Leaders of Tomorrow Program Hosts Mayor David Miller
By Anastasia Shteyn
On January 20th, The Blue Room of the Sanford Flaming Building resembled the floor at The Rolling Stones’ concert, as students from across the Faculty took seats, seized the stairs and leaned against the walls to hear Mayor David Miller’s vision of ‘engineering the city’ of Toronto.
Annie Simpson, the Assistant Director of Leadership Education, facilitated the event and welcomed Mayor Miller, an alumnus of the U of T Faculty of Law. Ms. Simpson then passed the microphone to student organizers from the Leaders of Tomorrow cross-Faculty group, Chirag Variawa M.Eng, Shahed Al-Haque (EngSci) and Jason Sukhram (MSE). Chiraq and Shahed touched upon the vision of the LOT program and introduced the Mayor.
After these brief introductions, David Miller, now serving his second term as the Mayor of Toronto, shared his perspective on the role of engineers in public policy. He was very impressed with the novelty of the Leaders of Tomorrow program, emphasizing that progressive education should include far more than technical knowledge.
David Miller then talked about the recent UN Climate Change Conference. In December, the City of Toronto was represented by Mayor Miller in Copenhagen, Denmark, as one of over 80 environmentally conscious metropolitans. “The Kyoto target can be reached,” the Mayor believes. David Miller repeatedly stressed the potential of Toronto as an energy-efficient city. He highlighted the Transit City, a rapid public transportation plan for the GTA. Mayor Miller’s passion about fighting climate change emerged during the post-talk interview, conducted by Jason Sukhram.
In response to Jason’s question about the role of engineers in environmental policy, Mayor Miller emphasized the demand for high ethical standards and the freshness of thought inherent to engineers. “Stay fresh, stay innovative,” was the Mayor’s wish to the audience.
As Mayor Miller stepped out of the auditorium, students surrounded him to ask more questions, to hear more insights or simply to shake the Mayor’s hand.
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