Dan Doctoroff and Stephen Diamond could hardly suppress their affection for each other at their January 13 joint luncheon address hosted by the Toronto Region Board of Trade.

No wonder: the two are firmly united in gunning for Sidewalk Labs -- a sister company of the Google/Alphabet behemoth -- to rapidly spin its all-encompassing, government-usurping, high-tech web first on the 12-acre Quayside site on Toronto’s eastern waterfront and then across the rest of the city, all of Canada and the rest of the planet.

I’ve previously written about how Sidewalk Labs is poised to gain control of a vastly larger area than Quayside alone, thanks largely to eager enabling by our municipal, provincial and federal governments and by Waterfront Toronto, which is a creation of these three levels of government.

The company hasn’t been secretive about its goal to use Quayside as a launching pad for much bigger ambitions. But now it appears they’re confident enough – due to the successful co-opting of our governments and business communities, together with much of the mainstream media and the public – to broadcast more of the scope of their plans.

The sold-out Jan. 13 event was billed as an opportunity for Doctoroff and Diamond – Sidewalk Labs CEO and Waterfront Toronto board chair, respectively – to “share experiences on the successful negotiations between the two organizations” and to “share insights on how this new partnership will impact the development of Toronto’s waterfront, and the opportunity it brings to the broader region.”

The pair delivered. Read the rest

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