Monthly Archives: April 2013

Neechi Commons Community Business Complex is now open and on its way to becoming a major focal point for commerce and development in Winnipeg’s North End.

Neechi Commons includes a neighbourhood supermarket, produce courtyard, cafeteria restaurant, bakery, fish market, a specialty foods boutique, Aboriginal books, arts, crafts, music and clothing, a seasonal farmers market, and hardware.

If you haven’t already done so, check it out.

The 2013 Social Enterprise World Forum (SEWF) will bring together 1,200 individuals from more than 30 countries and speakers from more than 20 countries.  Attendees will come from diverse backgrounds – social enterprise practitioners from all sectors, traditional non-profits, for-profit businesses, philanthropists, intrapreneurs, the public sector, support agencies, funders and investors, consultants, indigenous groups, and students – but all share a dedication to resolving the world’s most complex and confounding social challenges. The inaugural SEWF met in Edinburgh, Scotland. Since then it has been to Melbourne, Australia; San Francisco, U.S.A; Johannesburg, Africa; and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

To learn more or to register go to www.socialenterpriseworldforum.org/

My work in the social economy was interrupted in the early 1990s, when I spent four years as a policy advisor to Bud Wildman, Minister responsible for Natural Resources and Native Affairs in the Ontario government.

You may wonder what connects social economy and forestry policy. The answer, in my case, is that I graduated from Forestry at University of Toronto and spent my early career in the forest industry.

Gord Miller, the Environment Commissioner of Ontario, is celebrating the 20^th anniversary of the Ontario Environmental Bill of Rights. Memories of people who were involved in significant environmental events and organizations are available on line at www.environmentalbeginnings.ca. I will be telling my story of working for sustainable forestry in a panel discussion later this month.

The session on sustainable forestry should be available shortly after it is recorded on April 24, 2013.