JENNIFER LEWINGTON
Toronto Bureau Chief
The Globe and Mail
Friday, June 23, 2000

A new project to take the pulse of Toronto and the region -- measuring economic, social and environmental health -- will release its first results this fall.

The "vital signs" project, announced yesterday by the Toronto Community Foundation, will gather a wide variety of information on the city and the region so the public can debate what is working -- and what is not.

"The data around now are not useful to most people," said David Crombie, the project director and former mayor of Toronto. He said the idea is to gather statistics and other data that are tailor-made for the city and the region "and connect it to a series of forums to inform public discussion."

He noted that some indicators, such as welfare statistics, are used by social groups to promote their point of view without accounting for economic indicators about job creation. Conversely, business groups might point to job trends to suggest that all is well, without regard for environmental or social indices that could tell a less flattering story.

By having the same researchers work on a range of agreed measures that paint the whole picture, he said, "we can present a balanced view of how we are doing."

The project, the brainchild of the Maytree Foundation and the Laidlaw Foundation on the eve of Toronto amalgamation three years ago, will be run by the Toronto Community Foundation with research teams from the University of Toronto, Ryerson Polytechnic University and York University. Other groups in the project are the Toronto Board of Trade, the United Way and the Hospital for Sick Children.

Gerry Meinzer, a member of the Toronto Community Foundation, said he hopes the vital signs project will be a flagship venture for the foundation (which last year gave away $4.2-million in grants to community groups) and for the city-region.

"We want to use some of the findings to provoke public debate and guide us in granting efforts and to steer us to areas where we see need," he said.

For example, he said, "the availability of parks in neighbourhoods have a direct relationship to how well kids behave." As a result, the research data could make comparisons by region on which ones are well or poorly served by parks.

Nathan Gilbert, executive director of the Laidlaw Foundation, said that in early discussions about the need for a such project, the "Ah ha!" light went on among researchers and hospital emergency doctors on the issue of air quality.

For example, current figures show a relatively high incidence of poor air quality in Scarborough in summer, which fit with experiences of emergency room doctors at Sick Kids who treated a relatively high number of children from that area.

Mr. Gilbert and others said the success of the project, which will release its first results in September, will be measured by how well diverse groups from across the city and the region come together to solve problems identified in the pulse-taking exercise.