Canada: Community Economic Development (CED), 1993-1995
For two years Robin worked for the New Democratic Party Government of Ontario as Special Advisor to the Minister of Economic Development and Trade, Frances Lankin. This was an exciting re-run of the GLC period in London, set large in a Provincial context.
Robin led the Community Economic Development Secretariat (CED) in Toronto until the Government fell in 1995. Ontario had a strong policy commitment to CED across all government ministries and his brief was to work across them, develop a strategy, support initiatives on the ground, set up pilots and be the direct link between communities, front line staff and the Government. This involved promoting and creating economic sectoral networks and his time there is remembered for a range of small and large CED projects: local bakery networks, francophone food co-operatives, food box schemes (see below), First Nations cultural infrastructure, festivals, publishing, black music industry coalitions, community agriculture, among many.
Food Box Scheme, Ontario (quoted from Social Venturing)
Niagara Peninsula Homes (NPH) is a Canadian housing co-op that develops and supports 44 co-operative housing projects with 2,000 dwellings in Ontario. Like many of the 2,200 housing co-ops in Canada it is run predominantly by women, and geared to the needs of those on low incomes, particularly single parent families, those with disabilities, new Canadians, and First Nations aboriginal people. The co-op members (including those with severe disabilities) contribute to the upkeep, childcare, and administration of the co-op. Overall there are 90,000 co-op dwellings in Canada valued at C$5.7 billion. The key to the housing co-ops is the programme of training and formation – in the principles and practice of co-operative living and management, as well as the processes of housing development, finance and administration. These programmes that take place at every level of the co-operative housing movement provide the unifying ethic and the necessary technical, organisational and entrepreneurial skills.
Apart from its housing, NPH launched a good food box scheme for 700 households and ran nutrition education programmes to support healthier eating. They established a Women’s Enterprise Centre, and vocational and business development courses for women. This led to a project that created 50 new food products and a Niagara food basket marketed to hotels and tourists. Later they took over an industrial kitchen that now makes ‘own label’ products for local food firms. Through all these projects and their numerous training programmes runs a common ethic of mutual help and social justice.
Niagara Presents…. its new Food Box Scheme
In the CED Strategy Review 1994 Robin analyses two of the largest and most ambitious of the CED programmes after one year, JOCA (Jobs Ontario Community Action), a $300m programme set up in 1993, and the Green Communities programme.
Betty Ann Baker head of Niagara Peninsula Homes hosts Robin Murray, Ida Sadu, Keith Collins and members of CED team, 1995
When the Conservatives won the election in 1995, Robin’s work came to an abrupt halt. However, this proved to be a boon for London as Robin brought many of the people he had been working with in Ontario. Keith Collins and Phillip Jessup explain how some of Canada’s most pioneering green expertise came over to London:
‘When Robin went back to London, he - of course - brought with him a series of Canadian ideas, projects and again, people [dozens of them, over the years], which he then began to field test and grow. In particular, he brought Canadians [such as myself] back to London to work on recycling and composting. Working with Nicky Gavron and others, he grew the ideas up first into the London Pride Partnership, which created dozens of new recycling technologies and methods and organizations. These ideas then spread, within months, across county after county in Britain - and the country’s recycling in fact, if anyone can take credit for the “Factor Ten” explosion in recycling in the UK, and the prevalence today of recycling and composting bins, it’s Robin Murray.”
Keith Collins 2017
I was chair of Green$aver at the time that Robin’s Green Community Program was operating full steam under the NDP. Among the highlights of Robin’s work in Ontario to create a green economy was Green$aver, a community-based organization in Toronto that pioneered residential energy efficiency retrofits to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Green$aver developed a software based home energy audit that enabled targeted and cost effective retrofits. The Government of Canada eventually scaled up the program nationally. Ironically, this initiative later informed Robin’s work at the UK’s Design Council. There in collaboration with the GLA, he conceived and developed the Green Home Program, a concierge led program that was piloted in London and then, drawing on and mirroring the Canadian experience, scaled up nationally.
Phillip Jessup 2017