London’s leaders came together Saturday to discuss ways to tackle issues facing the city, particularly unemployment.
The conference, called London X: City Building in a Time of Change, was organized by Emerging Leaders and was geared toward Londoners aged 20 to 44.
The London Convention Centre was the site of the event and brought together some bright minds to try to rally people together to build a better London. Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi was one of them.
"Let’s start having conversations at the political level of what we can do to make change,” Nenshi said.
Nenshi gained popularity across the country as a mayor who brought citizens together to build a better Calgary, especially during last year's flood.
The mayor challenged the growing leaders to get out and create change.
“There are a lot of incredible engaged citizens here and that's part of the mix for how you make your community better and I think every community in Canada has the opportunity to be better when we start to involve the real experts and the real experts, of course, are the people who live here.”
He received a standing ovation for his speech.
“Every single one of us, deserves the right - right here, right now - to live a great Canadian life," he concluded.
His message seemed to hit home.
“What's going to come out of this is massively important, having people together focused on how they can exercise agency and building the city, it's huge,” said Matt Ross.
“We've lost 15,000 manufacturing jobs, youth unemployment is 20 percent in London. But now we have an opportunity through thinking about who we are as a city, and where we want to go," said organizer Sean Quigley.
More than 300 people took part in the conference.
