Category:

Susan Haid has played a leadership role in trailblazing an ecosystem-based approach to community planning in British Columbia. “The 1990s was a very instrumental time of policy and regulation development. And municipal dialogue too. The discussions around the Fish Protection Act had a huge influence shifting perspectives to a bigger scale. The course that I teach at UBC is about how policy frameworks shape urban design. Building in resiliency to our cities from the site level to the regional level could NOT be more critical than now,” stated Susan Haid.

Langley’s approach to achieving water balance through green Infrastructure evolved as successive neighbourhoods were built over the past two decades. In the beginning, the focus for Green Infrastructure was on what could be achieved within greenways. Langley staff then turned their attention to rain gardens. Building on their history of successes, their next evolution was implementation of “blue links”, which is another name for rain gardens. The blue link is symbolic of the transformational change which has taken root in the Township in the 21st century as designing with nature became the ‘new normal’.

“In my work, I continue to apply the ten principles that I developed at Coquitlam when we delivered nine Integrated Watershed Management Plans in just 10 years. Three of the 10 are universally applicable to any area of infrastructure planning: take action, start small, stay practical. Staying true to these has helped me deliver so much. Develop a really good strategy coming out of the gate and stay super focused. Do not go down rabbit holes. You can always circle back later. Rather than just diving in, start with getting the lessons learned from what others have tried first,” stated Melony Burton.

“The notion of a superficial understanding explains the challenge that I am seeing. There are post-2000 graduate engineers coming out of university who are familiar with green infrastructure ideas and concepts, but they do not know the details behind them: details that they did not have to know at university or in their previous jobs. Sure, they understand rainwater management ideas and concepts at a high level. But without the background and history, can they really appreciate why certain targets and approaches were selected while others were not?” stated Robert Hicks.

Jody Watson provided inspirational leadership as chair of the Bowker Creek Initiative (BCI) for 13 years from 2005 through 2018. Without determined champions, nothing gets started and nothing happens. Champions motivate others. “The BCI represents an extensive network that includes three Councils, every department, 11 community associations, and the CRD too. We have spent 20 years of trust-building, of credibility-building. All that is part of collaboration, and that is what makes collaboration work. We had little successes and we had big successes,” stated Jody Watson

“In the 2000s, Fergus Creek was the first of the new generation of watershed plans in the City of Surrey. We wanted a plan that would actually facilitate changes in how land is developed. In other words, what the watershed will look like in future should drive the approach to rainwater management. The Fergus Creek plan introduced the vision for implementing green solutions as the alternative to conventional engineered blue solutions. And it seeded the two ideas that became Surrey’s Biodiversity Conservation Strategy and Biodiversity DCC,” stated Rémi Dubé.

“We cannot ignore that we had to switch strategies with provincial legislative changes. We were always trying to find out where the political and thus legislative focus was during my era as Drainage Manager, and then trying to fit our program to meet their focus. We used their language but still did what we needed for the City. At the local level, you work with the language of the day and you have to be savvy. When Surrey adopted a Sustainability Charter, it gave us the language we needed to protect environmental and drainage needs,” stated Carrie Baron.

A generation ago, Paul Ham’s quiet and unassuming leadership behind the scenes made the green infrastructure movement possible in British Columbia. As chair from 2005 through 2008, he provided the Green Infrastructure Partnership with credibility at the regional engineers table. Their support enabled the partnership to lead a “convening for action” initiative in the Lower Mainland region. The paradigm-shift during Paul Ham’s watch far exceeded expectation that the Green Infrastructure Partnership would be a catalyst for change.

“Transitioning to a new council is a challenge, and always has been. We need a better way to pass along the knowledge we gained to the newly elected ones without them feeling like the old crew are still in charge. We had our time in the office. Now it is their turn to carry the baton and be the champions,” stated Darrell Mussatto. “In some situations, it may be good to have a new group of elected people come in and straighten things out if things are being done poorly. But when you lose staff continuity in a well-run municipality, that changes everything.”

“Today, what we as leaders do, will resound for the people of the future, their cities and their regions. In fact, for the world at large. One of the reasons that I ran for office in 1972, and why I served for 20 years as Mayor of Delta, and 7 years at Chair of Metro Vancouver was ‘to make a difference’. One of the first things I did when I became Mayor in 1999 was to introduce our community to caring about of our air, land and water. Many were opposed to this position. But we persevered and, as a result, I believe we have set a good example for stewardship,” stated Lois Jackson.