The Better Way Alliance is Building Ethical Employment and Sustainable Practices

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  0:01  
Foreign This is forward motion discussions about the important topic shaping Ontario's tourism industry. Here's your host, Andrew sigward,

Andrew Siegwart  0:10  
what does it take to build a fairer, more resilient business ecosystem, one that supports workers, strengthens communities and drives long term success? In this episode of forward motion, we sit down with Aaron binder, communications director and Liliana Camacho knowledge director of the better way Alliance, a growing coalition of business leaders championing ethical employment and sustainable business practices. Together, we explore the values behind the BW A's work, the policies they're pushing for, and how small businesses across Ontario are navigating everything from labor shortages to rising commercial rents, plus Aaron and Liliana share some hidden gem travel spots for your next Ontario getaway. So let's get to it. Thank you both for joining us on our forward motion podcast. It's great to have you with us. I always like to start with learning a little bit about each of your stories. So if you could you know Aaron and Liliana What led you to your roles with better way Alliance and what drew you to your respective fields of professional greatness. I've

Aaron Binder  1:12  
got a long, meandering story that I'm gonna try to keep to about a minute and a half. I'm originally from Kingsville, Ontario, which, if you are in tourism, you probably know, is one of the new hot spots in Ontario, and when I was getting bored of living on a farm, actually, I wasn't even bored. It was just I didn't want to keep doing that. I moved up to Toronto, ended up working for a motor sports company. One of my clients is now my business partner, and eventually he was like, Hey, do you want to take a huge pay cut to be a tour guide? And I said, You know what? It seems fun, sure. And 20, almost 20 years later, we've, we've got this fantastic business in downtown Toronto, and we did other locations up in Barrie, at hardwood ski and bike and Horseshoe resort. For a while. We were at Ontario Place for about five years as well. And it's, that's what led me here. There's a lot of stuff that has happened between then and now, but it's one of those industries that I'm always glad to throw back to when I meet people from around the globe. You know, it's, it's such a magical moment, and I think that's what brings a lot of folks to this industry, is the opportunity for travel, the opportunity to meet people, understand cultures. So that's what brought me here, and it's what's kept me here. Tour

Andrew Siegwart  2:31  
guiding, to me, has always been one of those aspirational things I've always wanted to do. I just love it. Tell me before we before we go to Liliana. Aaron, what do you think makes a great what makes a great tour? Oh, I know it's a hard question.

Aaron Binder  2:45  
How long do you have? I will boil it down to three bullet points for you. I think a great tour is made by being curious, and that's from the tour guides perspective and the audience's perspective. Curiosity is, is it? You know, that's why most people take a tour, is they want to learn something. So it's curiosity. And if you've got a curious tour guide that is constantly learning, you're going to get some really good, deep insight into wherever it is you're going. The second thing I would say is, like, have a good narrative, tell a good story. That's That's key. And the third thing I would say is always try to integrate some food in there, because everyone loves to eat.

Andrew Siegwart  3:28  
I mean, it's a perfect formula. Absolutely, I love it. Okay. Liliana, tell me what was your pathway to get to where you

Liliana Locke  3:34  
are. My background had been in sustainability and business for a long time, and the BWA kind of perfectly marries those two aspects. I started out as just working in business. I did an undergrad in business, and then I did a master's in economics. And I started out in sustainability, working with the government as a climate change economist. So like very like numbers driven and analytical and whatever. And then I had an opportunity to work in international development, doing sustainability, basically helping small and medium businesses around the world be more sustainable and prepare for climate change. So it was very cool, and I got to work basically on all the continents. Think, on all the continents so far, maybe, except for Antarctica, you gotta, you gotta have a goal. And then when I was doing a research project with the University of Waterloo, I found out about the BWA, and they were hiring basically at some point. And I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to be the bridge that can go from what's happening on the ground with businesses to influencing policy and like trying to change narratives. And I've always been really fascinated by sustainability, because, like to me, we exist, we businesses and people exist within the context of nature. So. So trying to take care of nature and trying to take care of each other is basically just about, like, people having good lives at the end of the day and about people's well being. So at beaw, we're able to focus on kind of the social aspect of sustainability. And it's it's so cool to see how, like, businesses are changing the game just in their day to day operations. And it really matters. It really matters to people.

Andrew Siegwart  5:25  
Yeah, you know, we recently launched Ontario's new strategic plan, and one of the pillars in the in the playbook is to stay the course and continue to invest in practical sustainability. And what we heard from a lot of small businesses is, you know, help us with tools. Help us go through the energy audits, find ways for us to get those certifications in a way that is more accessible, and even even looking at things like the climate is changing as we speak, and we probably need to be thinking about adaptation alongside of all of that as we're on this journey. So I was really pleased to see that small businesses particularly wanted us to stay the course there, and they were also looking to attract visitors globally who are interested in sustainability. But I feel like there's this push pull right now. I mean, obviously in our in our in the sustainability community, there's lots of challenges globally. There's some commitments, some waning of commitments. And I think, you know, we're all grappling with, do we make these fundamental, major changes, or do we keep building capacity among in the network to make that change more iteratively? I'm wondering what's your thoughts on that?

Liliana Locke  6:38  
Yeah, I can see the the weather changing around me, like we can all. We can all see that there's a difference, and we can all kind of feel the impacts. Like just yesterday, Aaron and I were talking about insurance rates and how they're going up, and part of that is because of flooding in Canada, and so it affects we think it doesn't really we think it's like a long term climate change it's somewhere in the future, but we're living with the impacts day to day already. And for me, it doesn't matter whether you are required to report on your sustainability impacts or not, whatever that's that's kind of another conversation that's just there to try and get action but, but we need to change how we're doing things and and I think that it's about building the capacity of like people in their day to day lives. Young people are so passionate about sustainability, and they're already like, you know, zero waste every day. People in businesses want to do better, like, we can really feel the impacts. And I think it's just about changing the way that we all behave on on a day to day level, or within the business, within our homes, within the community, and that's what's gonna again about, like, making our lives better. Like, you gotta make a change, have healthier gardens, you know, like, help each other just cope with the changes that we're already seeing.

Andrew Siegwart  7:59  
I really believe that that is can be very powerful, and organizations and professionals like yourself who are enabling businesses of all sizes to get there, it's one step at a time, but as that momentum builds, we can see impact, right? So that's what we're we're certainly excited to be a part of. Let's talk a little bit about, for those who aren't familiar, tell us a little bit about the better way Alliance, like, what's the mandate of the organization, mission, and really what caused it to

Aaron Binder  8:26  
form? The reason I was initially attracted to the better way alliance is that, as a business owner, there are a lot of business groups out there that represent niche interests, that represent broad interests. There wasn't anything that really represented what I find is my core interest, which is advocating for better jobs as a way to advocate for stronger businesses. And you know, I've been a former business association president in downtown Toronto for the cork town area. I've worked in politics as a campaign manager, so I've been on the ground a lot, and I've talked to a lot of business owners. I've talked to a lot of just everyday people. It's just part of my life. And what I was missing was this connection to other business owners and other folks that thought kind of the same way I do, which is like, well, we're not going to get out of this mess that we're in with climate, with economy, unless we work together. And I started looking for an organization in 2022 or so, 2021 I was like, what's out there? What kind of business group is out there for people like me, who, you know, want to do well by other people. Want to do well by my business. Want to do well by my community. And I came upon the better way Alliance. And it was interesting diving into this. The organization itself sprang out of the 2017 Ontario minimum wage increase debate. And at that time, every business group was against a minimum wage increase. And you know, the. Proposition, I think, was going from like 11 bucks or so an hour to 15 bucks an hour. It was a big jump. And every one of these businesses that formed the better way Alliance back then came on board and said, actually, actually, this is good for us. This is good for all of us, because it will mean more money in people's pockets to spend at our businesses. And subsequent study of that increase actually showed it created upwards of 200,000 full time jobs. So not only did put more money in people's pockets, it bolstered our job creation for that period of time after that minimum wage went up. So that's where it started. That's where the better way Alliance started. And Lily and I came on board in May 2022, we were handed a commercial rent project because, as we probably all know, it's one of the most volatile fixed costs, along with insurance and utilities. And at that time, you know, we were given this, this organization, and said, Here, you know, this is something you can build in the way that you see fit. So we have gone head first into advocating for better employment standards in some areas, because that is generally good for business. When our employees are more stable, it means our businesses are more stable, so we work on that end, but we also work on tools for business owners that help them understand the economics of stability as well, such as, why would you give a pay increase? Why would you adopt paid sick days? Why would you worry about stable scheduling, but not just asking the questions? We build the tools that help them get to the conclusion and implement them within their own businesses. So that's where we started as kind of an advocacy campaign, and now we've gone into this more integrated type of tool building. We are still an advocacy organization. We talk to governments at all three levels all the time, and we develop policy now, and this is where we're going in the future, because we think we have a unique perspective, because our business owners, they're they're stable, they're innovative, and they're leaders in their respective industries. So what, what they focus on is, really, how do you enhance their their businesses through good labor and community building. We advocate primarily in the small and medium sector, but we do have a lot of natural allies in big business that might be B Corps, that might have a strong ESG foundation. So, you know, that's kind of the summary of like, where we went, or where we started, and where we are going. But, you know, I think we're just kind of cool people experimenting with neat ideas and testing them out in real life at our members.

Andrew Siegwart  12:48  
It's not lost on me, you know, one of the things we've been talking about a lot is, you know, there's been this big narrative about returning to 2019 performance levels for business, and here we are in 2025 and we're kind of nearly there, but there's a few areas where we're not and I think what you're challenging the business community to think about is, what if we do things a bit differently, and maybe that those are the things that are going to take us from flat growth to a more robust growth and a more robust sustainability for not only businesses, but for for the people who work in the industry, and I think there's something compelling there, and we've got a lot of a few things we can talk about as some of your test and learn experiences, because they're quite interesting. Liliana, how about you? What? How do you view the better way Alliance and its role in our important business landscape?

Liliana Locke  13:36  
I think that we contribute a voice that has been missing like, we really try to make an effort to capture the diversity amongst business owners, and that can look like going to Queen's Park, and we're not, you know, we're not all in suits, like we represent breweries. You know? We show up in T shirts. We tell stories about what happens in our real day to day lives in the business. And those stories are welcome. You know, I think that they're they help bring some of these things to life. It makes a difference when you say we need a tax break versus, like, listen to what's happening in my business. And this is because X, Y and Z doesn't work. And I think those stories help hit home. Particularly we find that's happening with the rent situations like when we have members that show up and say, I had to really quickly find a new place to move and then and I had to shut down one location, and I have all these customers that can't find me anymore. And this is happening in your neighborhood, and the MPs MPPs can can relate to that because they live there, or because they they know a business just like that in their neighborhoods, like that hits home, and that makes a real difference. So we really try and emphasize that. We also put a lot of emphasis on building capacity. For business owners to be the leaders within their own spheres of influence. So that might mean like, they'll use social media, or they'll use their their customer base, or they'll they'll be able to tell their stories in a way that makes an impact. But like, how better what? What better way to spread the word about ethical employment, serving the business and being good for the community. Then, like from the Business Center themselves,

Andrew Siegwart  15:26  
anyone in whether it's at the municipal, provincial, federal level, I know that people who work in in government, they love to hear from people running businesses in communities and real people, and it's important, you know, even for tayo, we've done a lot of work over the years where we bring coalitions together to, you know, meet at Queen's Park or participate in the Association for Municipalities of Ontario event, and we've had Aaron with us a number of times specifically to bring that perspective to the table, because we want to be as diverse as possible. And I think you bring compelling ideas to the table, and I think it matters to show I think we all are more credible when we show the diversity within our within the business community. You've talked a few times about ethical employment, and I'm wondering if you can break that down for us a bit. So what are the key pillars of ethical employment? And you know, how is that changing how business operates right now.

Liliana Locke  16:23  
That way that we define it is fairly specific, and that comes out of the, I guess, regulatory asks that we, that we had, that we were kind of, we kind of originated with, as Aaron alluded to, more than minimum wages is really important. We don't have a maximum. You know, if you can, if you're a business that can pay the living wage for your city, amazing, great, if you are in that situation, but you want to do better, anything above the minimum, with the understanding that you're on a journey to offer better pay over time as you can we know that wages, paying better makes a difference in terms of retention, attraction, stability, all the things paid sick days is important too, being able to offer workers the peace of mind and like, not having to choose between staying home to get better or Coming to work sick and infecting all the staff. As a business owner, you can handle one person off. You can't handle like 60% of your staff off because somebody came to work sick. So it really makes a difference for the business, for the business owner, and research has shown that people don't take advantage of these paid sick days. The ones that do are ones who take advantage of any program that you offer them. So it's it's not, it's like kind of just a no brainer, because we all get sick, we're humans. So and then stable scheduling. And stable scheduling is everything that makes a job fit in with your day to day life. So you can predict the hours. The hours are long enough they cover the pay that you need. If the business has an opportunity to offer more hours, they offer it to an existing employee before they hire a new employee, that sort of thing. So just, just having like, you know, jobs that people can live off of is basically kind of what that encompasses. Beyond that, we have members who invest in their employees in in other ways, and our members are really proud to, you know, share the philosophy of employees are their number one asset. Their business is only as good as their staff. And so if they invest in their staff, their staff take care of their customers. So that tends to look like things like mental health programs or perks, like, if we're talking about tourism, you know, being able to use the facilities when they're when they're fork type of thing. So whatever kind of, whatever ways that they can kind of build a culture of transparency, good communication and trust, that sort of thing.

Andrew Siegwart  19:08  
Most businesses want to get there and go there. What do you think the biggest barriers are in the service sector? I mean, I think one of the challenges is often that, you know, with with service sector being so demand driven. Sometimes you've got volume, sometimes you don't, and that can be throughout a day, that can be throughout a season. But you know, what are the some what are the biggest barriers that service sector employers face to getting there? What have you observed, or what have you worked on the most to help people overcome those barriers?

Aaron Binder  19:38  
Yeah, I think that's a really important distinction to make, because it is so demand driven in service and hospitality and tourism, and there are ways to create the stability, and it is difficult to do so, acknowledging that first of all, is actually a good step. And you know, from from what we've seen, I. There are a few examples of catering companies within our membership, of hotels, of tour companies and other related tourism industry, businesses like restaurants, that have figured out how to be consistent. For some of them, it's only operating five days a week, and saying, You know what, we are going to leave the rest of that off the table and give our people the time they need to rest and recharge, not worry about our staffing so much that, you know, we've got three different schedules going. For others, it is that they've got so many schedules going. One of our members, little mushroom catering down in Cambridge, they have five different types of schedules for 50 people, and it works for them because they've invested the time and the energy into figuring out how to make it work for them. There aren't any overnight fixes. Generally speaking, it's about finding what works for your organization. And that's kind of where most business owners like myself, who have, I've got a staff of about 15 people, that's where it gets difficult, because when do you do that? How do you do that? How much money do you and time do you invest to do that? But if you don't do it, you will never get to the point where your business is stable enough that you can step out and trust that the people that you've hired to run it for you will be able to do it properly. So it is really about the trial and error and finding what works for your enterprise, and it is going to cost you a little bit of money, but that upfront cost generally returns itself very quickly as your if your worker efficiency goes up, as your retention goes up, and as your productivity goes up, and

Andrew Siegwart  21:37  
if you can marry that with the with the business development goals where you're bringing in product, or you're you're operating in times where you have opportunity to grow capacity, it can be a win win for the business too. But yeah, I think none of us are under the illusion that it's easy, but it's certainly in this era where we're removing from recovery to growth. I think these are the things we have to think about, right let's talk a little bit about the labor challenges right now. There's been a lot of discussion over the last number of years about the shortage of workers, yet at the same time, we're hearing right now, particularly some higher unemployment numbers than we'd expect in in young people, in, you know, coming from the perspective of the businesses that you serve. What are they saying about the labor market right now, and what challenges do you think we have to address in that, in that sort of supply side?

Aaron Binder  22:34  
Well, I I will say that this is a difficult moment. Businesses are saddled with debt. Still, there is great uncertainty in the world, more more so than perhaps in my living life. But there is also a desire I've found to bury our heads in the sand and ignore the root cause of issues, and that's just a human thing. It's what our brains tend to do in tourism, hospitality. I don't necessarily believe personally that we do have a labor shortage. I think we have a wage shortage and we have a quality of labor shortage. And once again, I want to acknowledge all the difficult issues that businesses are experiencing. Those are real issues that are not making it easier to fix, the fact that we do have low quality labor, that we don't pay enough to attract long term talent, to attract career level talent to the industry. But we can fix it, and we kind of have to, because we've been having this conversation for a very long time. And oh gosh, was it 2015 or 2016 I remember, like with our last provincial government, the Liberal government, Michael cateau was the tourism minister for a brief period of time, and I remember being in a room with him in 2015 or 2016 and him saying, Oh, we have a labor issue in tourism, and it's only going to get worse, and 10 years later, it's catastrophic in some ways. So we didn't really address the issues. Yes, we have had a pandemic. Yes, we have had this debt, but that doesn't mean we can't be innovative, and it doesn't mean we can't try to fix it. So we just we simply have to be more consistent, and we have to pay more, and we have to create the types of jobs that people can live on and succeed in and feel like a they're contributing and that they are receiving back from that place of employment. That's my short answer.

Andrew Siegwart  24:46  
I hear exactly what you're saying. Liliana, how about you? What's your what's your sense?

Liliana Locke  24:51  
So I have two things to offer, one, in response to your question, like, what are businesses really feeling right now? Cost, the costs are such a big worry, right? Now, aside from the conversation about pay, about jobs, it is like the cost crunch is real. We have launched what we call the fixed cost crisis campaign, because it's gotten to a point where the operating costs, insurance and rent, utilities, just to exist as a business are now becoming so unpredictable and so unaffordable that it's hard to just be a business. And we have long term business owners in our network saying that they would not start their business today if they were given the chance, because it just, it's just too uncertain. It wouldn't pay. And there's we're seeing burnout from, like, the most hardcore entrepreneurs, people who have been in business for 15 to 20 years, and they're really thinking, this is the last kick at the can, because it just doesn't bring them joy anymore, like it's just crisis after crisis after crisis. So that's real, and we can talk a bit about what the BWA is advocating for, you know, later, if we want to dig into that, because that really needs to be addressed. And then I think, like in terms of in terms of adapting to those pressures, I think businesses are, at least in our network, they are. They're trying to do their best to lean into the assets that they have, they know that, at least in our network, you know they it's proven time and time again, if they treat their employees right, their employees stay with them like they have staff that will want to make it work. They'll, they'll take a few hours of pay cut. They'll, they'll, they'll work with the business owner, because they're so invested in the business. So, you know, for example, one of our hotel our members, it's called Summer in and it's in calaboo. Yeah, awesome, awesome people. I can't wait to go. One of our one of our old staff members, went and had an amazing time. But they invest in their staff in these beyond just the paid sick days and the good pay, they offer mental health benefits, and then they offer access to the premises, so they can, like, use the lakeside stuff, and they can use the boats and all these sorts of things with their families they want when they're not working. So they're really invested in this business. They love working there, plus it allows them to build their version of stories that they can tell to guests, and they can be inspired and excited. And so when guests come in, they're not just like checking them in. And you know, here are your clean sheets. They're telling them about this great time that they could have bought a fire pit and like the marshmallows and etc, etc. So it helps the business, because each employee, in their own individual way, can contribute through their experience and through the good, the goodwill that they have with their employer. And those things don't cost that much money. You know, they already have the lakeside premises. They already have the boats. They can think about, what are ways that they can extend these great times to their staff? So they're they're getting creative. They're doing the best that they can. But it's not, you know, I just want to make sure that we don't leave this conversation saying, like, businesses is just up to you. There's, there are a number of, like, actual policy levers that could change to make things easier for businesses at the moment.

Andrew Siegwart  28:23  
And I think what you're saying is well placed when we talk about, you know, and sometimes it is a bit of a misnomer when we start talking about, okay, let's talk about the labor challenges. The reality is what we're dealing with are our business viability challenges overall, and the overall economic performance level, which is holding businesses back, and that is a big challenge. And we know that this businesses understand best practices in in people, people cultivation. I mean, they've been, they're leaders in it, especially in in tourism and a lot of your small businesses, like somewhere in you're talking about, they know the formula. The challenge is, for many businesses, it's, it's this, there's, there's those pressures there. Then, as you said, there's the cost of doing business. Then there's the sort of lagging productivity that the economy has been experiencing for quite some time. So it's much more multi layered, as you suggest. So let's go. Let's go there a little bit. Let's talk about some of those. Let's talk about some of those structural economic challenges that you're trying to address. And why don't we start with the I'll I'll just let you jump in and share with our listeners, sort of what you've observed and what you're trying to champion right now.

Aaron Binder  29:37  
Yeah, I can dive into the fixed cost crunch. And we're terming this current economic period that we're going through for small businesses, medium businesses, even some big, big businesses out there. We're calling it a fixed cost crunch. I come from a long line, like centuries, long line of entrepreneurs, and I've been lucky enough to grow up in. My parents business and my grandparents business, and figure out like which levers to pull, which ones work, which ones don't. What cost do we have to watch out for? The costs we never had to watch out for were rent, insurance and utilities, because they were predictable. They were generally tied to inflation. In the last five years, I'll give you the Toronto example, rent, retail rent, on average, has gone up 130% utilities have gone up 40 to 60% insurance has gone up 50 to 80% or so that's in five years. So if you talk about the viability of a business, even with just one of those increases, it becomes very difficult to make the numbers work, and then you've got two additional increases in the fixed cost category that just make it impossible to keep your doors open. So we're calling this the fixed cost crunch, the fixed cost crisis, because it is these are the costs that are fundamentally out of businesses controls the out of their control. Labor is realistically the only cost that we control. So we don't want to get into a situation where we're saying, Well, if this is the only lever we can pull, let's reduce wages, because that is bad for everybody, because when you reduce those wages, it means people have less money in their pockets to spend locally, they'll generally go spend that on at Amazon or at a somewhere where they can find less expensive goods, instead of at that local business, which has a very downward depression effect on local business economy. So the fixed cost crisis, from my perspective, is, I think this huge existential crisis facing our entrepreneurship class in Canada. So it's something that, as far as advocacy goes, we're going to be diving into this over the next few months, because it is the biggest source of pain right now for businesses, and it is where we don't think the government can fix everything. Let's be clear, we don't think the government can fix everything, but in this particular area, where the costs that generally were very predictable for a very long period of time have become so unhinged from reality, we do need market intervention here. We do need governments to step in and say, We will help in these areas. You

Andrew Siegwart  32:25  
What do you think needs to be done in those market interventions to make an impact? Like, do you have some some recommendations on how the governments could could make this reverse this trend?

Liliana Locke  32:36  
Yeah, we have thought in depth about rent. First and foremost. And we have four recommendations at the provincial level that we think would make a big difference. I mean, a huge pain point is the cost increase from from lease to lease. So we believe that there needs to be some sort of reform on that, some sort of predictability and affordability, that might look like an increase that is tied to inflation, plus some amount, because, you know, we know that landlords need to make their returns. They have made an investment. But this, this huge increase, is really driven by like, profit seeking, profit maximizing types of behavior, which is only there because it's allowed to be there, like there's no regulations right now around that. So one of our asks is to put is to put some reform around the price increases from lease to lease. There's also huge drains in cash because of the legal process on the residential side, tenants have access to a dispute resolution board, but nothing of the sort exists on the commercial side, and so landlords and tenants end up spending all their time and money in court. And it can be a situation where a landlord is a large multinational, CBRE type of thing with a legal team, and their tenant is an individual stationary shop owner, and they're expected to show up in court and behave in a way like this large company, like it's just impossible, and it takes time away from from a small business and a lot of money to prepare. So we are asking for an alternative dispute mechanism that is affordable and that is time efficient, so people you know, both landlords and tenants aren't just spending all their time in court. We are asking for an end to this behavior, essentially, if a landlord owes a tenant some money, be it for a repair that the land that the tenant footed the bill for, they can't use that kind of as, like a as a withdrawal, like as an offset, if they if the landlord still owes them some cash. So, for example, time to pay your rent the landlord owes you 10 grand. Your rent is 10 grand. You can't say, let's just call it even. You have to show up with another $10,000 or they can kick you out some protections around that, and then standardization around leases. So that is a another big time and cost waste. Aaron can tell you he had a 70 plus page lease to get through, and this is, you know, you're signing gears away, so you need to be spending time reading that, or getting a lawyer to read through that. And it's, it's written in this like dense legal language. It could be simplified, especially for newcomers to Canada. It's their first time opening a business. And you're given this lease, and you don't know what's supposed to be in it. You expect the best from your landlord, but because there's zero regulations around it, it totally depends on what your landlord, you know, the kind of landlord that you get. You might end up with a good lease. You might end up with one of the holes where you end up, you know, footing the bill for everything. So that's another place where where money, you know, just drains out of the business or time, or huge headaches people who have lost their life savings because of these sorts of things. So those are four recommendations for rent specifically. And, you know, there's other levers that municipal governments can make because of their the planning and the zoning and fee development fees that we could explore and are beginning to and at the federal level, we're asking for more financing so that business owners can own the spaces they operate from taking people off the rent roller coaster and onto more stable property ownership.

Andrew Siegwart  36:35  
Very compelling ideas indeed. Are there jurisdictions in other parts of the world or in other economies where measures like this have been implemented,

Aaron Binder  36:44  
yeah, absolutely. And I can give you a recent example. In California, they just passed a bill earlier this year that gives micro businesses particular rights around standard leases in the language that the contract is negotiated in. So if your first language is commonly down there, it's going to be Spanish your landlord is and you have negotiated verbally and in communication in Spanish, that lease legally has to be written in Spanish for a place like Canada. This might be over regulation, but it could be a good opportunity to say like we have this huge diaspora coming into our country, we have people from every country on the planet here that have called Canada home. Doesn't it make sense to make sure that if they want to start a business here, that they are set up for success instead of potentially being screwed because they didn't understand what was written in their their contract. And we ran into this example with a Syrian refugee who started a restaurant out in Hamilton. Thankfully, they recovered, but they lost their first restaurant because of a sneaky landlord who absolutely just straight up screwed them. So this does happen, and it's one of the easiest things we could fix. In France, for example, they do have graduated rent increases. So right now, in Canada, in North America, and most jurisdictions in North America, your rent, when you go to renegotiate that lease, it can go up by any amount. This is leading to the chainification of main streets, because at the end of the day, once that rent does go up 130% it's only Rexall and, you know, Popeyes that can afford to locate on those strips. So then we get these really uniform communities that don't really mean much. In France a everyone is on an on a nine year lease, renegotiated every three years. And at the three years you can the landlord can, I believe, increase the rent by 10% every year. In between, it goes up by inflation, plus, I think, up to 3% so it's a much more predictable graduated increase over that period of time, which does allow the landlord a measure of of profit to reinvest in the building to live off of and it allows that business to predict their costs to a point where they can then say, well, if I know that this is going to be the amount that goes up over the next three years, I can, instead of putting aside a chunk of cash which will just sit there and be non productive, I can invest that in my workforce, or I can invest that in innovation, or I can invest that in any number of things, instead of it just being a questionable thing where, well, we don't know what it's going to go up by in in residential markets, in almost every province, there is this offset clause where, if you if your landlord owes you money, you can offset that by not paying rent. And. And we've met business owners who whose landlords have owed them 10s of 1000s of dollars, and there's no compulsion that they have to pay this back on any timeline. So some of them have said it's taken up to five years to get paid back, like $30,000 because of an emergency repair that needed to get done and the landlord was out of town, or they didn't want to do it or whatever, and it needed to get done, so there's no compulsion for this. So we're not saying like, let's overhaul everything. What we're saying is, let's set up good guidelines that actually work for landlords and for business owners, to remove and reduce red tape between them and to streamline those relationships so that it's easier for both parties. We don't have to go and and expect the overclocked court systems to facilitate these cases between people that may just need mediation, or maybe, let's make it easier for them so that the stationary shop owner can get back to doing what they do best, which is selling stationary and the huge landlord company can get back to what they do best, which is capitalizing money or whatever. But let's make it easier for both parties to meet in the middle and come to solutions, instead of this wild west that we exist in right now, and we've seen similar types of volatility play out in the insurance market and in the utility market. When all three of these things are impacting businesses the way that they are, a sensible approach to some form of regulation needs to be explored. Because, you know, we used to have government run utilities, and the costs were very predictable for residential and commercial now we don't, and it's unpredictable. We used to have some government insurance companies. In fact, some exist in other provinces, and when you look at the rates that people pay in those provinces for insurance, it's considerably more tempered. It's way less volatile, and because we've offloaded a lot of these businesses to the private sector, there's no predictability. There's no real regulation there. So we need to really look at this from a smart perspective and not over regulate. But we do need to identify and create pathways forward for businesses that don't just leave them always on the short end of the stick.

Andrew Siegwart  42:25  
Well, and it seems that what you're what you're advocating for, I mean, for the vast majority of Independent Businesses who don't own their properties, they're entering into a partnership with a property owner, and so the both sides of the of that arrangement have to be successful for long term growth and sustainability. And I think what you're highlighting is some of the ways in which to the to the renter. They have challenges. No doubt, for landlords and property owners, there are challenges as well. I mean, it's not monolithic. You've got independent property owners. You've got large corporate so it's, it's, it's equally diverse there. I'm wondering, do you have any property owner champions, or folks from that sphere who who have expressed an alignment, or could be positioned as a best practice of a of a landlord that does this kind of work. It's

Liliana Locke  43:17  
a really interesting example from Austin neighborhood, I guess Ossington road straight in Japan.

Andrew Siegwart  43:24  
I think Ossington was rated one of the hippest streets in the world, right by was it super hip? It's showing how un hip I am. The fact that, I had to reiterate, I think

Aaron Binder  43:35  
we just tanked its hipness by a good degree or two. Go ahead, when you were saying

Liliana Locke  43:39  
hip is like, No, we're not hip, are

Andrew Siegwart  43:44  
we? Oh, no, we're hip. Go ahead. Sorry.

Liliana Locke  43:49  
Austin Powers, reference, so we still we, you know, I think we're working on connecting with a major developer property owner out there, but they So there, there is a, I want to say, developer. Could be a property owner that is not a developer, but someone the landlord side, basically, who has worked in tandem with the community to make sure that there are really interesting, unique, diverse, independent businesses there. So you have, like, it's a real destination. You have designers, you have restaurants, you have really like gems, like you can go to Washington and find vendors there who don't exist in the rest of Toronto. And that's part of what makes Austin so good to like such a good community. It is done with intention, and that landlord is very invested in the types of businesses that they attract and the types of the ensuring that, like their lease, can support a variety of business owners that that are there, and the more that landlords behave that way, the more it appeals to customers. Like Austin is a destination. Now, last time I was there, it was, it was like, packed. It was packed with people both from Toronto and, you know, on their bikes, and then people coming in, in their cars, like it was, it's super busy on a Saturday night, like it's the place to be. And that is so different than a place that has just decided that they're going to get as much money as they can, and so they just have a bunch of chains that you can find everywhere else. Like, who needs another you know, milestones like, why are you going to make the trip when you can just go to the one by your house? And that's that. So there are examples in Toronto, where, where both of us are from, that have done that. And it really like it. It just proves that it can be very good for the landlord to be very intentional in how they are creating the environment and the spaces and offering affordability and predictability and all the things that make the existence of these businesses possible.

Aaron Binder  45:54  
I do want to jump in because I want to give a shout out specifically to West Bank developments, who are the Mirvish family, who are redeveloping the honest Ed site. It's almost online. It's going to be done later this year in 2025 they've done something really smart. Lily hinted at what cities can do to encourage fair and affordable rents. What they've done with Mirvish village village is they're creating 25 micro retail spaces, and these are your 400 to 1000 square foot spaces that most small businesses need. A lot of developments that happen now in cities and even in rural, suburban areas. What they're doing on the ground floor of condos, maybe not in rural areas, but on ground floors of condos, the blueprint there that you get is like 1500 square foot plus size retail spaces, and those only facilitate chains. What they're doing with Mirvish village is really smart because it's going to create good foot traffic. It's going to create community, and it's going to allow those small businesses to fit into right sized retail that works for them long term. So they're going to probably see reduced turnover at that property. They're going to see longer term tenancies, which means more stability for workers, more stability for those businesses and for the landlord themselves. So I think what they're doing there is also quite smart.

Andrew Siegwart  47:25  
Yeah, I think that's a really good example. And I think what you're both highlighting is, I think it's actually fun to to use, follow the analogy of aussington street or that that's the sort of cool, hip vibe factor that's there. You know, these things don't just happen by accident, do they? I mean, they are. There are plans. There are investors that come to the table. There's someone with vision who is prioritizing in the in the context of the mervish as well that development, or West Bank developments, they have, they've created a vision for the mix of experiences they want, and the types of businesses. You know, it's not just about some really cool people discovering an area and suddenly it's it's a success. It's actually built by design, with vision, with purpose, and with zoning and support by municipalities. So, you know, these kinds of destination forward neighborhoods that align with tourism and then attract authentic businesses. They require a different model than a traditional condo podium somewhere or a traditional power center that services the local community. I mean, this is, this is about creating destinations and experiences. So I think this, what you're highlighting is just how dynamic and how many talented people and everything that goes into that, but also how challenging it is. But I love those examples, and I think, I think I'll be honest when I when I look at what you're putting forward in terms of these advocacy points, I think they're, they're very compelling. They're big asks. It's it's going to be hard for governments to regulate or intervene in the market, so to speak, but you're raising awareness of them, and sometimes that's what drives behavioral change. Sometimes you can, you can achieve the same outcomes by developing best practices like sample leases or or things that you can help empower businesses to be more savvy, to be better negotiators. So is that a part of your mix as well?

Aaron Binder  49:27  
Yeah, absolutely. We've got this very exciting project that we're working on right now@commercialrent.ca we're going to be launching this very soon, and it is going to be the most comprehensive, frequently asked questions for commercial rent in Canada. So if you are a business owner, you can go to commercial rent.ca and there are over two dozen questions answered by us that will help you navigate a lease, that will help you navigate the relationship with your landlord and. There's an FAQ for elected officials that talks about how to develop, what are the best practices there? Why do you want to consider some of the regulation? You know, intervention, markets can go one of two ways. It can go. It can go the very loose way, which is kind of what we live under right now, or it can be over regulated. I think we can find a good balance, and that's why we've created an FAQ for elected officials. We're also creating an FAQ for landlords because, well, the majority of landlords tend to own multiple properties. There are landlords out there that don't, and it's the first time, and maybe, maybe maybe they need a little bit of help too, in figuring out how to develop the best long term relationship with their tenants. So each one of these groups needs similar but different things. And as you said, by by putting it out there, by just talking about this, we're creating, we're creating a town square, where each one of these groups, elected officials, business owners and landlords, can come together, ask the questions and figure out the best way forward.

Andrew Siegwart  51:09  
I love it. I mean, at the end of the day, you're you're clearly identifying some big challenges that businesses are facing. You have some bold ideas on things that could be implemented to make it easier that come from different markets, global markets, and some best practices. But in addition to that, and while not waiting for that to happen, you're empowering the community with tools to do it themselves along the way. And I think that is the true definition of advocacy. And we're, you know, I'm glad you've raised all these we'll make sure to put in our show notes links to all of these platforms so that our listeners can can benefit from all of that advice and those tools and services. It's It's great stuff. Liliana, is there anything that you wanted to add to that?

Liliana Locke  51:52  
On the ethical employment side, we're also developing some pilot programs around how businesses can become can either start their ethical employment journey or can enhance the employment practices that they already deliver. We our existing site kind of offers a selection of tools that businesses can use in their business to build their ethical employment offerings. But we find that what's missing is the how, and this pilot program is basically designed to take groups, cohorts of businesses through the design of their ethical employment offering cost it all out. Understand what would work in their business and what might not work in their business. What should they begin with? How do they communicate about it? How much is it going to cost them. How do they build a long term plan and then start implementing and learning from it? So again, building the proof, and then building on that momentum to then, you know, go a step further and go a step further and go a step further and building a peer a peer group of employers to share lessons amongst themselves and share about their challenges and share about the successes,

Andrew Siegwart  53:07  
amazing, amazing work. And you know, we will be very excited to amplify and share and help connect as many employers as possible to these tools, because they sound great. They're coming to market at a time when the business community needs them. So congratulations on that. All right, we've covered a lot of ground. Thank you so much. I mean, it's such a great discussion. This summer, I've been speaking to leaders in this space, and as we all know, Ontarians are really doing their part to travel local and to visit a local or a Canadian owned business or experience, and I've been asking a guest to our show for some some lesser known recommendations. So I'm wondering, for each of you, do you have a recommendation of a great independent business or destination that we should be checking out, or something that you would recommend to our

Aaron Binder  53:56  
listeners? I am excited, because one of our new members is actually blue heron cruises up in Tobermory, so I am going to be visiting them soon to take one of their cruises. I'm very excited about that, but I am going to implore everybody to come visit my hometown of Kingsville, Ontario. It's a fantastic area, lots of wineries, excellent cycling. Another one of our members, Red Lantern coffee, is down there. They've got some of the best coffee beans you'll ever taste in your life, and it is a great place to spend a relaxing weekend. You can go up to Windsor. Lots to do there as well, and just the whole region. It's sunny, it's beautiful. So go down to Kingsville, visit Windsor, visit Essex County and enjoy the sun parlor of Canada.

Andrew Siegwart  54:45  
Great tips. Thank you so much. And for those who don't know, I drink coffee 24/7 and I'm always looking for great coffee, so thank you for that tip. I really appreciate it. Always love a new cup.

Liliana Locke  54:56  
Discrimination is for people who are thinking about the fall. Already. So my family would always like tradition would be a car trip, a little day trip to see the fall colors. So my recommendation is Dorset Ontario, which I think is about two and a half hours, or something like that. It's just like you drive over there, you go up this tower. It's a lookout tower. I think it's like 80 something steps. It's a climb, but it's a gorgeous view. You see lakes, like 360, degree view of lakes and the trees and like such a quintessential like Ontario autumn landscape. And then there's a little general store where you can, like, buy your fudge, and an ice cream shop that sells Kawartha dairy ice cream and little dogs. Like, it's just, like, it's just a gorgeous day out, and very easy, if you're in the GTA or Southern Ontario to get to so, yeah, it's a little like, it's got a soft spot in my heart and it, I mean, I know it's just trees, but it's, it's awesome.

Andrew Siegwart  55:59  
Trees are everything. And, I mean, think about it, you get to walk up the stairs, enjoy the view, and then you get to treat yourself afterwards. So it's like a holistic, you know, balanced experience. I'm in,

Aaron Binder  56:11  
what is your recommendation for this summer? Andrew,

Andrew Siegwart  56:15  
oh, my goodness. You know, I have been there's so many to choose from, but I've talked a lot about this of late, and I tend to go back to my hometown of Thunder Bay region. There's something special about being on the Lakehead in Northwestern Ontario. A lot of people don't know this, but in terms of the time zone, all of Ontario was pretty much on the same time zone. So when you're in the northwest, actually, it stays light about an hour longer than in the GTA. So when you're there in the peak of summer, for example, it's it's after 11, and it's still light, so it's this really cool experience. And then, of course, you get the amazing stars and all that. But there's been some really amazing new food scene in that city over the last few years, particularly in the downtown core, where there's really great, fantastic restaurants. And so, yeah, I just think it's a place that everyone should go to at least once. So there you go. Thank you for asking cool. I want to thank you both, not only for joining us today and for sharing all of your incredible work. And you really are on the bleeding edge, and you are, you are looking for Pathways to do things differently. And I always think that's so inspiring. And I know our readers are readers, and I know our listeners also enjoy that. I say readers, we actually do transcripts of the show. So there are some readers, but on a more personal level, I just want to thank you both for your active participation in tayo and for helping us to bolster our voice and the credibility of our voice by bringing your bold ideas to the table, and I look forward to continued relationship, and I know we have a couple of projects we're working on together, and I really look forward to supporting each other on this journey. So thanks so much.

Liliana Locke  57:51  
Thank you so much for having us. This has been great. Yeah, good conversation.

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  57:57  
Thanks for listening to forward motion. This show is created by the tourism industry association of Ontario, and is recognized by government as the voice of tourism and produced by everyone at the sound off media company you.