PROFESSIONAL PROFILE

      Bob Onyschuk, K.C., is the President and CEO of Onyschuk Strategic Advisory Services and Quadrant Developments Ltd. He is a retired partner of Gowlings WLG, having practiced in the area of infrastructure, municipal, environmental, development and international trade law. He is recognized by Best Lawyers in Canada and by the Expert Guide to the World’s Leading Real Estate Lawyers as one of the leading real estate development lawyers in Canada.

      Over his 50 plus years in business and land development, Bob has had a strong policy bent, and has acted for and advised the provincial and local governments on urban issues facing Canada’s major municipalities, as well as contributing through policy think tanks, such as the Canadian Urban Institute (of which he is Past Chair, 2005 – 10), the International Council of Shopping Centers, the Urban Land Institute, and the Toronto Board of Trade.

      He has been a member of two provincial commissions in the 70’s: as counsel to the Select Committee of the Ontario Legislature on Taxation, and as Commissioner on the Reville Commission, which dealt with schoolteacher/school board relations in Ontario.

      He has had an extensive practice in the strategic growth of cities, (including the use of infrastructure, revenue and economic development tools), both on his own account and thru the Canadian Urban Institute, where he authored a 100 page research treatise on “Smart Growth in America”, published by the Canadian Urban Institute in 2001. In 2003 and then again in 2005 he was retained by the Province of Ontario to advise on urban economic development tools for the Province to stimulate urban economic redevelopment and infrastructure financing for Ontario municipalities. In 2005 – 2006, he was retained as counsel to the Province in the development of the Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe, which plan subsequently won a number of international awards.

      He is a past Chairman and Distinguished Associate of the Canadian Urban Institute. He was a founding director of the Metro Toronto Convention Centre (1981-1988), and a past director (Canadian Division) of the International Council of Shopping Centers, having served on the Canadian Division and as Divisional Chair for Government Relations for two terms (1973-1984, and 1993-2005). He has served on a number of private and public sector boards, including the Parsons Brinckerhoff Canadian Advisory Board, the Australia-Canada Economic Leadership Forum Inc., the Canada-Ukraine Chamber of Commerce, and the Toronto Board of Trade’s Economic Development Committee and as Chairman of the Board’s Waterfront Task Force.

INTERNATIONAL TRADE

      Since 1989 Bob has been involved in the emergence of the new states and new markets in Eastern Europe, particularly in the former Soviet Union. In October 1989, Bob led a 70-man delegation to Ukraine on a two-week trade mission, which included the Federal, Ontario and Alberta governments and covered 11 sectors of that country's economy. He also served as vice chairman of the Legislative Committee and a member of the Government Relations Committee of the Canada-USSR Business Council from 1989 to 1991.

      Bob has represented the Government of Ukraine in Canada on a number of trade and government matters, and served as a foreign advisor to the first 3 Presidents of Ukraine. He acted for the Government of Ukraine in negotiating the printing of Ukraine's currency in Canada by the Canadian Bank Note Company and the subsequent establishment of printing operations in Kyiv, Ukraine. He also acted as counsel for Ukraine in obtaining their independent national IATA and ICAO registrations for Air Ukraine in December 1991 after the Referendum on Independence. He acted as counsel to the National Bank of Ukraine as well as the Ukrainian Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Kyiv, whose Chamber represented 1,200 of the major state industries in Ukraine. He was responsible for establishing the Smith Lyons' law office in Kyiv in 1992, and acted for the first two major privatizations in Ukraine in early 1993. He also served on President Kuchma’s Foreign Advisory Committee on Investment from 1995 to 1999.

      For his work in Ukraine helping a fledgling democracy, President Yushchenko awarded him the Presidential Order of Merit of Ukraine and the title of Chevalier of the Order of Merit of Ukraine in 2008.

      Bob was also a founding director and the first president of the Canada Ukraine Chamber of Commerce (1992 – 1996), a Canadian organization whose membership included most of the major Canadian companies doing business in Ukraine, and subsequently the President and then Chair of the Canada-Ukraine Foundation from 2007 to 2021.

      In a completely different part of the World, from 2007 to 2010 Bob took on the role of Chair of the Canadian Chapter of the newly formed Canadian Australian Chamber of Commerce. He was one of the founders of, and from 2010 to 2023 the President and CEO of the Australia-Canada Economic Leadership Forum, a government to government and B2B think tank that meets biennially to discuss economic and other issues of common interest to both countries. As a result, the two-way FDI between the two countries has increased from +/-$10B AUD in 2010 to over $209B AUD in 2023.

RECOGNITION

  • Queen's Counsel, 1979
  • Best Lawyers in Canada©, 2010-2011—Leading lawyer in Real Estate
  • Recognized by the U.K. Expert Guide to the World’s Leading Real Estate Lawyers in America (to 2012)
  • Recipient of the ICSC Trustees Distinguished Service Award, 2003
  • Recipient of the Presidential Order of Merit of Ukraine, 2008
  • Recipient of the Shevchenko Medal from the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, 1985
  • Recipient of the Order of the Eternal Flame in Gold from PLAST the International Ukrainian Scouting organization, 2018

MEMBERSHIPS              

  • Law Society of Upper Canada
  • International Council of Shopping Centers
  • Canadian Bar Association
  • Australia-Canada Economic Leadership Forum         

BOOKS, ARTICLES AND PRESENTATIONS           

  • “Smart Growth in North America: New Ways to Create Liveable Communities”, published by the Canadian Urban Institute, 2001, a book on the planning principles of ‘smart growth’ and the use of urban economic development and financing tools in the U.S.: ISBN # 1-895446-27-8
  • “Regional Economic Development and Governance in North America and the Use of Public Private Partnerships”, Third Annual National Forum on Regional Development, Kyiv, Ukraine, 2007
  • “Good Urban Governance and the Competitiveness of Metropolitan Regions”, Third International Conference on Decentralization, UNDP and the Government of the Philippines, Manila, October 2003
  • “Toronto's Real Estate and Business Climate (2007)”, MIPIM, France
  • “Sustainable Cities”, address to the Heritage Canada Foundation Annual Conference, Saskatoon,

RELATED EXPERTISE

  • Real Estate & Urban Development
  • Infrastructure
  • Energy
  • Government Affairs
  • International Trade