Imagine a City
[Check Against Delivery]
June 17, 2009
Madam President, Mister Chair, Colleagues and Friends
I am pleased and honoured to be here this afternoon to present the 2010 Mayor’s State of the City address. I want to express my appreciation to the Chamber and its members for providing this forum and I want to thank the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation both for sponsoring this event again this year and for their ongoing contribution to this city. Since its opening in 1999, the Slots at Sudbury Downs have transferred more than $21 million to their host municipality.
This is my fourth State of the City address and it is an important annual opportunity to take stock of where we have been and where we hope to go as a municipality and as a community. The past twelve months have been challenging in many ways but have once again demonstrated our community’s resiliency and our unrelenting collective commitment to build for the future.
As I prepared these remarks, I was reminded of a phrase from Michael Ondaatje’s iconic novel about the history of Toronto, In the Skin of a Lion.
‘Before the real city could be seen,” Ondaatje wrote, ‘it had to be imagined.”
As you came in today, you will have noticed the displays of architectural concepts around the room. This is where imagination comes to life and a city is born. Of course imagination and city-building are pursuits not limited to those in the architecture profession, and this community has been truly blessed by those who imagined the city such that we can see it today.