Introducing Marc
In today’s episode, we’ll be talking to Marc Goldrub. Marc is the founding lawyer at Green Economy Law Professional Corporation, a Toronto-based law firm providing general and specialized legal services in the areas of green business, psychedelics, and housing.
He holds a J.D. from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York City, and a Global Professional Master of Laws degree from the University of Toronto Faculty of Law. He’s a local climate and cycling activist and has proudly plant-based for 16 years. We talk about Marc’s hometown – Toronto!
In this episode we discuss:
- Put a case forward that Toronto is the best city for vegans
- How the vegan scene has changed in the past decade?
- Can one be vegan on a budget in Toronto?
- Address the stereotype that Toronto is boring
- Marc shares his recommendations for visitors to Toronto.
- What makes the city unique and worth visiting?
Learn more about what we talk about
- The lakes around the city.
- The most happening streets of Toronto.
- The case of indigenous people in the city.
- Marc recommended vegan-friendly cafes and restaurants.
Other World Vegan Travel content connected with this episode
- S2 Ep 2 | Learning Languages for Travel | The Nomadic Vegan
- Reflections on our Incredible Northern Italy Vegan Tour | Northern Italy 2022 Travelers | Ep 80
- S4 Ep 13 | Travel Insurance the Basics | Amanda Hand
- S4 Ep 4 | The Sea To Sky Region, BC, Canada | Natasha Tatton
- LGBTQ+ and Vegan-Friendly Travel – Vegan Vacations | Jason McGregor | Ep 96
Connect with Marc
Transcript
Brighde: Marc, thank you for joining me on The World Vegan Travel Podcast.
Marc: My pleasure to be here.
Brighde: I’m really excited today to talk about Toronto as a vegan travel destination and why people might like to consider this a Vegan Travel Guide to Toronto. But before we do, you are vegan. So tell us what it is you do and how you connect veganism with your job. Cuz it’s an interesting connection there.
Marc: I’m a lawyer in Toronto. I run a little law firm called Green Economy Law Professional Corporation, which specializes in working with green businesses and nonprofits. That’s the main focus of the firm. We also work with parties in the health and psychedelic sector and parties dealing with housing-related matters. What I’m trying to sum up for people. I usually say we have three areas of focus, green economy, health, and housing. I connect veganism very strongly with the green economy part and I actually went vegetarian when I was 16, largely for environmental reasons. I had an entrepreneurship teacher at the time, in high school and I was already an environmentalist, but I wasn’t a vegetarian. I was talking to her about environmental stuff one day and she said, are you vegetarian? I said, no, I know I probably should be. She gave me a book on vegetarian propaganda, which was, half propaganda, half cookbook. I read the propaganda and it talked a lot about the environmental issues associated with industrial agriculture. I said I can’t be an environmentalist and in good conscience support this. Very soon after, once it just made sense to me, it made sense to me and it was actually very easy to say, all right, I’m out.
Brighde: Wow, and how long have you lived in Toronto?
Marc: I was born in a suburb of Toronto. I grew up in a suburb of Toronto called ThornHill. Like I could walk across the border to take the bus to high school. So it was very close to Toronto, basically Toronto, although some Toronto people would say, nah, you’re from Thorn Hill, you’re not from Toronto but yeah, I would say, I grew up in Toronto and then I did spend most of my twenties in other places. For almost two years, I was in the Israeli army and then I was in New York for four years. So there was a bit of moving around and stuff. I came back to Toronto in 2018 and plan on sticking around. So I’ve been here most of my life with, like a kind of big gap in my twenties.
Brighde: I see. Yeah, I have been to Toronto just for a couple of days, quite a few years ago now. So you are going to be giving us a case for Toronto as being the best Canadian city to head to, so I’m really excited to hear about that. I just recorded another episode with Nia Seney from the Global Vegan Magazine and we were waxing lyrical about how amazing Vancouver is for vegan travel, restaurants, and just places to visit. So I am going to be comparing Toronto, what you say with Vancouver and I’m excited to hear what you’ve got to say about Toronto. Okay. So for those people that don’t know, where is Toronto located? Of course, it’s in Canada. It’s not the capital.
Marc: It’s a question you get from the Americans. Ah, Toronto. Is that the French part? No. It’s pretty close to Detroit or Chicago. In Canada, we think of it as east, but I guess if you’re American, you would say it’s Midwest. It’s not on the East Coast, but it’s more east than it is west. Let’s call it the Midwest of Canada.
Brighde: What’s the population? What are the main industries there? Where’s it located? I know it’s on the lake.
Marc: Yeah, it’s on Lake Ontario. It’s in the province of Ontario and I can walk from my house to the lake and it’s a beautiful lake. We haven’t treated it as well as we should have. And we still don’t actually, but it’s a beautiful lake. I believe the population’s around 2.5 to 3 million. And the greater Toronto area, as we call it, the GTA, I think is around five to 6 million, is a growing population. Toronto is an exploding city because it’s wonderful. I lived in New York, as I mentioned earlier, and I would say New York’s a huge city, but people are always coming and going from New York and Toronto, people just come to Toronto and then they just stay in Toronto. They like never leave. We’re dealing with a lot of housing issues now because it’s a wonderful city and a lot of people want to come live here. If you don’t have the right policies, it creates problems.
Brighde: I see. Yeah. We have some similar issues in British Columbia and Vancouver with a lack of housing. It’s a big issue. Now, what’s the weather like? I think Vancouver has one up on Toronto for weather, according to my weather preferences but tell us what people can expect in Toronto.
Marc: If you’re not from Canada, I guess everybody’s oh, it’s so cold. It’s not like we live in igloos or anything. It gets very hot in the summer and it gets very cold in the winter. You’re gonna get a good dose of all four seasons, I would say. I actually like the rain in Vancouver. I’m actually into that. It’s not that rainy in Toronto. I definitely would not say, the weather in Toronto, it’s like most appealing quality. Sometimes we have these kinds of murky gray days and I go outside and I’m like, today is a very Toronto day. Yeah. The weather’s not exactly a selling point.
Brighde: We are recording this episode in October. Have you had the first fall of snow yet?
Marc: No, no snow yet. I think last night we maybe had a little frost but no snow yet.
Brighde: I see. we have so much rain in Vancouver and Squamish. I think the weather forecast has rain every single day for the next week, although it is translating to fresh snow on top of the mountains, so that’s quite nice. But yeah, lots and lots of rain. So the case for Toronto as a destination for vegans. Could you share with us what are some of the main attractions, like the sights and the sounds that people might like to come to Toronto for, and maybe some special festivals too?
Marc: I guess that’s a big question. If I’m gonna really focus on what’s great about Toronto, what people should come for, we have a phenomenal downtown. A big issue I think is a lot of people come to Toronto and they visit family, and they’re in the suburbs. They’re in Mississauga. They’re like, yeah, I never really got the Toronto experience. If you don’t go to downtown Toronto, yeah. Are you’re gonna miss out on What’s great about Toronto? Downtown Toronto is an amazing place. Queen West is. I live practically on Queen West. Technically I’m on Richmond just like one street below it. But Queen West is just like a very hip street. It’s very long and there’s just a lot of cool stuff. A lot of vegan restaurants and Queen East are cool too. I know we got East Enders, who is very proud of the East End Leslieville, the Danforth, and a lot of great stuff on the East end.
But yeah, I’m a West ender and there are just so many great things and a lot of Vegan restaurants. There are areas of downtown and Queen West in particular, and blue also. Blue is another main downtown street. There are sections that have become super Vegan, where you’ll go like from vegan restaurant to vegan restaurant. Places that didn’t use to be vegan, became vegan. For a while, there was an area called Vegandale, but it was very controversial because people were saying, oh, this is like gentrification. This is an old neighborhood with immigrants and these white hipsters are coming in and turning it into Vegandale. I think that was a little bit reductive, but yeah, it’s become an incredibly vegan-friendly city.
Brighde: So are there any interesting festivals in Toronto? Not necessarily vegan festivals, but just really cool, maybe music stuff that’s going on, or dance or comedy that people might like to time their visit to Toronto for?
Marc: Oh totally. It’s Toronto International Film Festival. admittedly it’s hard to get tickets, I think, to the movies. I tried like once. It’s just not the easiest thing, and they’re sold out like it’s a little bit exclusive, but it is a great time even just to be in the city. There’s a lot of stuff going on. If you’re dedicated, you can get tickets to great movies going on. We also have a music festival called North by Northeast, which I want to say takes place in the summer. And that’s our answer to South by Southwest. It’s a phenomenal music festival where it takes place all over the city, with all kinds of venues, and hosting shows. I volunteered for it for one year and that was a wonderful experience. The last couple of years have been a bit of an exception cause of Covid, but otherwise, we usually have a lot of great music festivals.
We have Toronto Islands and sometimes there are shows there, and music festivals there on the island, which are amazing. I’ve had some unbelievable Toronto Island music experiences. We have some Vegan festivals. Maybe this is controversial. I’m not that crazy about the festivals cuz it’s like, why do I wanna wait in line and all these crowds when I could just go to Kensington Market or Parkdale or other places in the city where they just have a conglomeration of amazing Vegan restaurants already. And there are even places I still haven’t been.
I’ve been in Toronto now since 2018 and so many Vegan places opened up in the last couple of years and I just still haven’t even been to all of them. So I’m not that crazy. I don’t feel super drawn to the festivals cuz there’s amazing availability of stuff already outside of the festival.
Brighde: I see. Are there any excellent museums that are notable in Toronto to check out? Do you happen to know?
Marc: The Royal Ontario Museum is, the big one. A couple of years ago they redid the architecture. It’s a good museum. I haven’t gone to a lot of them in a long time. There’s like a science center. One thing I really like to do actually is go to the A G O, the Art Gallery of Ontario, and also the Art Gallery of Ontario is connected to the Ontario College of Art and Design, or as we call it, OCAD. I don’t know if security is crazy about this, but you can walk into OCAD. They have this big kind of room in the center and they’ll be displaying the work of the students. It’s just continually changing and it’s free. I don’t know if you’re supposed to be just wandering in there. If you’re not causing problems, I don’t think anyone’s gonna cause problems for you. But I actually really, like sometimes if I’m just in the area if I’m not pressed for time, just wandering into OCAD and just walking around, really great ART. I love what the students are doing.
Brighde: Yeah. I really do feel this. The vibe that I get, Toronto really is the city where lots of innovation is happening. It’s a little bit more sort of an alternative. It’s a really fun place to check out. Something I’d like to discuss with you is how you can use Toronto as a jumping-off point for exploring Lake Country. This was something interesting to me. Before, I met Seb. I had this idea that yeah, Canadians like lakes, but I didn’t really understand the culture and the experience one can have when someone goes to the lake with family or with friends. So can you explain a little bit how about Toronto’s relationship with the forest and the lakes and how people might like to participate in that side of Toronto?
Marc: So yeah, that is a big thing. It’s like a very Toronto, GTA, Ontario, Canada thing that you go up to a cottage in the summer and you bring a couple some beers and everybody goes out on a boat and you drink beers on the lake and maybe have a bonfire. That’s a very Toronto thing. A lot of people have cottages. It’s a bit of an upper-class thing, but anybody can rent something with Airbnb or there are other ways of just renting a cottage for a weekend if you’re visiting. Like you can do that. It’s not like it’s, something that’s inaccessible to people who are not wealthy or if they’re not from Toronto. Everybody really can do that if you want to.
But I would say that Toronto’s such a great city. If somebody were visiting Toronto, I’m not sure I would tell them, oh, drive an hour or two up to Lake Country so you can just hang out by the lake. I’m maybe a little biased because I’m a total urbanist, even though I’m an environmentalist and I like nature and stuff. I really am more of an urban kind of person and I like exploring things, restaurants, shops, art galleries, and even just cool urban spaces. And Toronto just says so much of that, that I feel, if somebody were just visiting and they said, let me go up to the up to Lake Simco or something. But you’re just gonna hang out by a lake. Maybe that’s what you want to do. Okay, great. But if you’re into urban stuff, there’s just a lot, Toronto has to offer.
Brighde: Yeah, when I was in Toronto, I was invited up with some friends to go to their cottage and it did honestly feel like quite an interesting cultural experience. I wasn’t living in Canada at that time. They had this really cool little cabin that wasn’t super fancy or anything like that, but it had this beautiful lawn that went down to the lake and days were just spent basically water skiing. They had a boat and they did water skiing. They had like pre-mixes to get, to have like driss and all of this kind of stuff. I think it’s like quite the stereotypical weekend by the lake. It was a lot of fun. But it’s very interesting around there because as somebody who was born and raised in Europe, just how much forest there is and just how many lakes there are.
If you go into Google Maps and you zoom in and you have a little look around, My jaw just drops to the ground because this is something that I could never have experienced as a child growing up in the UK, growing up in Europe, to just have this abundance of forests and lakes. It’s really cool.
Marc: That’s interesting. I grew up here, so maybe I take it a little for granted. I have a lot of appreciation for the Great Lakes. I read a book a couple of years ago called the Life and Death and Rebirth or something of the Great Lakes. I’m getting the title wrong, but I’m sure if you Google that the right title will come up it talks about the history of the Great Lakes and the environmental policies around them and how America and Canada have these treaties and that was incredibly interesting to me. And the Great Lakes are to people who care about this stuff. I think they call it like the Saudi Arabia of water. Canada’s known for having a huge supply of fresh water in the form of the Great Lakes. Guess as an environmentalist, I really have now come to have a huge appreciation of the Great Lakes, knowing their history and stuff. It’s amazing, being able to live on that and appreciate it. They’re like seas. They’re giant. The smaller lakes. I think they’re cool. I’m into lakes, but I do feel like Europe has lakes. I have been to Europe, there were lakes in Europe.
Brighde: Yes, of course, there are lakes in Europe, particularly in Scandinavia. Not where I grew up for sure.
Marc: I know that in BC that’s a really big thing, everywhere you go. There are indigenous people, and indigenous issues in Ontario. We have indigenous groups, and they are around, but it’s a huge province and in Toronto, I guess the average person does not really have a ton of interaction with indigenous people or indigenous issues, except at a kind higher political level. It’s just not something we’re encountering as part of our real day-to-day lives that often. There are of course indigenous people in Toronto, but it’s just not something we encounter as often as people in places like BC or like in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in a lot of other places. I know it’s a much more kind of day-to-day thing than it is in Toronto.
Brighde: I see. Interesting. Where would you say the best area of Toronto to base yourselves? If you want to take advantage of all of the things that you’ve talked about, do you have any recommendations?
Marc: The city of Toronto has, Young Street. Young Street is the longest street in the world. Anytime we talk about West or East, it’s always west or east of Young Street the city really is oriented around Young Street as its center and it goes all the way right down to Lake Ontario. There’s an area of Toronto we call Core which is really like the center, like literally the geographic center of downtown. If you think of Toronto as like a square. Although it wouldn’t be the center of Toronto, if you pictured the square, it’d be toward the bottom of the square or the south of the square. But it’s really the center of downtown and that’s where all the financial stuff is. Bay Street is right there. A lot of the biggest buildings, the most construction, that’s all the core.
South of the core is the lake. So that’s not really much of an option. But east, western north of the core, it gets less dense. So if you’re coming to Toronto, I say maybe don’t be right in the core because it’s gonna be a little bit like New York. It’s gonna be like Manhattan. All you’re gonna see around are giant high rises, but if you go a little bit east or a little bit west in a place, if you’re a little bit on Queen West or College or Blue, these are all kind of big downtown streets. If you’re in Kensington Market, which we haven’t really talked about yet, Kenson market is this kind of very interesting, culturally rich neighborhood, very close to the core, and it’s resisted a certain kind of gentrification. It’s been subject to some kind of gentrification, but it’s managed to resist being totally culturally flattened in a way that a lot of other neighborhoods have not. So I would say if you’re gonna stay around Kensington Market or Parkdale, which is on Queen West, people will tell you that there are areas of Toronto, they’ll call Queen west Queen West, and then west of West Queen West is Parkdale. This might get a little confusing, but I would say anywhere along there is really phenomenal, very culturally rich, and a lot of vegan restaurants. A great area for vegans, a great area for anyone who’s interested in urbanism, or just for a great urban environment.
Brighde: Okay, great. As you already said, Toronto has many vegan places to eat and check out. I was wondering whether I could get your personal recommendation on some different categories of vegan restaurants. I realize I’m putting you on the spot a little bit.
Marc: you don’t show up on a podcast. Not expecting to be on the spot of that. That’s the point.
Brighde: I’ll put you on the spot with some very important, tough questions. The matters of life and death. Right here, for example, the best dirty Burger in Toronto. Burger with all of the trimmings and tons of fries and all of that kind of stuff.
Marc: Okay, there’s a couple. There’s like kind of a chain. It didn’t start as a chain, but it was so successful. It’s become a bit of a chain now called Fresh. There are a lot of fresh restaurants around. They have a phenomenal, like Beyond Meat Burger that they do. That’s a really good one. It is expensive. I don’t know, maybe it’s not like a dirty Burger per your standards. If you’re looking for something quick and cheap, they do have the impossible burger at A & W, which is quite good. It definitely is like a solid burger. I think it’s seven bucks, which is pricey for a burger, but it’s pretty good and it’s vegan and you can find them all over the place. I know that a lot of places don’t have A&W it’s like a Canadian chain. But it was a big deal when A & W was like, we’re doing the Impossible Burger. We are breaking boundaries. We’re gonna have vegan burgers everywhere. And it’s like McDonald’s doing a vegan burger, which they actually also did start, I think they started it in London, Ontario was the first place they tried it. That’s a pretty good burger. I’ll say we do have a couple of places that are like vegan comfort food places that are great, and also have great burgers. Great sandwiches. Maybe that’s a different list. Maybe we should stop there.
Brighde: No. Tell us, what’s your list? What’s your best fast food place? We are in North America after all.
Marc: I actually honestly haven’t even been to Oberg, but I’ve heard good things. They started in London, Ontario, and now I know that they’re expanding. We have, Urban Herbivore, which is a great restaurant in Kensington Market, which has great sandwiches, and phenomenal vegan sandwiches. Maybe the best vegan sandwiches in Toronto. Parka is a great restaurant on Queen West, and also has phenomenal sandwiches. There’s another place Hogtown Vegan. Hogtown is apparently an old name for Toronto. There used to be a lot of slaughterhouses, like pork slaughterhouses in Toronto. So Hogtown Vegan was doing a bit of a reclaiming of the term and they’re like a comfort food Vegan place. I’m a fan of it also.
Brighde: Okay, so it’s summertime, and we need really good ice cream. Where would you recommend?
Marc: We do have places. It’s called Milk Vegan Gelato. That’s a good place. Yeah, that’s what it’s called. And there’s also Bloomers, which is a donut place, a vegan donut place and they also have ice cream.
Everything they make is amazing. The donuts are amazing. The ice cream’s amazing. Pricey but amazing. I love Bloomers. There’s one down the street from Young Queen West. There are a couple of Bloomers locations, but there’s one very close to me and I go to it very often.
And they also have very good coffee, but sometimes I don’t want to go there for coffee because I’m gonna be too tempted by the donuts. But it’s a great place.
Brighde: They’re that good. They’re that good. Alright, my one last category to ask you about and I will allow two or maybe three recommendations in this category because it is so vast but the best Asian restaurant.
Marc: I’m a big fan of a place called Buddhas I think it’s called Buddhas Vegan. They’re also right next to Kensington Market. Then five seconds from it, like practically next door there’s Buddhas and Greens and they’re very similar and they’re both Asian vegan places and they’re both excellent. Buddhas, I a little bit more just cuz I have a relationship with, I think he’s the owner is a guy named Sammy, and like whenever I come in there, he is very friendly. They’re really well-priced. The food is great and it’s just like a fun time every time I go there. Somebody would just go there, just get a bunch of stuff and the tea is good and it’s just like its own fun time.
Brighde: Okay, great recommendations. Thanks. I’ll make sure that they’re all linked in the show notes. So something I did want to ask you is maybe some tips for travel, maybe budget travel in Toronto because I think Toronto is quite an expensive city.
Marc: Very expensive.
Brighde: I do find travel in Canada quite expensive, even compared to Europe. So do you have any tips for visitors that are coming to Toronto or generally on how they might save some money on their stay in Toronto?
Marc: I’m not gonna say get Airbnb because the Airbnb situation here is not good. I don’t know how much your listeners want to hear about Airbnb policy or short-term rental policy in Toronto, but basically, I would say the situation here with short-term rentals is I’m not gonna promote it. It’s not a good situation. We got a housing crisis. we still have a ghost hotel problem. So if you’re coming to Toronto, there are Airbnbs, there are hotels. Everything was expensive. My recommendation is probably if you’re a chill person, you don’t need the fanciest of stays. There is a couch surfer, it’s an app website.
I think now you have to pay $23 a year. But there are a lot of friendly people and Toronto’s a pretty friendly city. Make sure you’re staying in a downtown area and especially if you can get images of where you’re staying. That’s definitely a cheaper option than Airbnb or hotels.
But the cheapest option of all is to make a friend in Toronto. I’ve heard that Toronto people are not friendly. Like if you’re not from Toronto, people told me that, it’s hard to break into a social scene in Toronto. But I do think that having been here for a long time, people in Toronto generally are pretty nice. Not as nice as the rest of Canada. I’m gonna give you that, maybe people on the East Coast are way nicer. People in Vancouver are also way more chill. I’ll give you guys that, but we’re generally not that bad. And if you make a good Toronto friend that you can stay with, I think that’s obviously your best option.
Brighde: Yeah. This is something that we’ve talked a lot about on the podcast in the past. The issue with Airbnb, especially with people hiring out entire places. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think Airbnb could be a good option if you just want a room in somebody’s house, that could be really nice and also very affordable.
Marc: I don’t know how affordable it is these days. I’ve been doing a bunch of traveling this year and I would say very often the hotels are now more affordable than even standard Airbnb places, it’s like shocking. I don’t know what’s up. What’s up, Airbnb? Why has everything gotten so expensive?
Brighde: Yeah. Airbnb is severely limited in the town that I live in as well. I know it’s a big issue in a lot of European cities. So yeah, I think it’s something for travelers to really think about when they are traveling, to really consider if they are staying in Airbnb, whether they are contributing to this stress on housing in that particular city. And yeah, that’s a really good point. Something for all of us to be mindful of when we are traveling for sure.
Marc: one thing I do if I’m staying in Airbnb is, and I’m not like a hundred percent against Airbnb because I’ve had a lot of good experiences where I stay in an Airbnb and become friends with the person and learn about, what it’s like to live in the place and I can use the kitchen. I really like that. I’m a big fan of that and I’ve had phenomenal experiences like that. I don’t like at hotels that you have this mini fridge with everything super overpriced and everybody’s opening doors for you and carrying your luggage and I’m a human being. You’re a human being. We’re all equal here, down with the class system. This is terrible. Nobody should be serving. Like when you’re an Airbnb, you’re paying somebody to stay there, but it’s a more human relationship and I really like that. I’m not all against Airbnb, but I am against ghost hotels and sometimes when I’m looking at places, there’s an option to see the owner.
What properties does an owner have? You can click on the person’s profile and it’ll say, this person has these properties. If I see that they have eight properties or something or more, I’m like, okay, this person’s running like a ghost hotel empire, not from me. If you got a spare room, you wanna rent it out. I think that’s totally legit. If you’re like buying up all kinds of properties so you can make money on short-term rentals and people can’t afford rent in your city now, big problem. Not a fan.
Brighde: Yeah. Yep. Definitely. You can always search on Airbnb and similar sites, whether you want the entire place. Or whether just a room in shared accommodation or sometimes even sharing a room. I think in some situations too. Yeah, I don’t, not sure whether you’re familiar with Marc this one, but there’s actually a vegan-owned platform that’s very much like how Airbnb was like 10 years ago before it just became this huge thing. And it’s a place for vegans and vegetarians, I think, to rent out the spare room in their place. Vegans could stay there and get access to a vegan kitchen and all of those things. And I recently released an episode with Faik Bouhrik, who has this website called The Vegan Stay, where he does a similar thing.
He has vegan-owned accommodation, like Airbnb but any fees that are generated through the site actually are all donated to sanctuaries. And also sanctuaries can host their stays on the website as well for free and keep all of those fees as well because a lot of sanctuaries are very keen to have some sort of accommodation on the sanctuary property as a way to support the sanctuary. So these two platforms are a really great way to, support vegans. In one case, entrepreneurs one case, like a sort of social responsibility organization. It’s really cool that some other options are now out there.
Marc: You don’t have a directory or something on your website, like vegan stay options. Maybe an idea.
Brighde: Yes. Yes, we do. If you go onto our website and you search for vegan accommodation, you’ll see all of the interviews and the blog posts that I have done with Vegan accommodations or something to do with accommodations. You’ll see plenty there. But for The Vegan Stay and veg visits, I recorded a podcast with them quite a while ago now. The lovely. Dick and Lindsay are behind that. So it’s pretty cool.
Definitely check that out and support vegans rather than big Airbnb businesses. All right. So I’m sure everyone listening to this is gonna definitely want to put Toronto on their bucket list. So thank you so much, Marc, for sharing a local’s perspective of Toronto and encouraging people to visit this incredible city.
Before we say goodbye, would you mind telling us a little bit more about what it is that you are doing? Because there could be some people listening to this that might need your services. So please take this time to share a little bit more about what you do.
Marc: Sure. So as I mentioned before, I run a firm called Green Economy Law Professional Corporation. The main focus of the firm is to work with green businesses and nonprofits. Under that umbrella, I would absolutely say anybody doing plant-based work, whether it’s in food or fashion or otherwise. I’m happy to work with those clients. I’ve worked with them in the past and would love to work with more in the future. in terms of the things that I actually do. I do things like helping people in corporations, corporate governance, contracts, employment, intellectual property management, and securities law. I would say generally speaking, if you’re running a business and you got legal issues, for the most part, we can help you, even with civil litigation now we’re doing. If you need help with legal stuff for your business, I would say, Almost everything. We can help you. We do business stuff generally but we also do some specialized things like we help people with B Corp certification, which is a lot of interest in that especially plant-based businesses and we were thinking a lot about the specific priorities and concerns of green businesses and plant-based businesses, reputational concerns, which are extremely important for green businesses more so even other businesses, which, and I would say reputational stuff is huge for everybody these days. Thinking about things like how you actually position your business for investment by people who are worried about environmental issues, how do we actually highlight all those things in terms of your disclosures and how you’re operating, your bylaws, and whatnot? So we do general stuff. We also do some more specialized stuff, which is why green economy law is not just another business firm that only does certain things. We focus on green businesses, but we also bring things to the table, I think that not every other business law firm is gonna be able to provide.
Brighde: And are you able to just take Ontario clients or are you able to work with clients from further afield?
Marc: So we work with businesses across Canada, with the exception being Quebec. There are certain multi-province agreements between the bar associations and different provinces where they allow lawyers in one province to work in the other province subject to certain conditions, which are relatively light at this point. It’s like you can’t, advertise yourself in every province and take on every client. You have certain limitations, but I do take on clients who work in, British Columbia especially. I would say other than Ontario, that’s the place where I get most calls from, in terms of if you’re doing green economy stuff for psychedelic stuff, for both of those things, BC is huge. So always happy to work with BC clients. Subject to limitations, but we’re not really close to breaking any of those limitations now, in terms of, there’s an hourly limitation you can only take on so many clients, but, we’re not close to those limits.
We’re happy to take on BC clients and clients from other parts of Canada. As I said, unfortunately, we can’t do Quebec just cuz it’s a different legal system. Bar citizens haven’t worked everything out. Otherwise, we would love to work with Quebec businesses also. But if Quebec businesses or businesses from other countries want to do business in Canada, generally speaking, or specifically in Ontario, unless you only wanna do business in Quebec, we’ll be happy to help you.
Brighde: Fantastic. Alright, all the entrepreneurs, take note of Marc’s details and how can people find you.
Marc: You can find [email protected], and you can also find me on LinkedIn.
Brighde: I know you’re very active over on LinkedIn.
Marc: That’s the one that I’m on and I’m active on it. But I don’t have Facebook, Twitter, or anything. I kept LinkedIn because I thought people would get suspicious if I didn’t have anything. So I was like, all right, you get LinkedIn. That’s it.
Brighde: Awesome. Alright Marc, thank you so much for sharing your recommendations with our listeners today. I’m sure it’s gonna be really useful. Thank you.
Marc: My pleasure. Thanks
