Tuesday March 31, 2020
How the Home Show is advocating for you
Upon consulting with our Advocacy team, these are the next steps in our attempt to secure relief for you, and for the show:
LETTER WRITING CAMPAIGN
- We at BILD have written a letter addressed to the City of Toronto Mayor, John Tory cc’ing his City Manager, Chris Murray, and the Exhibition Place Board of Governors Chair, Councillor Mark Grimes (see our letter here).
- This letter outlines the impact that cancelling the show has had on your business, the local economy, and the health of the show for future years. It reinforces what the show has meant to the City, and the value that it has, for the thousands of families and patrons that line our show floor.
- It requests two items, first the return of the full rent payment (to pass along to you) and second to change the existing contract that would prevent a repeat of the late cancellation should such a situation arise again.
- As we are advised template form letters are not always the best approach to yield results we have not written a letter for you. Form letters tend to lack an expression of the true impact, and that’s why we’re recommending that the Exhibition Place Board of Governors hear from you directly as well. But we are here to help.
- We’ve attached our letter for your reference, as well a set of talking points. We strongly suggest that you use these as a base to craft your own company letter, and then add in your own details such as your anticipated projected financial loss, damages and overall impact on your business.
- We have already spoken to the Mayor’s office and will follow up again to ensure the letter receives the attention it deserves. Hopefully your letters will arrive in short order adding to the importance of this issue.
- We have been advised (for our letter) not to include all the councillors on the Exhibition Place Board of Governors due to our connection to the building industry, however we’d encourage you to copy them all, as they will ultimately make decisions surrounding the Enercare Centre. Their contact information along with rest of the distribution list can be found in our list of talking points.
Let’s all reinforce to our fellow exhibitor colleagues the importance of writing and sending in these letters. The more they receive, the more significant the impact. Please remember to copy us on your letter at this email address (sales@bildgta.ca)
We have a small army of Advocacy staff and Board of Director members who have committed to personally contact the key staff in the Mayor’s office, and Councillor Grimes. Its’ our way of continuing to raise awareness and advocate on your behalf. There are other citizen members of the Board of Governors that our colleagues at BILD know as well, and they have offered to contact them as part of our advocacy efforts.
Our hope is that all of this will give the City the necessary tools to then advocate on your behalf to the provincial and federal governments who will be the authorities providing the necessary financial assistance programs, beyond the rent relief from the Enercare Centre.
We have been advised that this is our best course of action and while it’s unlikely that a relief package will be provided specifically for the show, with enough momentum and noise, we might be added to a package that is provided for the entertainment, hospitality or tourism sectors.
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