I think that one of the things they've done right is taking the world recipe for soccer and tailoring it for Canada, rather than taking the Canadian/American sports recipe and tailoring it for soccer. Even the MLS eventually figured this out. Remember when they were pretty bush league, all of those obnoxious uniforms and logos, had stupid breakaway penalty kicks because Americans don't like tie games, and a clock that counted downwards because that's what non-soccer fans in America were used to. Then they realized that they were alienating the soccer people with those gimmicks, and those soccer people were the ones that would ensure long-term survival.
Past soccer ventures in this country (and in this city, especially) have failed because non-soccer fans weren't converted for long enough for it to be more than a flash in the pan. And true soccer fans didn't like the lack of tradition and culture, the crappy venues that the non-soccer minds thought would be fantastic but were actually terrible for soccer, and the mickey mouse feel of the leagues.
They tried to attract everyone, and satisfied no one. The CanPL seems to understand that this thing lives and dies on the shoulders of actual soccer people, not getting some random baseball/hockey/football fan to try and grow some artificial, temporary love of the beautiful game.
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