TVO - Friday, May 24, 2024 - 08:00 p.m. (ET) - Segment #4

environments are problematic as a result. But I think we've begun to discover that some places make us feel really great and others suck the life out of us. And so if it's all about human performance, where we live, where we work, where we heal, where we learn, the social interaction, the places we want to linger and spend time, these things have a significant impact as a result of places -- the places we crave. >> Steve: the book is gorgeous and you've got fantastic pictures in there of different places around the world where you are doing work. How about here in canada? Are you catching on in canada at all? Do you have projects on the go? >> We are. In the education sector we have been very busy. In fact a variety of independent schools, because they are connecting the dots between places that create social interaction and gathering and empathy and sharing, and then globally we are very busy. We've got a dozen projects in ireland, we are very busy in europe. Israel we've been very busy because a lot of the leadership are beginning to connect the dots between what their aspirations are as an organization and how you can use space as an accelerant to enhance the culture of the organization, the performance, or people simply wanting to go back to the office. >> Steve: I'm tempted to ask, what's the least healthy building -- I don't know, you know toronto pretty well. Look around downtown toronto or anywhere else, you look at a building that screams unhealthy to you, which one? >> Well let me slip -- flip that around slightly. Let's pick two significant buildings in the city and what to do they communicate to you. So let's take the rom and the a geo. And so the rom, you come up to, it's got these jagged shapes coming towards you and a little mouse hole you go into which in fact they are renovating for about 100 million or so. To open it up. When you walk inside,mostly drywall with angled walls and a little light. Let's take another cultural institution has a comparator. Let's take the a g owe. When you come toward to that the entrance, the building curves back, in fact a lot of timber in that. There's a canopy that protects you in case its raining or otherwise and then when you come up into the gallery space you got this sort of timber that, you know, sort of fades open. You look out onto the street. And in fact even in the central, you know, space with the curbing -- curbing stair, that accentuates you to want to move through it because of the materials. Both of those communicate very different messages on how the environment makes you feel. >> Steve: and I know which one you like better now. >> Just giving examples as opposed to a critique. >> Steve: I get you. [ ]

>>> 45 years and only two mayors hazel mccallion and bonnie crombie, who of course as left to be the ontario liberal leader. There is a by-election to replace her. Voting date is june 10th and if you haven't been following the campaign so far, we will get all up-to-date on who the main character -- candidates are. Fire awake. >> There are 20 people running for mayor. There are clear front runners based on polling. There's only been a few poles that have come out in the last month or two. I think it's interesting that four members of council or previous members of council are running. They have kind of become the front runners. Out of those and based on polling, you know, carolyn parrish, a household name for many in canada, has had a clear lead in the polls. A little bit behind her -- also well known in the liberal mp p provincial circles and also a newbie on council who has been vocal on a lot of policies. And steve, also a councilor, a close fourth. It's all very kind of close at this point. Those are the four main front runners but there are 16 other candidates if people are looking for a different voice. >> Steve: just a follow-up, people may know carolyn parrish, long time member of parliament. Alvin ran for leadership against even tell do got two contests ago so those names maybe familiar for that reason. Zachary, to you next, what do you think people are looking for in a mayor right now? >> They are looking for policy positions, for sure. Housing is top of mind absolutely. So is affordability. But looking back at mississauga's recent history. I think what they are really looking for is a champion for the city. The last two previous mayors have been very vocal champions, very prominent provincial actors as well and so I think voters are also trying to look for someone who will send that image to a certain degree along with issue alignments that are affecting the city right now. >> Steve: what do you think people are looking for in the next mayor? >> I think they will be looking for someone who can be a leader for the city and a voice of the residents. I think that has kind of been lacking and we need to have somebody that can be strong. We have a lot of challenges facing us. We've got the province that we are dealing with, bill 23, bill 112. >> Steve: no one knows what these numbers mean. >> Build 23 is the more homes built faster which means that the ford government is mandating intensive it -- intensification in mississauga. >> Steve: some people like that and some don't. >> Exactly. There is a local plan and local area plans. There are planners, specialists and they've spent years coming up with these plans. To have them trumped by the province is not necessarily a very good thing. >> Steve: rahul, how would you answer that question? >> I think there will be a real contrast. In the city itself you see a lot of celebration where mississauga is happening to turn 50 right now and yet people are asking themselves, will I have a future in the city, what to the next 50 mean to me, because we know having reached our urban boundary we are not going to be able to build or move in the same way we always have. So I think there will be this potential disconnect, this risk of your traditional voter who is fairly well-established year, we know that for -- voter turnout is low, what are their issues in contrast to the existing population that is having trouble staying here. How are they going to continue to live here and move there, will there be the contrast between maybe a traditional voter's argument of crime and low taxes as opposed to well we actually have a lot of things we need to find money for we don't have right now. >> Steve: I remember when you could buy a house in mississauga for $100,000. What's the average price now? >> I believe the average price is about $800,000. >> Steve: no kidding. 800 grand for a house in mississauga. Unbelievable. >> And that's one of the big problems. How do you keep seniors staying in place, aging in place and how can young people afford to stay in mississauga? >> Steve: sometimes in these election campaigns, there's not a thimble's worth of difference between the candidates. How about in this one? Do they divert on any major issues in a major way? >> That's a good question and one of asked them all. Priorities are very similar, affordability, housing supply, low crime, taxes. So how would anybody who's coming in know who to vote for. They do give me a little bit --

in terms of difference but I think a lot of voters will look at the voting record of these candidates. They will look at where certain candidates stand on social positions, international positions. Mississauga is such a diverse community, a lot of people are looking at -- effort from the muslim community, people are wondering which politician has taken a position that is sympathetic to the middle east. People are looking at different things. You may not be a local priority but an international one. I think some candidates are also taking clear positions on transit or biking lanes in terms of do we want more biking lanes, do we want to look at different ways to bringing taking lanes, there's been a lot of discussion around housing. One candidate in particular has kind of come out as a more progressive candidate on housing seen as someone who's really pushing a progressive vision, more density and more ways to bring in the youth. He's going for do you vote I think where someone like parrish , so well known for so many years, has been on council for decades, and so a lot of people who are well-established, who know what they will get, are kind of looking at her. >> Steve: zachary, and you follow-up, any big cleavages among the candidates you can see? >> We haven't seen a to on on the policy front but for me one of the more interesting components is the generational shift between some of the candidates. We have candidates who are more well-known, more well-established and who have been fixtures of the city's politics for 30 plus years, and we have a younger generation of candidates too who are a little more progressive on things like housing, livability, stuff like that. So for me that is one of the big things to look at here as well, is what does the younger generation want. There are certainly younger candidates who are willing to stand up and champion some of those issues. [ ] >> Steve: I want to get everybody's personal collection to alice munro off the top. What would you say is yours? >> I was introduced to her writing at an early age. Early high school I think. It was lives of girls and women and I was two years into my life in canada and had just become a teenager and all of the complications and emotions that come with that. Has a young immigrant to québec, canada, I was navigating a country that was completely different than the small village I grew up in on the small cribbing island of st. Vincent. So I spent a lot of time alone during those holy date -- early days and I spent a lot of time in the library and I think it was the library and that started me on munro's books. By reading her books I was able to a, find commonality between me and the female characters, especially the ones that were my age. And also it was about, you know, it was said in small-town ontario which was not that different from the village I grew up in, there were a lot of similarities between the character he's we meet and the relationships that were crafted. So that's how I became -- our was introduced to munro's writing. >> Steve: heather, how about you? >> Of course I had known the name but I first reed her when I was at mcgill university. I took a class in canadian literature written by women and it was a syllabus of 20 or 25 writers and it was a huge class. 400 students. The very last day of our semester, the professor came in and said, you know, it's quite remarkable because every single student in this 400 capacity class has chosen to write their final essay on alice monroe. It really struck me how there's something in her writing that responded -- that everybody in the class connected to. It was a class filled with young women and when you read alice monroe, you think she's really so intimate, it's such an intimate experience and also that sort of existential loneliness of being a young woman and having sort of a lack of resources and having to make these decisions on your own. Everybody kind of curtails them and ask is if you are mad anytime you do anything for your own happiness. So for me it's such a unique take but everybody else in the class too was like yes, I also love to that idea, that a young woman has the entire world and deserves the entire world, despite what everyone is telling her. >> Steve: lovely. Professor, you not only like her a great deal, you knew her and you wrote a book about her. Where did the connection come from? >> I did not know her when I decided to write the book about her so my whole connection has been I would say uncanny and away because of the connections

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