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Hilarious viral videos.

Top 20 lists.

Those links you can’t help clicking, sharing, talking about.

Chances are, some of that content was put together by a growing crew of writers and editors at diply.com, working away on the fastest-growing website on the Internet.

Their headquarters? An office building at King and Richmond streets in London.

“We want to crack the top 100 websites in the world in the next six months,” says Taylor Ablitt, chief executive of diply.com.

But most people haven’t heard of it, let alone that it’s a local success story.

In a way, the company and its hiring of local talent, commitment to London, move downtown and even lack of exposure makes diply.com the poster-child for what’s going on in the city’s core: It’s quickly becoming a digital playground rivalling other more well-known tech centres such as Ottawa and Kitchener-Waterloo.

For those living and working in it, downtown London’s digital corridor is thriving.

Joel Adams, director of Mainstreet London and co-owner of Hacker Studios, a co-working space on Dundas St. across from the central branch of the London Public Library, can name two dozen downtown tech companies off the top of his head.

The list includes some of London’s largest and fastest-growing employers, including voices.com, that just received a $900,000 boost from FedDev Ontario, and Digital Extremes, the city’s largest gaming company, sold last month to a Chinese holding company.

Some companies are one- or two-person startups. Many started in locations far from the core, lured there because of cool spaces — exposed brick and steel beams in heritage properties — and the appeal of working with and close to like-minded digital innovators.

Others have made national lists of fastest-growing companies or best places to work.

“There’s a lack of awareness with the general public that we have such a concentration here,” Adams says. “People know that London is known for gaming, but there’s a community within all these digital sectors. There is a critical mass, but people don’t know it.”

Today, diply.com is hovering in the top 200 websites in the world, based on the number of page views and visitors.

Not bad for the brainchild of two guys, one a business grad, the other about to become a dentist, who thought they might want to be entrepreneurs and launched their social entertainment project just a year ago.

Fast forward almost 12 months and their main competitors are Buzzfeed and HuffingtonPost, the two top social sites out there.

The two Western grads, Ablitt and buddy Dean Elkholy, the company’s chief operating officer, are part of a four-member management team.

They’ve hired a dozen writers, mainly from Western University and Fanshawe College, and recently moved their offices downtown. They hope to hire 40 more people in the next few months.

Their website has more visitors than any other Canadian-owned site on the web — more than 50 million unique visitors a month. More than half their traffic comes from the United States.

kate.dubinski@sunmedia.ca

twitter.com/KateatLFPress

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So what’s the big deal?

Who cares if a bunch of small startups and digital and tech companies locate downtown?

What the London Economic Development Corp. calls the “digital creative” labour force employs about 8,000 people, about 3% of the city’s labour force.

Compare that with 30,000 Londoners who work in manufacturing and it’s a drop in the economic bucket.

“In terms of number of employees (in the tech sector), it’s small, but it can grow,” says Mike Moffatt, a London-based economist who studies job trends in Southwestern Ontario. “Manufacturing employment isn’t going to grow. With tech, there is potential.”

The ingredients for growth are there. Downtown has a good mix of traditional IT employees, such as TD Canada Trust, small- to medium-sized companies such as rtraction and Digital Extremes, and startups no one has even heard of.

Co-working spaces are springing up, and Adams, who co-owns Hacker Studios, plans to expand to a second location downtown intended to house startups further along in their business plan.

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Why downtown?

Other cities are good at promoting themselves, but London is quietly expanding into the tech sector.

“We’re gaining traction as a tech city,” says Ablitt, chief executive of diply.com. “We’ve been overlooked because of Waterloo, but we have one of the best universities in Canada here.From a creative content perspective, Western and Fanshawe can’t be beat.”

Having employees with different, but similar, skills, working close to each other, is important.

“The play is, you have a lot of little companies, and you assist them and they assist each other,” Moffatt says. “You hope that one of them becomes a RIM or OpenText and have a ton of spinoff. The more little companies there are, the better your odds of creating a RIM.”

In other words, the simple act of getting similarly minded and skilled people in an area can have a huge impact.

“There’s a bit of a snowball effect that occurs in the development of a cluster,” city planner John Fleming says. “The more tech businesses that accumulate together, the more there seems to be of those.”

That’s already happening in London, but the city needs to toot its horn more, most in the tech industry agree.

“One of the things that we’re not doing is telling the story enough,” says Marilyn Sinclair, who heads TechAlliance, a resource agency to tech companies in London and Southwestern Ontario.

“We have small, medium and large companies here and a lot of diversity. Waterloo brags a lot, and we don’t. We need to brag more.”

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What we’re doing

The London Plan — the vision for the city with downtown development playing a major role — is written and is likely to be adapted by the new city council.

Now, city planners are turning their minds to a smart city master plan. That process starts in the new year.

“We’re the first city in the province to have a smart city section in its master plan,” says Sean Galloway, the city’s urban designer.

Components of the smart city master plan could include public Wi-Fi access points at transit villages and downtown and a fibre-optic infrastructure plan. The key is planting the seeds for building inward, not outward.

“Our hope is we can put the infrastructure there so employers locate there and that will help residential infill development,” Galloway says.

“When we tear up our streets, we have to put in fibre optics. But where? How do we put technology into the transit corridors? We have to look at all that.”

The trick is providing infrastructure to a sector that changes at “lightning speed,” Fleming says.

“We need to make sure that what we’re doing is malleable to changes over time.”

That kind of thinking will keep growing companies such as diply.com in London, its founders say.

“We thought of going elsewhere, and we’ll likely have to have at least a sales team in (Los Angeles), but our content development is here,” Ablitt says.

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But what else should we do?

Making sure there are qualified people to work at the new businesses is next on the list. “Our biggest problem is finding qualified people,” Ablitt says.

That’s echoed at most tech firms, big and small, that want to grow.

Western and Fanshawe do a good job of teaching software development and “old web” skills, but smaller companies rely on self-taught mobile app and web-based development to bridge the gap between school and work skills.

One, Inner Geek, is teaming with the UnLondon digital and media arts group to bring a coding school here, run by developers who work in the field.

“There’s a lot of excellent web talent but not a lot of people who can do front- and back-end web stacks,” says Greg Smith, Inner Geek’s lead web developer who graduated from Fanshawe in 2004.

“London is old web, and we want to develop that into new web,”

Inner Geek chief executive Colton Hathaway started the web design and mobile app company 18 months ago with three others. The Dundas St. business employs 15 and is looking to hire more.

At the same time, the city and its core have to be attractive places to stay and work.

“We need a city that’s attractive to millennials: A thriving downtown, lively cultural scene, great recreation, spaces that allow for multiple forms of connections to people, a place that is highly walkable,” Fleming says.

“Those are the things we need to have for the tech sector demographic to be looking at our city.

“What the city does in the next few years will have a significant impact on the kind of labour force we’re able to attract.”

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What’s going on downtown?

Here is just a handful of examples of how downtown London is quickly becoming a tech corridor:

• UnLondon has moved part of its shared space for digital media artists downtown from the research park near Western University.

“We want to be at the intersection of art and electronics,” says Titus Ferguson, director of the new space called 121 Studios.

It’s being billed as a funky place where people can record podcasts, work together on videos and collaborate on projects.

“We need people who are here and who are good at what they do to want to stay,” Ferguson said. “We can be a part of that.”

• The Roundhouse Project, a renovated railway building on Horton St. that used to be home to the Great West Steakhouse, will soon be home to digital companies ATMOS Marketing and rtraction that took home this year’s top honours at the London Business Achievement Awards in March.

Other digital companies also are leasing part of the funky space.

The restored building is a good example of tech companies using architecturally interesting designs, not traditional office buildings.

• Diply.com, the fastest growing website in Internet history, moved from the outskirts of London to an office at King and Richmond streets.

“London is a great spot,” says Justin Ogglesby, the company’s chief marketing officer. “With the college and university here, it lets us recruit a lot of people.”

Most of the company’s employees have graduated in the last two years.

“Downtown is central to everything. We want people to have fun at work, to be close to restaurants, places to hang out after work. It’s nice to have other companies around us,” says Ablitt.

• Fanshawe College will soon be the beating heart of the city’s digital hub, with students in the downtown campus graduating with much-needed skills.

Almost a year ago, the college opened its Centre for Digital and Performing Arts on Dundas St., just west of Richmond St. After a hard-fought battle, its IT program will relocate to across the street in what used to be the Kingsmill’s department store.

Many of tech companies on the cusp of growth will you the same thing: It’s tough finding qualified employees.

“One of the biggest issues is recruitment of employees,” Fleming says. “With Fanshawe there and expanding with its IT program, you can see the development of the sector.”

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What they said

“The advantage of London is that you can live downtown, start a family, move to Old South or Old North and still be relatively close to downtown. In Toronto, you’d need to be working a lot more and making a lot more money to live that close to work and to downtown.”

Mike Moffatt, economist

“We’re hopeful that we’re seeing a (tech) cluster in its early stages of development.”

John Fleming, City planner

“You have to be what you are, not try to recreate Toronto or Waterloo or Silicon Valley. We’re not starting from nothing. It’s all there, we’re not doing a good job of connecting it.”

Amanda Stratton, Startup Canada

“We need a mix of traditional IT people who have side projects that can spin off. These are the jobs that are being created in London and all over the world.”

Joel Adams, Hacker Studios (co-working space)

“Waterloo brags a lot and we don’t. We have to stop comparing ourselves to KW and tell our own story. When we (compare ourselves) it makes everyone think we’re second rate and we’re not.”

Marilyn Sinclair, TechAlliance

“It’s healthy for the tech industry to have cross-pollination.”

Colton Hathaway, chief executive and co-founder of Inner Geek

Morgan unveiled AdvanceVote, a smart phone app that was created to provide not only public engagement around the municipal election, but to give people tools designed to help remind them to cast their vote on Oct. 27 — or sooner.

“What we have done is taken some information that exists and made it convenient for the generation that plans their life around a smart phone,” Morgan said. “Hopefully we can drive some voter turnout in age demographics who use this tool to do everything.”

Morgan said the app — which includes tools such as information on all candidates in both the council and mayoral races, maps to each ward, location of voting stations and social media applications — is “a really exciting, solid tool for voters.”

During the launch, which was held at Hacker Studios, Morgan acknowledged he was taking “some risk” in launching the app. While he is focused on showing voters things can be “done differently” as opposed to employing the same tactics that have led to 32 percent voter turnout four years ago, Morgan repeatedly said the idea is to benefit all campaigns evenly.

Well, that might not be entirely true. Morgan admitted the branding on AdvanceVote draws heavily on his own campaign in Ward 7, but everyone will be given the opportunity to use and promote the app.

“Yes, it is branded my app . . . but we will be neutral in the way we communicate. We won’t say vote for this candidate, vote for that candidate,” Morgan said. “We want it to be as usable as possible, we want it to have value for every candidate, for every single voter in the city.”

When Morgan said he was launching the app as a tool for all campaigns it appears several candidates were listening.

In fact, numerous municipal candidates from a variety of wards joined Morgan for the launch.

Kevin Labonte, a Ward 5 candidate, was one who took in the unveiling. Saying he loved “the innovation of it,” Labonte added he is excited to get people more engaged in the election.

He also said the fact Morgan is sharing the information contained within the app with all wards shows “the collaborative approach” that will hopefully extend to a new city council, no matter where someone is running.

“If you look at a ward, it is an artificial boundary,” Labonte said. “We have to look at what will benefit the city the most and if we are so focused on our wards, our individual fiefdoms, we aren’t going to make the city a better place and we have to focus on that.”

Jesse Helmer, candidate in Ward 4, said he definitely sees the innovations offered by the app as being ideal for growing municipal engagement. In fact, he was so taken by the idea of AdvanceVote, he even made a financial contribution to it during Morgan’s announcement.

“I think it is really cool one campaign could fund this kind of innovation. I think every campaign that is interested in getting turnout up should be promoting this kind of app,” Helmer said. “There are so many people using smart phones all over the city, so providing information in a useable way benefits all kinds of campaigns, mine included.”

Mohamed Salih, a Ward 3 candidate who is certainly no stranger to innovative campaign thinking, said it is “great” to see other candidates embracing ideas that weren’t necessarily their own.

“If it’s a good idea, I don’t care where it comes from. It’s about engaging people, encouraging them to vote,” Salih said. “A lot of younger people will take advantage of this, having them more engaged on a political level.”

Salih said he has met many people while knocking on doors in Ward 3 who didn’t know, or at least didn’t remember, when the election was. So connecting with them in a new way that might ensure their vote next month will certainly pay off in the long run.

So the question becomes, how can more women be encouraged to look at entrepreneurship as an option for their future?

It isn’t a question with an easy answer. Ask Amanda Stratton what needs to happen and the co-founder of Hacker Studios will say getting hard data on the problem is the first step.

“We do a lot of talking about what the problems are, but we don’t do a lot of research. In primary school, girls are just as interested as boys, but in high school, only 30 percent are looking at being entrepreneurs,” Stratton said. “What is the break? When does that happen? I would like to see us move to some evidence-based answers on how to move that forward. Right now we just speculate.”

Stratton was one of 17 women who came together on Wednesday (July 16) to take part in a two-hour roundtable discussion at Brescia University College on the key role that women play in Canada’s economic growth and prosperity.

London North Centre MP Susan Truppe, parliamentary secretary for Status of Women, worked with Brescia, BizInc and Startup Canada to bring together the roundtable. The group discussed the challenges faced by women entrepreneurs and what the Canadian government can do to create new opportunities for them.

Truppe said she will be taking the feedback from the roundtable — and others she will be hosting across the country — and present it to Kellie Leitch, the minister of Labour and minister of Status of Women.

“I wanted to get feedback from women entrepreneurs. I think it is important we find out how we can help women become entrepreneurs,” Truppe said. “We have been talking about this for probably 20 years, 30 years. Women represent 50 percent of the population, so to have only 16 percent of the entrepreneurs, that needs to change.”

Of the many things discussed by the group, Truppe said several key issues were brought forward, including the need for mentorship, greater financial support and understanding around financial literacy, increased networking opportunities, and the need to find balance between business and family.

Stratton said there are different obstacles for women than there are for men when it comes to becoming entrepreneurs. One issue is the perception of entrepreneurship itself.

To clarify her point,  pointed to an organization in the U.S. that has researched why more girls aren’t interested in the tech sector. In general, the research determined teenagers, of both genders, who want to do things that make a difference, who want to do something altruistic, aren’t interested in tech. The research also showed more girls feel that way than boys do.

Stratton said she believes the same perception problem exists around entrepreneurship.

“There is this perception about being an entrepreneur is all about making money,” Stratton said. “For not just girls, but everyone, there needs to be a bigger picture of what entrepreneurship can be so more people can see themselves in that world.”

Colleen Sharen, a Brescia associate professor who also took part in the roundtable, agreed with Stratton on that point in particular.

Women are socialized to believe entrepreneurs are “bald, mean and loud,” Sharen said, pointing to Kevin O’Leary, a celebrated Canadian businessman, investor, writer, and television personality, as the stereotypical entrepreneur.

While O’Leary is a very successful example of an entrepreneur, Sharen pointed to a study out of Brock University that focused on this stereotype and its effects on women.

“The study said the only difference between women and men in terms of entrepreneurial aspirations is women didn’t see it fitting their personality,” Sharen said. “So a lot of this is created by all these stereotypes around who women are supposed to be and what entrepreneurs are.”

As Brescia is Canada’s only women’s university, Sharen said there is a definite focus at the school on leadership, which entrepreneurship is just a form of. Mentorship is one thing that Sharen said would help change that perception.

Sharen said one of the solutions to the question of entrepreneurship is “creating a network of resources” that women can rely on.

Brittany Medeiros, marketing and communications manager at BizInc — a student business incubator at Western University and Fanshawe College — said it is important to a community of women entrepreneurship that supports each other.

“Women aren’t looking at entrepreneurship because I think they are speaking a different language. If we can change the language, we can help the community grow,” Medeiros said. “I think you are as strong as your network. You can see the opportunities are there.”

Medeiros said it is important to have conversations such as Wednesday’s roundtable, particularly with women from all different industries.

Stratton agreed, coming back to what will eventually lead to the perception of women entrepreneurs. “We don’t know why fewer women are involved than men and we need to have that conversation and get the data.”

While NDP leader Andrea Horwath and London North Centre incumbent Deb Matthews were having their moment in the media maelstrom at Covent Market Garden, Hacker Studios founders Joel Adams and Amanda Stratton were battening down the hatches down the road at their entrepreneur incubator across from the central branch of the library.

They were finding a place for everything and putting everything in its place as they prepared to host Startup Canada’s inaugural Ontario Awards that evening.

The locale was not an accident: the “voice of entrepreneurs” that “leads Canada’s grassroots effort to build a vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystem that will fuel economic prosperity” has named Adams their Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Builder of the Year for Ontario.

Adams and the other honourees from the evening now have a date with the national awards in Toronto June 9.

Hacker Studios was recognized because since 2013 they’ve provided a couple of options for budding entrepreneurs: dedicated “founder studios” that allow early-stage start-up owners, students and recent grads to live and work, and a shared “co-working space” available for a month, week or day at a time, designed to help rapid early-stage growth and build startup communities that’s billed as ideal for freelancers, tele-workers and non-profits.

That’s a lot of boilerplate for “removing barriers for entrepreneurs” according to Adams.

“There’s a lot of help out there but there are still things that just get in your way,” he said. “We’re here to provide space, coaching and community.”

Around 30 clients use the space at a given time. Adams said credit goes to Stratton for bringing the awards to the Forest City, a “huge deal.”

“It means some of the best people in entrepreneurship in Ontario are coming to London,” he said, noting plans to promote local businesses including co-beverage provider Forked River Brewing. “This is really an award for the people I’ve worked with in London. They represent a lot of great stuff happening in this community that often doesn’t get attention here or further afield.”

He and Stratton have plans to take Hacker Studios beyond the city.

“We’re a start-up ourselves,” he said. “We want to develop best practices in London and bring them across the country and to the world. Having this award helps that next stage.”

Boosters rewarded

Two London-area tech boosters are being honoured for their efforts to help local entrepreneurs.

Startup Canada, a national organization founded in 2012 to support entrepreneurs, named Joel Adams of London its Ontario entrepreneurship ecosystem builder of the year.

A technology consultant, Adams, 37, co-founded Hacker Studios in 2013 to fill gaps in London’s startup system. The facility offers co-working space tailored to growing companies, community events and support programs, often presented with local partners. Adams also teaches entrepreneurship at Western University’s faculty of engineering and was previously director of Western University’s Research Parks.

Adams also is a board member of Downtown London, Emerging Leaders and the Southwestern Ontario branch of Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters.

Gary Will of Strathroy is receiving Startup Canada’s lifetime achievement award. He’s a roving entrepreneur for Communitech, the economic development agency for tech companies in Waterloo Region. Will’s award reflects his work in supporting Waterloo startups and his support for various organizations in Southwestern Ontario, including Hacker Studios.

Winners will receive their awards at the Ontario finals celebration May 8 at Hacker Studios.

The national awards will be presented June 9 in Toronto.

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PRIVIT: Focus on organized sports, youth activities

Founded: 2005

Employees: 14 in London; branch office in Columbus, Ohio.

Origins

They go back to a confidential patient registry used by a former London doctor, to track Walkerton residents after the town’s tainted water disaster in 2000 that killed seven and sickened thousands. The software complied with U.S. privacy law and was combined with a medical pre-screening questionnaire devised by Dr. Willem Meeuwisse, a St. Thomas native, and Dr. Gordon Matheson of Stanford University.

Main product/service

• Patented technology for the collection, distribution and analysis of personal health information focusing on organized sports and youth activities.
• The PrivIT system quickly found a market in the U.S., where a pre-screening medical form must be filled out before young people can join minor sports and school teams.
• The information is stored through cloud-based Internet technology, but is protected by military-level encryption that complies with privacy laws. It eliminates the security risk associated with paper-based forms.
• The system allows for different levels of access, ranging from a clerk who might just need basic information to an attending doctor who needs full access. The technology can also be used for insurance claims, recreational programs and medical clinics.

Recent distinction

Reached a deal to provide medical pre-screening technology for the Ontario Hockey Federation, which supervises minor leagues in Ontario.

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MIKUTECH: Founder veteran of video game industry

Founded: 2012

Employees: 3 full-time, 12 on contract

Origins

Founded by Mark Mikulec, a Hamilton native and computer science graduate from Brock University. Mikulec has worked in the video game industry for 15 years, including a stint as a senior programmer for London-based Digital Extremes working on games such as BioShock and Dark Sector. He moved on to become a founder of Antic Entertainment, another London-based video game company.

Mikulec figured the complex graphics and play features used in the video game industry could be applied to other sectors and founded Mikutech in 2012.

Main Product/service

• Working out of Hacker Studios, a shared high-tech space on Dundas St., Mikutech uses video game technology and applies it to other sectors.

One of Mikutech’s projects involved creating a medical simulation for ear and eye diagnosis for London-based ENT Simulation Technologies.

• “Instead of a monster shooting guns, it’s a high resolution model of an eardrum with skin texture and proper lighting that a medical student can dive in and navigate,” Mikulec said.
• Mikutech also came up with a website marketing program to showcase the projects built across the globe by construction giant EllisDon.

Recent distinction

Last week Mikutech held a games development workshop for 31 technologically gifted high school students from the Thames Valley District school board.

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CITYWIDE SOFTWARE SOLUTIONS: Hiring soon

Founded: 2003

Employees: 20 (hiring 10 more soon)

Origins

After graduating from Western University with an economics degree, London native Matt Dawe was hired by Industry Canada to study technology investment by municipalities. Together with his father, Tom, who had a career with Xerox, they began a publication focused on managing civic assets such as roads, sewers, arenas and parks. The publication expanded into a software and consulting business.

Main Product/service

• Public Sector Digest, an online and print magazine that focuses on managing municipal assets. CityWide develops software that helps municipal managers and politicians make more informed decisions about maintaining and replacing roads, bridges, sewers, arenas and vehicle fleets.
• Tough decisions must be made every year, Dawe said, depending on the money available in a municipal budget. The software allows municipalities to track all their assets and colour-code them, based on their condition and future risk.
• “If I have $100,000 and have to choose between two different roads, which one do we do? All the tools and information is to make the right decision,” Dawe said.
• With so many municipalities facing major investments to repair crumbling public works, CityWide has hired staff with a background in public administration, engineering, accounting and statistics to offer expert advice.

Recent distinction

The Ontario government ordered all municipalities to develop asset management plans by 2013. CityWide Software developed those plans along with ongoing software and consulting work for 85 of Ontario’s 440 municipalities.

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LONDON’S DIGITAL/IT SECTOR AT A GLANCE:

8,000: Total employment

300: Number of companies

143: Job openings listed on London Tech Jobs website, londontechjobs.ca

Source: TechAlliance

Taking place at the home of Hacker Studios (246 Dundas St.), Artfusion 4 included an afternoon “family jam” with a special holiday Craft Lab with Sasha Scott and assistance from the London Children’s Museum.

The evening portion of the celebration included not only two floors of art on exhibit from the gallery, but also more than a dozen musical performances as well. Saturday’s afternoon snowsqualls impacted the attendance at the family jam, as well as causing some changes to the evening’s music lineup.

However, Katie Wilhelm, Artusion’s assistant art director, said the celebration would not only keep the crowds entertained, but would serve to raise considerable funds for Phase Two of the Stephen Watson Memorial Mural.

For more information on the Artfusion Gallery or the Stephen Watson Memorial Mural, visitwww.artfusiongallery.ca.

But with Ontario needing jobs, especially for young people, the provincial NDP Leader is hardly ready to pull the plug on her support of the Liberal minority government.

That balancing act surfaced again Friday in London, where Horwath touted her party’s support of hi-tech, youth-led companies while at the same time slamming opponents for the way they’re helping an older Ontario construction giant keep jobs.

“In a minority government it’s one day at a time,” Horwath said during a visit to Hacker Studios, when asked about her support of Kathleen Wynne’s government.

“We don’t know what the next trigger opportunity might be, but I have to say this kind of wrong-headed direction — where the priorities are all wrong and it’s well-connected insiders that are getting all the attention — is not something Ontarians are going to put up (with) for very long.”

Horwath and the NDP slammed the Liberals and Conservatives this week for fast-tracking a private member’s bill focusing on a single company, construction giant EllisDon.

Critics say EllisDon is trying to get its friends in government to pass new rules after a 2012 Ontario Labour Relations Board ruling forced the company to hire more unionized ­subtrades on projects outside Toronto.

EllisDon and its backers say Bill 74 will restore existing labour rules that let the company compete with foreign firms and hire non-union subtrades on projects outside Toronto.

Opposing that law suggests the New Democrats are against jobs for Londoners, the Conservatives charged this week.

Horwath countered Friday the NDP is for jobs, but not special laws to help a huge donor to both her opponents’ parties. She mentioned support for the government’s two-year, $295-million youth employment fund, which “finally” launched this week.

Help for unemployed youth was one of the conditions the NDP insisted on as a condition of supporting the minority government’s budget. Had the budget failed, Ontarians would have been plunged into an election.

The NDP believes tax credits for investments and hiring, as well as lower electricity rates, will help create jobs, Horwath said.

randy.richmond@sunmedia.ca