It’s no secret that Canada’s gender pay gap remains a persistent problem. In 2019, women’s average hourly wage was 12.1 per cent less than men’s. And COVID-19 has only exacerbated gender pay and employment gaps.Women are doing the very things that are supposed to result in higher wages, like earning degrees and entering high-paying fields. But the problem continues, so perhaps it’s time for a new solution: wage transparency. As of June 1, 2022, federally regulated employers in Canada will have to provide aggregated wage data identifying wage gaps. It’s an important step, but true pay transparency goes beyond just average results — it means actual demonstrations of the differences in salaries for men and women, as well as normalizing discussions of pay in organizations. Talking about wage gaps differently is not sufficient in and of itself to effect lasting change, but it can offer an early chance to see, identify, and call out discrimination more clearly. When we can make these connections through wage data, we can ensure that action is taken. As part of prioritizing transparency, employers can take several key steps to reinforce equitable pay frameworks:Consider a pay equity audit: Knowing how your company stacks up is an important first step to making change. Conducting a pay equity audit can identify areas of inequality and help outline steps to address them. Examine roles, job descriptions and job classes, and look at how pay differs between comparable jobs that are predominantly filled by men versus women. Adjust salaries to compensate for any inequalities identified, and track regularly. Disclose salary ranges on job postings: Ensure that pay bands are clearly outlined and accessible in job postings. Such an approach can provide insight into how compensation aligns with an applicant’s expectations and helps to minimize the underestimation of wages. By being clear about what the role pays, employers reduce the likelihood that a person will under-ask for their initial wages, and can help to reduce the “ask gap,” which puts women and racialized minorities at a disadvantage in wage negotiations. Do not rely on current or previous salary in hiring or promotion: Lower pay can become entrenched and compounded over time. To address the impact that previous wages can have on wage gaps, several U.S. states have recently begun banning the practice of requesting salary history — and have seen a decrease in the wage gap as a result. Previous wages are largely irrelevant in hiring processes, as the job expectations should set the rate of pay. Employers needn’t ask about salary history, and removing the topic from hiring and promotions can benefit women and mothers. Prioritize equity, diversity, and inclusion in hiring and promotion practices: Numerous factors influence the gender pay gap, including lower representation of women in senior leadership roles, as well as unconscious and systemic biases that put mothers at a disadvantage in hiring processes. Employers must critically evaluate hiring and promotion practices to ensure fair and equitable outcomes. Pay transparency offers another tool in the tool kit to address the persistent wage gaps facing women. The stats show that it’s high time for change, so let’s collectively commit to pay equity for all.Lara Zink is the president and CEO of Women in Capital Markets. More information about the organization is available at wcm.ca.SHARE:

Canada is tracking to have the lowest growth in income per capita among the 38 member countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) during 2020-2030.And with Ontario ranking 45th out of 64 U.S.-Canadian states and provinces by the same measure, when it comes to wealth generation, our region now sits in the lower tier of North American jurisdictions. Yet, we expect a best-in-class standard of living and access to premium public services.The simple truth is we spend like New York, but we earn like Vermont.Nothing matters more to Toronto region’s economic future than securing our path to growth and competitiveness. A daunting — but urgent — task.We have the very recent lived experience to do it right. We overcame a once-in-a-generation pandemic by not hesitating to take action. We said “it’s time to hit go” on implementing solutions that were quick, straightforward and hyper-collaborative. These ingredients are needed again to catapult our economy forward and secure our region’s economic future. It’s easy to forget that even before the pandemic, the Toronto region was buckling under the weight of our own success. Over the past decade, more than a million people moved into the region, bringing their skills and talents.Despite this good fortune, we struggled to build at a pace to keep up, and in many areas, we fell behind. Over the last few decades, too often we said “not now” to mission-critical growth projects central and directly tied to moving our economy ahead, such as housing, transportation, talent, transit, advanced technologies and climate, to name only a few.We let inertia win. Now we’re paying the hefty price. The cost? Subpar economic performance and competitiveness has put us at risk by limiting revenues and the borrowing capacity needed to deliver the top-flight standard of living and government services our region’s citizens have come to expect.Additionally, we need excellent transit, roads, hospitals, housing stock, schools and post-secondary institutions, and cultural amenities to attract and retain the skills and talent needed to grow our businesses. Let’s also remember our imperative of shifting business production to a net zero carbon footprint in less than 20 years. Yes, we’ve made good — even great — strides in many areas. But we know we need to move faster and prioritize with more precision. We should lead our peers around the world. Let’s aim that high. Looking to the future then, here is the fundamental question: If we are living in a high-cost region, how can we lower operating costs, meet increasingly aggressive carbon emission goals, and at the same time, increase our overall earning potential? To answer this question, we must first identify the key factors that stand in the way of our competitiveness. There are many, but we propose that some of the most fertile opportunities fall within three broad categories: land use, advanced technologies and logistics.Land use: Understanding how land is categorized for different uses is a Herculean task. Planning mechanisms categorize land use and predetermine its economic potential. For example, residential, manufacturing or commercial zoning each stipulate use and rates. Land use is tied directly to many of the challenges we face such as housing supply and affordability, food security, and future manufacturing capacity, but it is becoming increasingly scarce and expensive. How land is zoned must attract greater and immediate attention.Advanced technologies: For sports fans, the analogy is recognizable: our region risks becoming a farm team feeding talent to global tech businesses; with the loss of IP generated wealth, head office jobs and services. Even our most promising small businesses in tech often hit a glass ceiling, unable to shift into medium or large players, failing to reach their full economic potential, or worse, are incented to move south of the border to grow in a lower cost, vastly larger market. Commercializing our advanced technologies and growing our high potential firms here will turbocharge our GDP. We are a major league player and need to invest like one.Logistics: Under-built, poorly integrated regional transit and intensifying traffic gridlock in the region have created an impediment to smooth and timely movement of people and goods, creating a potentially significant barrier to business growth. Addressing this tension will release pressures on workers and supply-chains.Each of these three priority issues contribute directly to perhaps our most pressing economic challenge — our worsening shortage of skilled workers across nearly every industry and sector category.Here is the upside: we now know how to move quickly when crisis demands. COVID-19 showed us what we’re capable of when we have the right resolve. We said “it’s time to hit go” to evidence. “It’s time to hit go” to what works. “It’s time to hit go” to collaboration. The Toronto region is one of the most dynamic and high-potential economies in the world. It is a great place to work and live, and if we want to keep it that way, we need to think big and act decisively. It’s time to “hit go.” Jan De Silva, is president and CEO, Toronto Region Board of Trade.SHARE:

For the first time, longtime Torontonian Andrew Usher is considering buying a home. The reason? He moved to Montreal.In March 2021, Usher uprooted his decade-long life in Toronto’s west end to pursue a degree at Concordia University while continuing to work full-time remotely at his Toronto IT job.Noticing condo prices were drastically lower in his new city, Usher decided to house hunt and is now preapproved for a $450,000 mortgage, which can buy him a one- or two-bedroom apartment. “I don’t think these prices exist in Toronto,” he said. The average cost of a condo apartment in Toronto was more than $820,000 in April 2022, compared to Montreal, which is around $410,000. Affordability is one of the reasons experts say they’re seeing a shifting trend of Ontarians moving to its eastern neighbour. For the first time since the early 1970s more Ontarians moved Quebec in 2020-2021 than Quebecers to Ontario, according to Statistics Canada. Flexible work arrangements is another driving force behind the shift, as is Quebec’s booming economy that is catching up to Ontario’s.“The pandemic helped expand remote work and caused housing prices to run up significantly (in Ontario),” said Marc Desormeaux, a senior economist at Scotiabank. It’s part of the reason why it pushed record numbers of people to leave Ontario, he said. Back in Toronto, Usher paid $1,300 for his share of an apartment he split with three people. But in Montreal, he pays $1,200 a month in rent for his entire one-bedroom plus den apartment.“I get to see how far my dollar goes here and how much easier it is to live. Being in Montreal has me rethinking my trajectory of where I want to live,” he said. While the migration to Quebec from Ontario is significant, the number is small, Desormeaux said. In 2020-2021, 16,469 people moved from Ontario to Quebec while 16,370 moved from Quebec to Ontario, resulting in a net gain of 99 people, Statistics Canada said. By comparison during the five years before the pandemic almost 6,000 more people were moving from Quebec to Ontario on average each year.Two regions that saw significant migration was Ottawa and the border city of Gatineau. In 2020-2021, 367 people moved to Ottawa while 1,175 moved to Gatineau, said Marc Termote, an associate professor in the department of demography at the Université de Montréal. At the beginning of the pandemic, home prices in the nation’s capital, which attracts workers globally, accelerated and the number of Ottawa residents buying homes in cheaper Gatineau nearly doubled, representing around 11 per cent of the market, according to the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corp.Previous migrations to Ontario from Quebec were led by Ontario’s stronger economy, Quebec’s political unrest, and language laws that pushed out anglophones. According to a 2016 study by the Fraser Institute, between 1971 and 2015 around 600,000 people left Quebec for other parts of Canada. But the pandemic triggered a reversal. “We’re still in a period of transition. The remote work phenomenon has grown exponentially and gives further incentive for people to move,” said Jack Jedwab, president of the Association for Canadian Studies. Remote work also allows Ontarians to continue working in English, insulating them from the language barrier.Jedwab said three of his colleagues are from Ontario and enjoy the Montreal lifestyle. One of those colleagues, Gillian Aitken, moved for a job with the association in 2019 and had a strong desire to learn French for personal and professional reasons. Long-term, she sees herself living in Montreal as the cost of living is lower. Moving back to Toronto isn’t on her radar. “I don’t want to pay higher rent than I am now. I would need a pay raise to move back Toronto,” she said. On Tuesday, Quebec adopted Bill 96 which limits the use of English in the courts and public services, imposing tougher language requirements. But, Termote said Bill 96 won’t significantly hinder Ontarians moving to Quebec as English can be used easily in Montreal. People are also more willing to adapt to French-speaking regions if the lifestyle is better, he added. Usher, who doesn’t speak French, agreed with Termote’s sentiment. “I’m more willing to learn the language just given the life I’m able to have here,” he said. There is another controversial Quebec law, however, which is making the province a less attractive place to live for some, according to a March study out of McGill and Concordia universities. Bill 21, enacted in 2019, bars people wearing religious symbols from holding certain public-sector jobs, such teaching and law. It has been slammed by anti-racism activists for disproportionately affecting Muslim women and creating a “second-class citizenship” for some religious minorities. More than half of students surveyed for the study plan on leaving Quebec because of the bill, which they say led to increased harassment and discrimination. Seventy per cent of respondents said they have a more negative perception of the province since Bill 21 passed, including those who do not wear religious symbols. RELATED STORIESOn the economic front, for the first time in history, growth in Quebec last year outpaced every other province with a GDP growth of more than six per cent. With a diversified economy, thriving job sector in various industries such as manufacturing, biotech, transportation, multimedia and energy exports, the province’s economic future is strong. “There is low unemployment and rapid wage increases,” Termote said. Quebec isn’t the only province to profit off Ontario’s migration losses in the past year, said Scotiabank’s Desormeaux. In a report, he said a record number of people left Ontario — more than 100,000 — for different provinces.In 2021, around 9,000 moved to Nova Scotia from Ontario and around 6,000 Ontarians moved to New Brunswick. “These are much larger numbers for smaller economies, so other provinces are actually benefitting more from the Ontario outflow,” he said.It’s not clear whether the trend of migrating away from Ontario is permanent, but the province, especially the GTA, will continue to remain a work destination for many. More than 198,500 immigrants arrived in Ontario last year, up sharply from 153,000 in pre-pandemic 2019, according to the provincial government. “Toronto is a cosmopolitan city, and a financial and a tech hub. It’s a city that will always be attractive to people globally,” Desormeaux said. The main goal for Ontario is to rein in outlandish property prices to keep Ontarians in the province, he added.“We need to focus on having more housing supply and ensuring policy-makers focus on making housing a priority.” SHARE:JOIN THE CONVERSATION Anyone can read Conversations, but to contribute, you should be registered Torstar account holder. If you do not yet have a Torstar account, you can create one now (it is free)Sign InRegisterConversations are opinions of our readers and are subject to the

There’s a painful contrast in the latest Statistics Canada data on prices and wages. Average consumer prices increased 6.8 per cent over the past year — the fastest in more than 30 years. In contrast, average hourly wages grew 3.3 per cent in the same period. You don’t need an economist to see what this means: prices are growing twice as fast as wages.That widening gap means real (inflation-adjusted) compensation for Canadian workers is shrinking — and quickly. On average, workers lost more than three per cent of their real purchasing power in the past year alone, with more to come.Public sector workers face draconian pay caps that amplify the losses from inflation. For example, 270,000 public sector workers in Ontario have had pay rises capped at one per cent by the Ford government since 2019. As compensation for their bravery and dedication during the pandemic, their real wages will be cut 5.5 per cent this year alone.Other governments are imposing only slightly less draconian real wage cuts on their public servants. The federal government is offering its staff an average 1.7 per cent per year over four years. Other provinces are capping pay rises well below labour market averages, and even farther behind inflation.No one can credibly argue the current inflation was caused by workers. Wages have lagged well behind prices since mid-2020, and workers’ share of GDP is shrinking as prices surge. No, this inflation was clearly caused by supply chain disruptions (like semiconductors and cars), the housing bubble, and the energy price shock following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.Those factors will likely moderate in coming months: real estate prices, for example, are already falling. Higher interest rates will cut deeply into domestic spending.But even if inflation subsides, what will happen to workers’ wages in the meantime? If wages aren’t lifted, and quickly, workers will experience a permanent reduction in their living standards as a legacy of inflation they didn’t cause — but which enriched others (from petroleum giants to housing developers to grocery chains).That’s morally reprehensible, and economically damaging. It causes household financial fragility, greater inequality, and conflictual labour relations (already visible in Ontario’s construction strikes).Employers, whether public or private, can certainly afford to boost wages in line with prices. Government revenues are increasing lock step with inflation; that’s why budget balances, both federally and provincially, are much stronger than anticipated. Governments have plenty of room to increase wages at the same pace.Private sector employers, too, are reaping wider profit margins as consumers shell out for higher prices. Wholesale margins have grown more than twice as fast as overall inflation, and pre-tax corporate profits have reached their largest share of revenues in over a decade this year as inflation took off.It’s clear the current situation is a case of profit-price inflation, not wage-price inflation. Suppressing wages doesn’t address the cause of the problem, and will have no value curing it.It is possible to protect workers against inflation, without causing more inflation. Unit labour costs grow more slowly than wages (thanks to productivity growth). And labour costs make up only one-third of direct production costs, on average, across all industries. So honest businesses only need to increase prices one-third as fast as wages while still preserving their (already-swollen) profits.So long as the actual causes of inflation are addressed (by fixing supply chains, energy prices, and housing), inflation would then decelerate, even as wages keep up. Contingent wage protections (like cost-of-living adjustments) would also maintain the purchasing value of wages, without prompting higher inflation.Meanwhile, governments could act to directly bring down some prices: such as child care; health, dental, and drug costs; transit fares; and even housing (through expanded nonmarket housing construction). To the limited extent that domestic demand pressures are reinforcing higher prices, it is better to use more focused and fair contractionary measures to dampen spending. The federal NDP’s proposal to lift taxes on petroleum companies, and recycle revenues to enhanced social benefits, would be neutral in its effect on inflation, while helping protect the hardest-hit households.Whether public sector or private, workers should reject the permanent reduction in real wages their employers are demanding. Workers didn’t cause this inflation. And they shouldn’t have to pay for it.Jim Stanford is a freelance contributing columnist for the Star, based in Vancouver. He is Economist and Director of the Centre for Future Work, a labour economics research institute with operations in Canada and Australia.SHARE:JOIN THE CONVERSATION Anyone can read Conversations, but to contribute, you should be registered Torstar account holder. If you do not yet have a Torstar account, you can create one now (it is free)Sign InRegisterConversations are opinions of our readers and are subject to the

What kind of economic manager will Doug Ford be in his next term as Ontario premier? Over the next four years, Ford will be a builder, investing substantially in economic expansion and social infrastructure, but within the province’s means. He will be good at that, to judge from the most recent two years of his premiership. But it will be a balancing act that invites criticism over its real and perceived half measures. For instance, Ford’s two hikes in the minimum wage in one year — the second takes effect this fall — amount to a sizable eight per cent annual pay gain for the more than 760,000 Ontarians working minimum-wage jobs. But progressives complain that the new $15.50 minimum still falls short of the estimated $20 per hour required to cover basic living costs in the GTA. At the same time, the most ardent fiscal conservatives complain that if Ford’s budget last month was stripped of its social-assistance spending and job-creating infrastructure projects, the premier could have balanced the books two years earlier than he plans. Which is to say that we can expect a holistic, even nuanced, approach to economic management between now and 2026 from a premier who first came to office with a self-styled image as a renegade cost-cutter. Instead, the chief difference between Ford’s management of Canada’s biggest economy in coming years and the quietly ambitious approach of the late premier Bill Davis will be Ford’s gregarious persona. Ford plans to spend a budgeted $159 billion on core infrastructure including new or upgraded highways, public transit systems, and health-care and education facilities. And there will be more corporate subsidies to stimulate both diversity and growth in the economy, building on the precedents Ford set for himself during the pandemic, when he got Ontario making its own medical supplies. The Ford government has poured roughly a billion dollars in subsidies into the Ontario auto sector’s bid for continued relevance as a maker of electric vehicles (EVs) and EV batteries. And because EVs, wind turbines and solar panels are made of steel, Ford has invested heavily in steelworks in Hamilton and Sault Ste. Marie for their conversion to carbon-free production, or “green steel.” But Ford is not the engineer of the “gravy train” he once fiercely condemned, despite his big-spender image on the campaign trail ahead of Thursday’s election. His planned spending on core infrastructure, for instance, falls short of the $182 billion proposed by then-premier Kathleen Wynne in her 2018 pre-election budget. And most of Ford’s biggest investments should not be a tough sell. In Ford’s second term, Ontario will become home to the largest portion of the approximately 1.2 million immigrants arriving in Canada between 2021 and 2023. So, Ford will embark on a program to build about 1.5 million new homes over the next decade. In health care, the Ford government will spend about $40 billion to reverse what Ford has described as decades of “underspending and underinvestment.” Fair enough. Ontario has fewer hospital beds per capita than a great many jurisdictions. Ford will spend $21 billion on new and upgraded schools. That will seem an extravagance to some. But Ontario’s backlog of needed repairs to existing schools stood at $16.8 billion when last estimated in September. And on highway and public transit spending, Ford will argue that the GTA, North America’s fourth-largest population centre, cannot much longer endure gridlock and hope to retain its economic competitiveness. There will be much controversy ahead. Projects like Ford’s proposed Highway 413 and his ambition to tap the “Ring of Fire,” a potential treasure house of critical minerals about 500 kilometres north of Thunder Bay, have already met with opposition from environmental and Indigenous groups. But there’s likely to be no uproar over provincial finances. There are fiscal “guiderails” built into Ford’s spending plans. Ford is determined to balance the books by 2027-28, two years earlier than forecast in last year’s budget. If GDP growth and resulting government tax revenues fall short of projections, or if cost overruns crop up, government projects will be scaled back, postponed or cancelled so that Ford doesn’t risk failing to meet his deficit-reduction targets. And because many of Ford’s biggest planned expenditures are to be paid out over 10 years, there’s ample flexibility to shift planned spending into future years if necessary. Ford’s careful assessment of Ontarians’ priorities has kept the Tory brand relevant, after the flame-outs of Andrew Scheer, Erin O’Toole and Jason Kenney.On the campaign trail this week, Ford told Star political columnist Martin Regg Cohn that “I’ll always be fiscally responsible, but I have a huge social conscience — massive.” Ford’s compassion is not sufficiently elevated to suit progressives. And his tolerance for short-term deficits appalls fiscal conservatives. If Ford can strike a balance between those sentiments, as Bill Davis did, he has a chance to be one of the more capable economic managers in Ontario history. That Ford knows this is reason to bet on his success. SHARE:

The first thing to understand about the mass murder of children in Texas this week is that nothing will be done to prevent it from happening again.No mass shooting in America’s history has been shocking enough or heartbreaking enough to move the needle. American political culture is too broken to tackle guns, just as it is too broken to tackle health care, housing or climate change.Canada is hardly different in this regard. Everything from the convoy protests to our addiction to fossil fuels shows a lack of governmental capacity and vision. All the while, just as in America, our public discourse keeps getting worse.It is hard to find reason for hope at times such as these. One is instead simply left with questions: How has it all gone so wrong?I don’t know the reasons why the world seems so broken, and even if I did, no one could really do them justice in a newspaper column.But as I took to social media in the tragedy’s aftermath, it was hard not to feel as if something was deeply, profoundly broken in the world.There were of course the expressions of shock and sorrow, the horror and disbelief at the bodies of children torn apart by bullets. But among the calls to ban guns were angry rejections of the very idea. Amidst the grief were strange interjections that, despite the fact that kids had just been shot and killed while at school, America isn’t all bad. Some cried that a mental health crisis was to blame, or the decline of religion, while others called those who defended guns accessories to murder.I suppose that’s not a bad little summary of social media: even in the most aching, tragic of moments, there will be pointless performative statements, empty politicking, vociferous disagreement — just a cacophonic mess of emotion and desire to be heard that solves that nothing.Perhaps I am just feeling this way about social media now, having watched the response to the tragedy play out in such a depressingly aimless and predictable way.But while the problems of society are far too wide-ranging to be attributed to one thing, it’s hard not to feel that social media has poisoned or somehow broken public discourse. What was supposed to manifest the ideal of a democratic arena of debate and expression instead far too often seems to make the world worse.For one, people tend to turn to social media after events like these because it feels like a natural impulse to seek out community, to see what others are saying and feeling.What they find there, though, is a conversation where the emotional tone of speech is at its highest pitch. While you could hardly fault someone for virtually beating their chest in the face of such awfulness, it does have the perverse effect of drawing out similarly high-key reactions, producing a sort of vortex of feeling in which there is only anger and sadness on all sides.As a place to measure the pulse of society, it sort of works. But as a vector to turn feeling into policy — which is how a functioning society should work in response to an event that shocks a nation — social media seems instead to function as only a release valve. The transition of sentiment to practical change seems somehow short-circuited by the very ability to broadcast one’s feelings to the world.Amongst that sort of affective noise, it becomes necessary to say more and more extreme or radical things in order to punch through the noise. It’s what scholar Walter Ong called agonism in oral societies — an amped up, hyperbolic mode of speaking designed to register in people’s minds.Perhaps that’s why we get pointless whataboutism, like this week when popular writer Matthew Yglesias felt that the tragedy was a good time to remind people that, nevertheless, America is a good place and people still want to move there.Something about the structure of social media encourages the worst in us, at just the time we need to be our best.Social media is a not a direct conduit to the halls of power, and the sort of institutional paralysis that leaves, say, America with an intractable gun problem, or Canada unable to deal with reconciliation, a housing crisis and more, is not a set of problems for which we can neatly blame Twitter or Facebook. It’s important, too, that social media can still provide a voice for marginalized groups when they are denied one via more traditional avenues.All the same, I’ve lost faith that social media is making things better. Rather, it seems to be making it harder to make things better. There is instead a surfeit of anger, an excess of exaggeration — and a sinking feeling that, even when faced with so much that is wrong, that we are just yelling into the wind and nothing will change.Navneet Alang is a Toronto-based freelance contributing technology columnist for the Star. Follow him on Twitter: @navalangSHARE:

Canada’s biggest bakery company is behind every loaf of Dempster’s bread, box of Vachon pastries, and bag of POM tortillas. Yet to many Canadians, its name — Bimbo Canada — is unrecognizable.In 2014, Grupo Bimbo, a Mexican baking juggernaut with $15 billion (U.S.) in annual sales across 33 countries, bought Canada Bread Company, Ltd. Today, Bimbo Canada runs 16 bakeries, 191 depots, and 15 distribution centres across the country. A workforce of more than 4,200 bakes, processes, and ships more than a thousand different products. In 2021 alone, Bimbo Canada posted $1.26 billion in sales. Yet all of those muffins, croissants, bread loaves, and May West snack cakes arrive in the mouths of Canadians with a cost. Like any industrial-scale business, Bimbo Canada is responsible for greenhouse gas emissions. It also has responsibilities to its employees and the wider community. Boosting plant-based ingredients in its recipes and diverting all of its waste from landfill by 2025 are on its sustainability agenda. So, too, is a partnership with the Gord Downie & Chanie Wenjack Fund devoted to honouring Indigenous history through a Legacy Space at the company’s headquarters in Etobicoke. Senior director of sustainability Teresa Schoonings spoke to the Star about creating a sustainable bread tag, tackling food loss, and why Bimbo Canada doesn’t want a sustainability team in the future.A bit of a weird question — it’s pronounced “BEEM-bo,” right?It is “BEEM-bo,” but even some of our associates say “BIM-bo.”Why do you think Bimbo Canada is so committed to sustainability? When a lot of Canadians think about industrial emissions, they think of oil and gas or heavy manufacturing. They might not necessarily think of baking.I think it stems from the company. It is a family-owned company. It was founded in Mexico. The Servitje family thought it was really important to give back to their community — as appreciation for being able to thrive. Sustainability for us is not just about the environment. It’s all aspects of sustainability.Right from the get-go, Grupo Bimbo contributed back to communities. Eighty per cent of all the profits made within Grupo Bimbo go back into the company, either through community contributions or investment back into the company, to advance sustainability efforts, or make the company more efficient.A big part of my role is really establishing sustainability within our culture. Eventually, it will just be part of who we are and what we do every day and people won’t even think about it as being sustainability, because it’ll just be inherent in our activity. That’s really our ultimate goal.Where do you get inspiration for the ideas you’re putting into place as senior director of sustainability?My background is actually in non-profit and community organizations. I think it’s always just been part of whom I am — that idea that you can’t do well without doing good. That’s a harder one for me to answer.I’ve always been the person pushing for sustainability inside our organization. I don’t have a background in it. Our company saw my enthusiasm for it and enabled me to embrace it. I have a fantastic team that is educated in this space and understand the technical pieces that I don’t. I lean heavily on them to do all of that heavy lifting.How far along do you think Bimbo Canada is on that process?It’s interesting to see how quickly people are embracing it. Our associates care about doing the right thing. The Legacy Space is a really good example. People are reaching out to me all the time with ideas. Everybody’s fully embracing the opportunity to do better and make the world a better place.Bimbo Canada has a lot of franchises — a lot of moving parts. What’s it like trying to implement a comprehensive sustainability strategy?Bakeries feel like they’d be simple, right? It’s actually a very complex business. We have more than 1,000 independent operators in Canada. So, essentially, we support over 1,000 small businesses. They’ve invested. They’re not our employees. So when we’re working with our independent operators, it’s really about communicating in a way that makes sense to them. What will inspire them to also want to do the right thing? You can’t force it on them. It’s their own business.We encourage our independent operators to give back within their communities. Our next step would be — how do we incent our independent operators to shift to electric vehicles? Again, they’ve got to invest in those. It’s got to make sense for them. We’re starting to look at whether there are rebate programs that can help support that shift.We share everything we’re doing with them. We do a quarterly stakeholder update for all of our customers — and for independent operators — that talks about the work we’re doing and encourages people to get involved. It will be a slower shift because it also has to come at a time when our independent operators feel that they want to invest in it.As far as emissions go, Bimbo Canada’s website says it wants to get a handle on its scope one and scope two emissions. What do Bimbo Canada’s emissions look like?Our scope one and scope two emissions would include electricity and gas. Our ovens, for example, are natural-gas-powered for the most part. One thing we’re looking at is moving to electric ovens or another fuel source — whether it’s hydrogen or something else. The challenge there is that there’s actually no technology today for hydrogen-powered ovens at the scale we’d need on the commercial side. The electricity would cover the lights and cooling racks within the bakery to ensure bread is cooled at the right rate to avoid mould.We did sign a virtual power purchase agreement with a wind and solar farm built in Alberta. They will create clean electricity and pump it back into the grid in Alberta, but it is not being created directly for our plants. We don’t have a solar panel on our bakery. We pay for the clean electricity to be created in the amount of all of the electricity that we use for all of our operations in Canada. Those are offsets.We also had a company called Environmental Stewards, which is a sustainability firm that specializes in energy efficiency. It has come into every single one of our bakeries and one distribution centre in each of our regions to help us understand opportunities that we might not be seeing. We’ve already implemented about 55 projects as a result. Food loss and waste is another big area, and we’re a food company. Of course, we need to reduce it. When we’re putting sesame seeds on a loaf of Bellagio bread — is it all hitting the bread, or is some of it going down the bread rails underneath? How do you stop that from happening? Is it a tweak to a process? Is it a new piece of equipment? Tell me about the sustainable bread tag. Who came up with that idea?That came from one of our associates in our West region. To be honest, I’m not even sure how he discovered it. One of our suppliers raised it with him. It took a lot of testing and trial and error because we had to make sure that it wasn’t going to compromise the quality of the product or create more food waste by lessening its shelf life. They’re made out of cardboard so they’re recyclable and also compostable.If you laid the red plastic tags that we were putting on our product side-by-side, you could go from Vancouver to St. John’s and back to Vancouver. That is a lot of plastic. That’s why we’re really excited about this initiative. The bread tags are so small, and people don’t really think about them. Bimbo Canada’s sustainability commitments cover working conditions too. Your website mentions flexible work benefits. What about pay increases or better job security — are those part of your sustainability footprint?I wouldn’t say that job security is something we talk about as part of our sustainability framework. I think what we do is by creating a great place to work, people want to stay.We focus on safety, first and foremost. It comes before everything that we do. We’re very focused on training and development. We offer all kinds of training programs to our associates. Diversity, equity and belonging are a big aspect of what we do. And that’s where the Legacy Space came in as well.Why is it so important for Bimbo Canada to think about reconciliation?We’re in Canada, and it’s the right thing to do. At some point, we as Canadians all need to work toward changing the conversation. And to get there requires awareness and education. I grew up in Niagara Falls and I moved to Brantford for college. The very first residential school in Canada is here in Brantford — the Mohawk Institute. I had no idea. IPart of being an ambassador with the Gord Downie & Chanie Wenjack Fund is a commitment to what they call “reconciliaction,” throughout the year. It doesn’t mean that you pay for your Legacy Space, and you commit to five years and that’s the end of it. It’s truly a commitment to raising awareness and education. We’re launching Indigenous cultural competency training with our associates this month. We are hosting, with Food and Beverage Ontario, an industry event in our Legacy Space. We’re also going to do something for Secret Path Week, which is a Gord Downie & Chanie Wenjack Fund initiative that happens in October every year. On each of the other Indigenous commemorative days — like Red Dress Day — we’ll make sure that we educate our associates about what they are, what they mean, and what they can do.Is there anything that’s not on Bimbo Canada’s sustainability promises that you’d love to implement, but don’t think you can right now? I’m basically asking for your wish list.I would say being able to shift to electric ovens everywhere in our facilities, overnight. But our sustainability strategy is very ambitious. touching so many different parts of sustainability from our product to our people to our communities — everything involving the planet. I don’t know that I could ask for more.This interview has been edited for length and clarity.Brennan Doherty is a former staff reporter for Star Calgary and the Star’s 24-hour radio room in Toronto. He is now a freelance contributor.SHARE:JOIN THE CONVERSATION Anyone can read Conversations, but to contribute, you should be registered Torstar account holder. 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