EQ Journal

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Justintime Trudeau Announces New Foreign Policy Initiative for Nation

Canada to Annex Ecuador MONTREAL (March 18, 2013)—Newly elected Liberal leader, Justintime Trudeau, announced today that if elected Prime Minister he will introduce a new foreign policy initiative—the annexation of Ecuador. “It is my government’s view that Canada and Canadians must look south to solve recurring weather-related economic issues. Today, I am setting out a [...]

County of Renfrew Reborn

Here are the slides from a talk on economic renewal that I am giving for the County of Renfrew on Monday September 17, 2012 at 10 am at the Best Western Renfrew Inn and Conference Centre. The challenges facing the county are not unlike small towns elsewhere in rural Ontario and, for that matter, in [...]

Ottawa Sports Hall of Fame Acceptance Speech

By: Bruce M Firestone, Founder, Ottawa Senators Date: June 6, 2012 Thank you for inviting me here tonight. I can’t tell you how excited I am to be here with my family, friends, colleagues, Sens fans and executives as well as Board of Directors from the Ottawa Sports Hall of Fame. I got word that [...]

Artifex

Professional Artpreneur Gala We want to take this opportunity to thank all the sponsors of Artifex in advance of this very special event that will take place on June 20th, 2012 at the National Gallery Of Canada. These organizations make it possible to celebrate the essential role that the arts play in building better, more [...]

Letter to Marie Lemay, NCC CEO: December 10, 2011

Marie—many people are grateful that the NCC has a new leader with vision—you. I read the story in the OC today headlined ‘Cue the Gondolas’: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/travel/gondolas+puts+calls+ideas+animate+Rideau+Canal/5839093/story.html where the NCC has put out a call for gondolas to animate the Rideau Canal. You should know that former student of mine, Darcy McCrae, brought a beautiful $85,000 [...]

What if…

(Blogger Graeme Nichols challenged me and 19 other people to answer the question: ‘What if?’ For example, what if the NCC, the National Capital Commission, had said ‘yes’ to putting the Palladium on their lands at Lebreton Flats in downtown Ottawa instead of being constructed on the suburban Kanata site where Scotiabank Place (as it [...]

Grasshoppers, Squirrels and Ants in Grassel

Occupy Grassel Movement Picking up Steam/Government Planning Action The majority of the population of Grassel is made up of Grasshoppers, Squirrels and Ants. Mensa Ants account for 1% of the population. These are the groups that populate the World of Grassel, viz: Grassel World, 100 Rows x 100 Columns 1. Grasshoppers are low wage earners [...]

Want Higher Density Communities?

Then First Build Out not Up (This is an article I wrote in 2003 concerning the policy direction of then Kanata Councillor, Peggy Feltmate who continued in a long line of municipal politicians to oppose building the City outwards in the mistaken belief that this would prevent building upwards. Her goal and mine were the [...]

Rent Curves

How Developers can Make More Money and Urban Design can Improve by Exploiting Vertical Rent Curves It has always amazed me that many developers, those veritable profit maximizers, don’t understand that neo-urbanist principles* can improve their returns while at the same time making them better city-builders and I suppose better corporate citizens. For example, most [...]

Entrepreneurship, Economic Development and Sustainability

(From a speech originally given to: Kiwanis Club of Ottawa, Friday September 12, 2003, Fairmont Chateau Laurier Hotel) Entrepreneurship is more than just a key engine for economic growth; it is the most efficient means of producing a sustainable community, not just in Canada but in developing nations as well. Countries that have city-state economies [...]

prototypeD

(Urban Workshop and Hacker Studio Surfaces in Ottawa… then goes back underground) (Guest Article by Janak Alford, M. Arch.) Have you ever thought that lurking just below the surface might be another way of working, of using technology or living in the city that nobody has thought of yet? If you live in the Glebe [...]

Russian Dachnik Movement

Introduction The Russian Dacha and the Dachnik movement have been around for more than 100 years and the home garden for more than 1,000. The Dacha is typically a one-room cottage perched on one hectare of land—large enough to grow fruits and vegetables to support a single family via intense, mostly manual labour. One-room Russian [...]