MP Judy Sgro lives with her family in North York and has over 30 years of experience as an elected politician. She became an elected politician in 1987 as a North York City Councillor until 1994 then became a Metro Councillor from 1994 – 1997. She was elected as a Toronto City Councillor from 1998 – 1999. Sgro became a Member of Parliament (MP) in 1999 and continues to serve the communities of Humber River – Black Creek.
Please start by telling me a bit about yourself.
I was born in Moncton, New Brunswick and our home burned down and our business burned down in a massive fire so when I was twelve years old, we moved to Toronto to start again with my Mom and Dad, grandmother and three brothers – the other one was in the army. We moved to Toronto and we moved around quite a bit and eventually settled in Etobicoke and from Etobicoke, we settled here in North York. I remained in that house. My parents both died there, and my husband and I bought the house and raised our family there. So, we’ve lived in that house for fifty-three years.
What were the circumstances that led to you becoming a politician?
Frustration with the public education system. I had a gifted son and they just weren’t able to keep him occupied and interested. He was bored from day six into the school system, so I started to become more active in the system. I came to the realization that if you were a high needs child, you fall through the cracks. If you’re not in the middle, you don’t get the extra support needed. It was about fighting for those extra supports on all sides that got me involved politically. I can’t quite believe it myself, because I was the last person I would ever imagine getting involved in politics.
In the early days, when you were a Councillor, what were the issues in the community and how did you respond to some of the issues that you felt were important?
Lack of support - lack of support for many of the issues. I would go to bat for constituents - homeowners who were having difficulty wanting to do an addition to their home or having a dispute with a neighbour. Those kinds of things took up a lot of time, but also the planning process took up an amazing amount of time; trying to ensure that the planning was being done properly and fairly, especially in a community like ours where we are overloading with an immense amount of density that should never, never have been built anywhere.
I think that resulted in a lot of the challenges that the community had in dealing with high density developments and the lack of resources to support the community at large. A lot of it for me was constituent based. I was more interested in people than I was in policy per say other than making sure that the policies reflect the needs of the community in a bigger way. As a Councillor, you get all kinds of calls about all kinds of issues because people don’t know where to call. As soon as somebody reaches out to them and they have a name and a number, they’ll call no matter what the issue is. They still do. I still promote the fact that you call my office no matter what the issue and if I can’t help you with it, I’ll make sure you got the direction for where you have to go. We tend to promote that very open concept where you can call me for whatever it is you need. Doesn’t matter what the problem is – we’ve sat here and cried with people who have lost family members and need some support, or if they are in the middle of a divorce and they need support. I mean, it’s a social service office here. I’ve always operated that way, and its about being a people person and helping people no matter what it is. We get so many people here and we’re able to do so much for people and I love that.
In terms of poverty, I started up the first breakfast club. It started at Amesbury Public School. One of the teachers called me and said that there had been about thirty refugee families arriving on their doorstep. The school board sent them to Amesbury as they were living in one of the local buildings. She was telling me about how difficult it was. They didn’t have proper clothing or boots and they were coming to school without proper nutrition, so we looked into it. I had a constituent who had a big clothing company, and his name was Ben Otis. I went to him and asked if he would help sponsor some breakfast in the morning. We started with fifty kids and then ended up offering breakfast to other kids as well. It was the first breakfast club that was done in North York. Again, it was a real opportunity for me to see first-hand the struggles that families were having, but it wasn’t just the new immigrant families. It was many of the families because of the high density within the apartment buildings and the kids came from all different backgrounds. The kids liked the nutritious breakfast, plus it showed the education establishment that if a child has a full stomach and has some nutrition in the morning, they do better. They study better, they absorb better and they also get into less trouble because they are more content – some of the basic things that weren’t happening. It just shows you how important it is to make sure that kids have nutrition. You hear opposition from well-to-do families that say, “Well, why is that necessary to have a breakfast program?” Well you know what, the reality is if we’re trying to make a difference in the lives of people and to keep them going forward, we need to do what we can do.
When I was first elected, I had the area from Lawrence, south of here and east was Keele Street and west went over to Weston Road. I was the city Councillor for that area for the first 6 years and then when they changed the boundaries – and we’ve been through a lot of changes – and they decided they were going to have two councillors per riding and they blended this part with that part so there was Mr. Mammoliti and I representing those two ridings together. Another one of Mike Harris’s bright ideas, I guess. He blended those two together. A year later, I ran for Metro Councillor. I knew it was never going to work for us because we had different viewpoints on things so when the Metro Councillor opportunity came, I ran for Metro Council at the Metro level.
At Metro, I was on the budget committee right from the beginning. Again, I come from a zero-taxation mentality because my constituents can’t handle a whole lot of tax increases, so I was always committed to that zero. I was on the executive committee at North York and I ended up on the same committee at the Metro level. It was really about how do we provide the services without increasing taxes so where do we cut, how do we keep the libraries open, where do we cut and where was there too much fat. To continue the service levels in a riding like ours was extremely important.
When you were first elected as the MP for the area in 1999, what were the issues in the community and how did you respond to some of the issues that you felt were important?
Poverty was still a big issue. No matter what we were doing, poverty was the big issue. There was a lack of support – mental health support and a lack of employment. I have the mentality that everyone wants to work in one form or another. It gives a productive feeling to be working. So, trying to increase employment opportunities and making sure we have programs was important to me.
The Career Foundation is a good example and they were in yesterday – Colin Morrison. Career Foundation does a lot of work. He first came to me 32 years ago when I was a brand-new councillor and he had this idea about matching people with jobs but in a proper way. The government would give him $10.00 for every successful match, providing the match would be a year match, not a three-month match and then the company would walk away. They would screen them, train them and then match them to the right job. The government would then give them $10 - $15.00 per placement and it had to be successful on both sides. They are still doing their Career Foundation work, and he has another idea that he came to me with that I’m going to embrace, I think. Its an individual placement service for those suffering from mental illness in some form or another, whether its depression or schizophrenia. It operates in the United States and sounds like a successful program and I’m going to see if I can capture it as a pilot project for Humber River – Black Creek.
The biggest issue or the reason why I left the City was my frustration being on the Executive Committee and having to make cuts all the time and I was just fed up with trying to build a city with all the needs that were there and not having the funds. So, when the opportunity came to run federally, I decided I’d give it a try because that’s where the money was – I was not interested provincially. I figured the federal government is the one that’s got the money, the City needs the money, so I went there with one expressed purpose and that was to fight for additional sources of funding and help for the City of Toronto. I was successful and we had an urban agenda.
When I went there, you couldn’t even say the word “city” in the House of Commons because it was not our responsibility, so I was able to push back. Prime Minister Chretien gave me the job of a task force right away to keep me quiet and to give me something to do. It was the Caucus Task Force on Urban Issues. I was chair of that for 18 months and after that, we started to get cities on the file. Prime Minister Paul Martin came in and he understood the urban agenda much better than Chretien did. So, all the work that I did, I gave to Paul Martin to implement. We talk about cities now every single day in the House of Commons.
All the things I did (for example, Chair of the Urban Strategy, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, Chair of the Standing Committee on Transportation, Infrastructure and Communities) all goes back to the urban agenda. In it, you talk about the hard infrastructure but also about the soft infrastructure, about the poverty and the planning processes. All of those things are about building a community. Its not just about building houses or apartment buildings. Its about building a community and having the resources for the people within those communities to thrive.
When I go back to Firgrove, as an example, and the kind of disaster that ended up there - we were still housing people there up to two years ago. I’ve knocked on doors and talked to people in Firgrove. That generates a huge appetite for me to make that change. Getting money now to be able to build proper housing in a proper form that gives family support and to look at other ways we can be supportive to each other is good. There’s lots of money at the federal level and I do everything I possibly can do to fight to get money into this riding to make a difference.
For every person that we help to change their life and point them in a different direction, helping them in a different way just makes a better Canada. So, we got a million dollars last summer for Canada Summer Jobs. We’re implementing another program just like the summer program but one that will be like a co-op program year-round, a whole year to give kids a chance to find a job. We’ll work with the employer to give them a year of experience because that’s what holds people back – they can’t get that first year. So, for me, all of those things that are tied to people make a difference. Its not big-time policies for me, its about helping people through a variety of different issues.
I was the chair of the Standing Committee on Transportation, Infrastructure and Communities, formed under Prime Minister Trudeau’s mandate. We had six standing committees that covered the whole country and so I was the Chair of the Standing Committee for four years during the last term. That involved being prepared, doing the agenda, meeting with Canadian National and Canadian Pacific and the airlines. We did some work on the noise factor in my own riding here because of the noise from the airplanes. I managed to get that on the agenda even though it was not on the agenda and with a little bit of experience I managed to get 6 meetings on airport noise. It’s a bigger problem than people have any idea about. We used it as an opportunity to
put some pressure on the airlines to be paying more attention to how they can use quieter aircraft, better control of the hours because airports like ours want to operate 24 hours a day. The noise factor is bad enough in the daytime, but it disrupts people’s environment and their ability to sleep and the rest of it – just not acceptable. We were able to put some pressure on the airports in our major centres.
And then of course, there’s infrastructure, and its about building communities. You need transportation networks that’s done properly, and you need the infrastructure to go along with it. My involvement with the Finch West LRT was in making sure the money was there to do it. It’s the first improvement that we’ve had – a significant improvement. We got the subway, an issue I worked on from day one, over thirty years ago to getting the subway to York University. I never really imagine it could happen in my lifetime, but it did. I worked with Peter Li Preti, Greg Sorbara and the University administration to get the subway up to there and to make sure we had the funding to do it.
The next piece of course is trying to make some other improvements. We don’t have the density to carry a subway across Finch and frankly, we’ve got enough density that if you think I’m going to support a subway in order to bring more density and more problems, it was not where I was going. Again, the councillor and I were always at odds with each other so I’m very pleased about this. It’s going to be disruptive but between a new hospital, our university expanding, the subway, Finch LRT, I think its going to do a lot to improve the area and meet the needs of the wonderful people who live here.
I believe that Humber River – Black Creek covers the neighbourhoods with the least resources and the most challenges. Some would say that the north west area has been neglected. What are the issues or challenges you are facing today as our MP and what ideas or strategies do you have in mind to combat those issues?
Employment – quality employment. People need jobs and access to those jobs. So many people don’t know where to go or what to do. Poverty is a big issue here. We have so many new families that come here because they know somebody else who is here, so they end up coming. Its almost like it’s the first piece of property that somebody owns seems to be here. Maybe it’s a bit more affordable that people end up here. But they have very limited services.
We say we have about 120,000 people in Humber River-Black Creek, but we probably have about 150,000 people. There are lots of undocumented people here with no status. The housing over at York University is unbelievable with the number of people that are living in those units. It’s a lack of respect that I can’t help but to say that. I always felt that the riding never got the respect that it should have had and some of that is for different reasons. But you need to be respected by your colleagues – city council or metro councillor or wherever you are. When you are trying to get things done, you need to have a level of respect as well so when you’re talking, people take you seriously. I think for too long people have not been taking this area seriously enough, sometimes for different reasons but whatever it was, the needs are immense. We have the second lowest income range on the median of income range here in this riding. York South Weston, on a federal level and Etobicoke is the next one. We are the second lowest income range in the City. We have a lot of people who are newcomers who are struggling to get ahead, to find their way – working two jobs, sometimes three jobs. Rents aren’t getting any cheaper, housing is not getting built – it’s a struggle.
Certainly, improving the transportation improves the overall quality of life for people, making transportation easier, increases value of properties which in some ways is better and in some ways it isn’t. Getting money for housing, getting money for affordable housing like co-op housing. I’m a big advocate of cooperative housing. Cooperative housing is down as one of our recommendations for affordable housing. Its going back to look at the cooperative model. We have three in the riding and one is on Jane Street, the Glen Gardens Housing Coop. I think it’s a lovely place. The people that I’ve met are kind and I use that as an example of the kind of mix that we should be having. We need to get into that.
And then you have the need for housing that provides more social support. LOFT is one organization that is in several areas. I certainly get a lot less calls from some of those buildings than I used to because now the people will go to LOFT to solve some of their problems. Housing is something that I will be really pressing for. Seniors housing but not big towers – that doesn’t interest me. I want housing that makes people feel like their living in a place where they care about each other. So, we’re putting lots of money into the housing file.
We do this but pass the money to Toronto to do the work and we’re tying the money down as tight as we can. One of the frustrating things I find is that you fight for the money and then you pass it down to the province and if you don’t put some sort of conditions on it, which the provinces don’t want, so you need some sort of condition. You try in a nice way to get some conditions and say that we would like to see seniors housing built and we’ll work together so it’s a combination of things.
Community Centres – we’re going to get a new community centre at some point in St. Basil’s – we’ve been talking about it for a long time. There should be a shovel that goes into the ground next year. That has some federal money. There is a new one that is supposed to go in at Keele and Sheppard – on the Downsview Lands. That is going to be a community centre with an economic hub part like we’re tying to get on Finch on the Metrolinx property – the Community Hub and Centre for the Arts. So those things are really important in the development of a community. Its making things change – trying to change an atmosphere where people can go, and they can get the kind of support and direction they need. We pay all kinds of rent in the plazas to have the job placements here and there so put it all in one place. People can go there, and you can get support.
What are you most proud of?
Its all the little things I do to help people in the immigration file – reuniting families is a big deal. The urban agenda, I guess was important to me because that is why I went to Ottawa. It changed the face of our cities because of my work and it’s the individual help to people. I can go out and meet people and I signed their citizenship, or “will you help my family here” or “will you help my family there” – that’s what I like.
I was chosen for two years in a row, 2017 and 2018 as Parliamentarian of the Year on the Mentorship because I mentor a lot of people in Ottawa. I know what its like to go there and not have much support but it’s that way everywhere and how I’ve always been. If I can help people and share what I’ve learned with others, why wouldn’t I? It just comes naturally to help people and mentoring happens to be another area of doing that kind of work. It was a great honour –
Maclean’s was the one who ran the program and it was my fellow parliamentarians that voted for me. I was quite shocked because I just kind of do my thing and I guess it gets noticed.
It’s a huge honour to be in an elected office and I absolutely love what I do, and I want to do the best I can for the next few years and try to see if I can make a difference, specifically with the young kids that I met struggling in life, and I’m going to try to mentor them. Every life that we have an impact on makes our country stronger. I’m going to be even more committed than I was before to try to reach out to some of the low-income communities to see if we can do more and to make a difference. They deserve the best that we can give them because Canada will be that much stronger.