Ward 30 Councillor Paula Fletcher and Chinese Canadian East Toronto Chamber of Commerce President Bernard Loh meet with Bob Kinnear at the Canada Day celebration in Riverdale Park.

As part of Toronto’s transit workers’ Community Outreach Program, Local 113 President Bob Kinnear celebrated Canada’s 143rd birthday with over 2,000 members of the Chinese Community in Riverdale Park near Broadview and Gerrard. The annual event is organized by the Chinese Chamber of Commerce and is co-sponsored by several Chinese community organizations. Also in attendance were Toronto Danforth Ward 30 City Councillor Paula Fletcher, NDP Federal Leader Jack Layton, MPP Peter Tabuns and Toronto School Board Trustee Cathy Dandy. The popular Lena Ma, Miss World Canada 2009, also made an appearance. 

Bob Kinnear is warmly introduced to the 2,000+ crowd by Councillor Paula Fletcher

“Transit is a vital part of our city,” said Fletcher.  “We need to support our publicly funded transit system to keep Toronto moving.” 

Kinnear spent over three hours mingling with the crowd and meeting various community leaders to discuss ways in which the union could work together with their organizations to make the TTC better. 

“This was a wonderful opportunity to meet members of the Chinese community and their leaders to talk about transit issues,” said Kinnear. 

“As a union we are committed to working with Toronto’s diverse communities on transit because we all know that transit is a major immigrant issue. We need to get to know one another better and find ways to work together to improve service and press for more funding from governments. 

“We will definitely be following up on the contacts we made at this great event.”