The Greater Toronto CivicAction Alliance, then called the Toronto City Summit Alliance was created in 2002 after 150 Toronto business and other community leaders were convened at a Toronto City Summit meeting to consider the region’s future. The 2002 Summit was sponsored by the City of Toronto and chaired by former Toronto Mayor David Crombie and Elyse Allan, Alliance Chair John Tory, and Frances Lankin, who were then CEOs of the Toronto Board of Trade, Rogers Communications and the United Way respectively

David Pecaut, a senior partner of The Boston Consulting Group, presented a compelling social and economic “diagnostic” of the Toronto region and he subsequently undertook to create and lead a 40-leader Steering Committee to take a more detailed look at the challenges he and others had described. This volunteer group’s 2003 report, Enough Talk: An Action Plan for the Toronto Region, laid out a clear and actionable roadmap focusing on issues where there was a clear consensus for action and where the group felt progress could be quickly made.