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At the first in the 2008 Comox Valley Learning Lunch Seminar Series, held in September 2008, Catriona Weidman Development elaborated on the Province’s guiding philosophy for doing business differently. Grant programs will leverage change through a combination of eligibility and assessment criteria. “We all work with rules. What we really want to do is change some of the rules, to create the kind of communities that we desire. We are using infrastructure funding to encourage the right type of projects,” stated Catriona Weidman.

The purpose of the Collaborative Watershed Governance Initiative is to establish and implement a framework for collaborative watershed governance in BC. The result would be a shift toward ecosystem managementi in BC based on watersheds, using advanced governance arrangements and more local decision-making.

“I created the graphic several years ago for a meeting with the Board of the Okanagan-Similkameen Regional District about the water sustainability component of their Regional Growth Strategy. I knew that if I did not have their attention on the first slide, I would not have their attention on the second,” stated Kim Stephens.

The design process outlined by Vic Derman does not differ greatly from traditional approaches with one exception. “The usual approach is to acquire land, decide what will be placed on it, then go about making it sustainable as possible. The layered approach effectively turns this upside down. Rather than being ‘fitted into the project’ after key decisions have been made, elements such as sustainability, amenity and social equity become the drivers of development outcomes,” stated Vic Derman.

“The goal of the series is to inform and educate local government practitioners. By spreading the curriculum over three sessions, this enabled participants to take in new information, reflect on it, blend it with their own experience, test it, and eventually apply it in making decisions,” stated Kim Stephens. At the final seminar, he re-capped the first two seminars, reinforced the provincial context for the series, and reviewed the learning outcomes.

“The June 2008 release of Living Water Smart provided a timely provincial frame-of-reference for the Learning Lunch Series. The City collaborated with the CAVI team to explore a bottom-up approach that would inform implementation of Living Water Smart. Our goal was to demonstrate how we can all do business differently and thereby make green choices that create liveable communities and protect stream health,” stated Kevi Lagan.

“Living Water Smart creates the opportunity/potential for real dramatic change at a local level. Good policy is knowing where the horizon is, so that you know where you want to get to. Success depends on cooperation across jurisdictional boundaries. We must hold the provincial government accountable too. They have given us the long-term vision; and we are looking to them to be accountable for the support that we now need,” stated Ron Neufeld.

At the final seminar in the “2008 Comox Valley Learning Lunch Series” Jack Minard of the Comox Valley Land Trust, connected the dots between the Living Water Smart provincial initiative and the Comox Valley Conservation Strategy. “It is an exciting initiative to create a region-wide strategy for land conservation in consultation with the community and decision-makers in the Comox Valley,” he said.

The Cowichan Valley Regional District hosted the first of the Vancouver Island Learning Lunch Series in Summer 2008. At Seminar #2, Kate Miller used the “elephant in the room analogy” to capture audience attention vis-a-vis the implications of Living Water Smart for rainwater management. “There is an elephant in our room right now…which is around how do we deal with rainwater management…how do we deal with the larger policy issues…what’s the objective,” stated Kate Miller.

At the second seminar in the the 2008 Comox Valley Learning Lunch Seminar Series, Susan Rutherford of West Coast Environmental Law employed a question-and-answer format to illustrate opportunities and scales for law and policy to effect change, thereby suppoprting and achieving the Living Water Smart vision. “Kevin Lagan and Derek Richmond of the City of Courtenay provided me with some questions that are at the forefront of their minds. I morphed what they gave me into generic questions,” stated Susan Rutherford.