Mayor Rob Burton's motto: "Make good things happen."
"It was love at first sight," Rob and his wife Wendy say to describe their choice of Oakville, when they moved their young family (Rachel, Sarah and Robbie) here in 1994.
They were quickly drawn into community service activities that saw Rob serve as the Joshua Creek residents association's newsletter editor, secretary and president, and become involved in, among other things, Oakville minor hockey as a manager, trainer, coach, convenor and board member.
Descendent of Pioneers
Rob and Wendy had become Canadian citizens after coming to Canada 34 years ago. Rob's great-great-great grandfather James Burton homesteaded in what is now Don Mills in the 1830s. "I have his journals. Anyone who thinks Susanna Moody wrote too much about how cold and dark it was in Canada in pioneer days should read my grandpa's diary," Rob says. "I was born in Virginia, so our years in Sudbury and Ottawa taught me a lot about the cold and dark of the Canadian winter, too, but they also taught a lot about the Canadian instinct for community-building and fun."
Broadcast Pioneer
After a career in Sudbury, Ottawa and Toronto in journalism and film and television as a director and producer, Rob put together and led the group that founded YTV, the successful Canadian children's television network, in the 1980s. In the early years of the network, he was assigned to lead the successful launch of the channel and the construction of the network's first two studio facilities as vice president of programming and operations, after having authored and led the presentation of the winning application to the CRTC for the license. His skill and success as a lobbyist on behalf of children's television was widely respected. He later transitioned to the board of directors after the network was successfully established.
Environment Pioneer
Rob's interest in the environment goes back to his college days when he organized the first international students' conference on ecology, which led up to Earth Day.
Rob earned an M.S. degree from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism. His groundbreaking thesis was the first scholarly work in the world to tie together statistically the effects of air pollution on health, and was presented at the U.N.'s first international conference on the environment in Stockholm. Not long after, as a young CBC TV reporter in Sudbury, Rob did the first story on acid rain in Canada, in 1974.
Introduction to Politics
"My introduction to Canadian politics was interviewing former Prime Minister John Diefenbaker about his Canadian Bill of Rights," Rob remembers. "Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau gave me an interview for my film on bilingualism that helped it to win a Silver Medal at the New York Film Festival when he said, 'I never thought we'd get as far as we did with bilingualism.'" In fact, Rob has met and interviewed every Canadian prime minister from Diefenbaker to Martin.
"As much fun as it was to meet and mingle with national political figures at the National Press Club," Rob says, "I will never forget the inspirational heart surgeon who pioneered open heart surgery in Canada, Dr. (and Senator) Wilbur Keon, whose work I featured in a film."
Heritage & History
"And although I was lucky enough to work with John Candy, Jim Carrey, Blue Rodeo, Buffy Saint Marie, Ginette Reno, Mellisa Manchester, and Sandra Oh, the film that means the most to me is 'They Went To Fight For Freedom,' which I made with Lorne Green to commemorate the sacrifice and glory of Canada's veterans in their victory in World War II," Rob says.
Rob and Wendy met the summer before she went to Harvard, and when she graduated, they married and she joined him in Canada. She was a founder of the Centre for Investigative Journalism (now the Canadian Association of Journalists) and was its first woman president. Wendy edited and published 'Our Oakville: A Community's Self-Portrait,' a popular book celebrating Oakville at the turn of the millennium. She is currently studying at the University of Toronto for a PhD in Urban Geography, having obtained a master's degree in the Public Policy and Administration program at Ryerson University in 2006.
National & Local Service
Rob and Wendy have always believed in community service, and while she has served on school councils and was chair of the Town's Parks&Recreation Advisory Committee, he has served on Oakville's Library Board and the Task Force on Intensification, Renewal and Redevelopment, as well as the board of the Minor Oaks Hockey Association for the last six years.
Nationally, he has served on the National Executive of the Directors Guild, and the Canadian Film and Television Production Association. He also led the DGC's creation of its labour-sponsored venture capital firm, Entertainment Ventures.
Provincially, he created and led a coalition of film and TV industry and labour groups, OPIC (Ontario Production Industry Council), which got the Ontario Government to revive the Ontario Film Development Corporation. This coalition was only possible because of the credibility Rob had with all sectors from having been a leader of the industry-wide master labour agreement negotiations that redefined the film and television industry from an adversarial to a cooperative relationship and made possible the economic boom of the '80s and '90s in film and TV. "I have always found that the strategy of 'principled negotiations' works best for everyone," Rob says.
Courage & Action
Locally, Rob created and led a coalition of ten Oakville and Mississauga residents associations that negotiated environmental protection enhancements to the 900 MW electricity generation station planned for construction on the border of the two cities. Included in the settlement agreement was a company-funded and resident-controlled community advisory committee and extensive landscaping of a buffer zone between it and nearby homes.
In the battle over OPA 198 and the urbanization of North Oakville, Rob challenged the developers and the Town at the OMB after the developers appealed OPA 198. He negotiated a settlement to the case that enhanced OPA 198 and created the Oakville Environmental Fund -- and saved the Town's taxpayers millions of dollars in hearing costs.
"My guiding principle in every situation I have faced," Rob explains, "has always been to make something good happen. It's a value I've had since my days as an Eagle (Queen's) Scout, where you learn to always leave your campsite better than you found it."
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