuing temporary parking passes to those that request them would actually work. It may sound good on paper (though I disagree that it sounds good at all), the task of requesting, issuing and tracking said temporary parking permits would probably cost the city more than the revenue it could possibly generate.

Where would people get the passes? How much would they cost to make? How much would they cost to track? How much would it cost to make sure they’re hard, or nearly impossible, to forge?

I see people abuse disabled parking permits more often than I’d like to admit. Wouldn’t such a small system be easily abused? I can only imagine the predicted revenue and then subsequent massive discrepancy such a system would generate in the city budget.

Photo by Video4net

An acquaintance of mine posited that extending the hours that people need to pay for parking would probably make up for the lost revenue. I agree with him. Downtown parking meters only require payment between 8am and 6pm. Why not extend that to 8pm year round? That should more than make up for allowing overnight parking.

So what did London city council approve last night instead? To give themselves back the 5% pay cut they took in 2008 as a “gesture,” as Gina Barber so nicely puts it, to show they understood what Londoners are going through. I challenge any city councillor to explain, with a straight face, to someone who’s been out of work for most (if not all) of the economic downturn/recession how they can support giving themselves back the 5%.

My biggest problem is that this council seems to get very little done. If I felt like London taxpayers were getting their money’s worth, I wouldn’t complain. But I don’t believe they do! There are some terrific city councillors, but the majority of them seem to prefer just sitting around and debating things instead of actually getting things done. In fact I think London would get a lot more done if some councillors/Board of Control members would just up and quit or retire.

So to end this rant so succinctly… London city council, either start getting things done that deliver visible, measurable results or risk being voted out in October. I hope that Londoners are finally sick and tired of being hosed and really pay some serious attention to this fall’s elections!

Photo by see phar

Several acquaintances/friends of mine and I have had the opportunity to speak to a few City of London councilors and employees at various local events over the last year like AgendaCamp and SMarts London. We’re also encouraging them to attend this year’s PodCamp. I find myself usually running into Nancy Branscombe; while I don’t always agree with her (mostly about the cartoons), I know that I and several others appreciate the effort she makes to get involved in community/grassroots events.

People like Shawn Adamsson, Bill Deys, Titus Ferguson and I have all taken those opportunities to speak to Nancy, voicing our concerns for the city; some of these concerns have to do with the lack of an open data initiative for London, how the city’s engaging citizens (or rather, how it’s not), and more recently Bill Wittur has been talking about making London a “digital destination.” It looks like our concerns have been heard, because Nancy decided it would be a good idea to let engaged folks speak to some City councilors and staff. Last week we had a 90 minute meeting with several higher-ups from the City.

Digital Extremes Logo

Those in attendance at this initial meeting included Adam Caplan, Bill Deys, Bill Wittur, Jodi Simpson, Shawn Adamsson, Titus Ferguson, Keith Tomasek, Jeff Fielding (City of London CAO), Joseph Edward (City of London CTO), Nancy, Judy Bryant (councilor), Elaine Gamble and several staffers. The “normal” citizens had a chance to explain open data (as opposed to open source), making London more attractive to digital businesses (like TVWorks, NDS and Digital Extremes), and how the City can engage citizens more effectively.

Some of the outcomes of the meeting included some breakout meetings happening between people currently involved and those we think should be involved (e.g. Mike Schmalz of Digital Extremes), setting up an online presence (which I’m taking care of right now over at ChangeLondon.ca), along with sending Gavin Newsom’s (Mayor of San Francisco) guest blog entries from TechCruch.com to City employees/councilors in order to give them a politician’s perspective on open data.

Photo by Kevin Van Lierop

So what’s next? Well, more meetings will certainly be taking place. We’re all busy people, so the online presence is crucial to fleshing out our ideas, letting anyone in and around London comment and get engaged, and for setting up future face-to-face meetings and discussions. We hope that everyone in the London area will find something interesting to get involved in, or at least comment on, and start driving London and Middlesex County to be even better than they are in several ways.

When ChangeLondon.ca is ready for public consumption, you can bet you’ll hear about it here and elsewhere! What other areas do you think Change London should focus on?

Food 2030

The UK government recently unveiled Food 2030 – a food strategy designed to ensure that Britons have access to high quality, sustainably farmed/grown, food that benefits both the farmer/grower and the consumer. At the same time Food 2030 should ensure that people have good jobs, a reduction in greenhouse emissions and food waste.

Not bad for something that only went out for public consultation in August 2009! That’s right – the British government invited citizens and other stakeholders to comments from August till October 2009. It seems Defra took the results of the consultation away, compiled the strategy and released it last week to the masses. The 24 page strategy summary (PDF) goes over what the UK wants by 2030 (informed consumers making good choices, less impact on the environment, a secure food chain, etc), along with how the government proposes they get there. The BBC covered the announcement here.

Tomatoes by Ben

Overall, there isn’t much to gripe about. I’m sure that some folks won’t like the mention of research and science helping to produce crops that require less water, fertilizer and chemicals but the reality is that high yield crops are a must if we are to food a growing population. Earth will hit 7 billion before we know it and we all have a responsibility to make sure those folks get the nutrition they need.

It would be great to see the Canadian government be so forward thinking. Just one year after massive drought caused food prices to skyrocket (more so than they did here) and caused riots, the UK has taken the initiative to put together a plan that will encourage citizens to take more responsibility for themselves. It’s especially encouraging that 3 major grocery stores only sell free-range eggs now – a move by Loblaws/Real Canadian Superstore or Metro like that would further sustainable food cycle efforts immensely!

Web Communities

Farmers and consumers alike are increasingly turning towards the Internet in order to identify where the nearest source of sustainably grown food can be found. Change.org identified 5 popular websites where people are connecting and I particularly like Local Harvest because it includes Canadian sources. If you’re a Canadian farmer producing organic, sustainable or low impact produce please add yourself to Local Harvest to make it easier for the rest of us to find you! Better yet, if you know of a good Canadian directory please leave me the link in a comment.

Vertical Gardens

There are many examples of people growing vertical/urban gardens. Again, Change.org has linked to several different ways you can setup your own urban/vertical garden, from thrifty to eco-chic. One of the greatest benefits I see from the vertical garden boom happening is a greater amount of plants taking carbon dioxide out of the air, a much cheaper way to grab fresh produce when you need it and also something nice to look at in your home. This is also a good way to use typically unused space in a home or apartment.

I hope that provides you with some food for thought – both literally and figuratively! While it’s becoming easier everyday to get your hands on food that was produced in a sustainable manner, it will still be some time before all the pieces of the puzzle come together. We can all chip in and help out though.

I will also mention that I’m going to be speaking to the folks over at Local Food Plus soon about their organization – how it works, how we can get it to expand beyond its current Toronto-centric focus, where they get their funding, etc. I hope it proves to be a mutually beneficial conversation!