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The path to water sustainability is a journey. The Partnership mission revolves around commitment to three strategies: Design With Nature; Living Water Smart; and grow the Living Water Smart Network rather than build an organization. Work is more effective and more fun when people work in community with each other. When we are part of a knowledge network, everyone goes further. We can support each other to make everyone’s work easier.
The Partnership is a unique organizational model. Our roots are in government and public service but we are not government. Incorporated as a society, the Partnership is the engine that powers a network across boundaries in the local government setting.
Will it be development that controls us or development that sustains us? British Columbia faces critical choices, again and again. The really BIG IDEA driving the Partnership mission is intergenerational in scope: Settlement, Economy, and Ecology in Balance. The Partnership delivers results through a Regional Team Approach founded on collaboration and partnerships.
"Part of the vision for GRIN is to use green roofs to break down silos. If we truly acknowledged the climate emergency, biodiversity crisis and loneliness epidemic, there would be green roofs everywhere. We have the tools. We just need political will, and critical mass," stated Christine Thuring. The "story behind the story" is that Christine Thuring and her GRIN colleagues are committed to putting green roofs back on municipal radar screens. They have a vision, they have a plan, and they are doing outreach. It takes passion, hard work, and perseverance to have ...
“Metro Vancouver faces increasing resistance to provincially mandated Transit-Oriented Area (TOA) development amid concerns over the impacts of rapid densification. Without coordinated planning, this growth risks producing fragmented, unaffordable, and poorly serviced communities. Now that Metro region mayors have called on the Province to repeal ill-conceived housing legislation, this creates a unique opportunity for a course correction because the housing density issue hits everybody literally where they live. It is not esoteric," stated Patrick ...
“At conferences, it is great to hear about the amazing work that everybody has done. A couple of years ago, Mike and I concluded we also need a bit of space to talk about how we have screwed up. Once we became co-chairs of the Asset Management BC community of practice, we could make our safe space forum idea happen. We did not want it to be a bitch session. We wanted it to be a learning session. We wanted everyone to think through how we contribute and how we add to the solution to help ...
Stories that help us understand historical context and policy frameworks also point the way forward to help us find effective solutions for contemporary problems. Stories that share deep knowledge serve as a "narrative scan" of the past, transforming abstract experiences into practical wisdom for current challenges. By structuring complex information into relatable narratives, these stories help individuals and organizations identify patterns, build empathy, develop effective problem-solving strategies, and engage both the logical and emotional centers of the brain. ...
Two unifying threads weave through Part D. Thread One was that the provincial government provided green infrastructure leadership during this period, with the Ministry of Municipal Affairs mantra being: Today’s expectations are tomorrow’s standards. Thread Two was the regulatory requirement that Metro Vancouver municipalities develop integrated plans pursuant to the rainwater (aka "streams and trees") component of the region’s Integrated Liquid Waste and Resource Management Plan. This provided a reason for convening for action! ...
“Housing should be about building homes that people can afford in communities that work. We should be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater and be seduced by simplistic solutions. There is a relationship between infrastructure services, open space, employment, etc. All those things are supposed to be brought together in plans and reflected in development decisions. And they are not anymore. I want to do what I can to help the current generation of decision makers understand what it is about regional planning that has got us to this point," ...
“The network emerges around a common goal, rather than a particular program or organizational model. The community mobilizes the resources from throughout the networ based on existing relationships Once a network is up and running and proves itself to be effective, it becomes the primary vehicle for change, rather than the individual organizations themselves. Once you put committed people in a room together and build trust amongst them, and allow them to experiment and learn, that is when amazing and wonderful things happen," stated Jane ...
“When the regional districts on the east coast of Vancouver Island present a united front, it is so much stronger than us trying to speak as an individual local government, especially for a small one within a larger provincial context when you are one among many. In a provincial context, we are just one tiny voice. Coming together as neighbouring regional governments has strengthened our relationships and increased inter-regional communication and sharing of methodologies, ideas, strategies and information–all our communities are benefitting!" stated Zoe ...
When Mike Harcourt was Premier, a defining moment was the launch of the transformational Georgia Basin Initiative in 1994. At a recent forum hosted by the Partnership for Water Sustainability, Mike Harcourt said: “In my experience, ideas and initiatives ebb and flow. You just have to take the long view and remain committed to passing on the knowledge that comes from experience. I would like to put a call to action on the record to do with land use planning and ecological and economic sustainability. We need to integrate all the disparate ...
"The CAVI vision is based upon a model of collaboration among the various sectors of society on Vancouver Island, including business, industry, government, academia and community. The vision has emerged from the challenging mantra 'what do we want Vancouver Island to look like in 50 years' as first articulated at the Water in the City conference in 2006 and is founded upon the underlying principle of long-term water sustainability. How we get there relies on a change in mind-set. The CAVI role is to facilitate that change. This is mission possible," stated Eric ...
“The Ministry of Environmentlooks forward to aligning efforts with the Partnership to further advance implementation of the Beyond the Guidebook initiative; and provide communities with the tools and knowledge to protect and/or restore watershed health. The Ministry’s renewed emphasis on the rainwater management component of Liquid Waste Management Plans has created an opportunity to demonstrate how to integrate regulatory compliance and collaboration,” wrote Cairine MacDonald, Deputy Minister of Environment, in a letter to the Partnership (September ...
"Gaps between vision and reality are, of course, standard in politics. What makes this one frustrating to water-sustainability experts is how close to success the green infrastructure push came before it got derailed. Through decades of effort, planning had become policy, and policy had started to become practice. Now the question is whether the high profile of floods, droughts, and population growth will put green infrastructure back in the spotlight—and, if so, whether the decision-makers within Metro Vancouver’s municipalities will correct course," stated Pamela ...
The Partnership for Water Sustainability originated as a network in the 2000s as an outcome of the provincial "convening for action" initiative. This multi-year program demonstrated the power of peer-based learning, collaboration and partnerships in combination with a regional team approach that spans jurisdictional boundaries. "When you bring the appropriate people together in constructive ways with good information, you look to them to create authentic visions and strategies for addressing the shared concerns of their organizations and community," stated Derek ...
