Archived Article: Communities in Bloom 1998 Win for Etobicoke-York Region

Etobicoke-York Region won the prestigious Communities in Bloom contest in 1998 for the most beautiful city in Canada with a population over 300,000. The first prize in the National Contest qualifies the City to enter the Nations in Bloom contest - an international forum for Toronto to showcase some of the good reasons for living here.

In an address to Council in December 1998, Mayor Lastman and Communities in Bloom directors soundly endorsed Toronto's bid to enter the contest. Council supported the motion and we now have our go-ahead. Great plans are afoot for a video presentation and a written submission that will demonstrate the exceptional people from every walk of life who have gone out and improved a little piece of their city using sound organic farming or state of the art forestry practices, new engineering technology, imagination, historical relevance and ingenuity. The best part of the presentation to the international judges is that tens of thousands of tax dollars were NOT diverted from general revenue for "beautification" projects. The funding for waterfront restoration, native shrubs and trees in parks , highway plantings and school yard naturalizations were generated from ordinary citizens and clubs, and organizations such as Canada Trusts Friends of the Environment, the Toronto Atmospheric Fund, Greenstreets Canada and Shell Canada to name but a few. The good work continues: 10,000 trees and shrubs for Highway 427 are now paid for and needing you to plant them this spring: please call now (232-2243) to sign up for planting days in April and early May. We will meet at Etobicoke Civic Centre and bus over to the areas where the trees are to be put in. Bring a car full of friends and shovels if you own them, gloves etc and plant a tree for the next century in the new millenium. You'll never drive up the 427 again without checking out how your special tree is doing…

Keep our city clean. Pick up other people's litter. Recycle diligently, plant more flowers, vines and shrubs and compost some more of that lawn. Plant the roadsides with tough native species that don't need chemicals. Hang up bird feeders and bat boxes. Ours is a glorious city intersected with great ravines, gorges of ancient rock veiled with glittering waterfalls, stately stands of trees, grasslands, a lake that stretches to the horizon . To win the International Competition, all we have to do is look after it and preserve the natural richness we so take for granted. Volunteer.

written by Fiona Campbell, Communities in Bloom & Highway 427