MWDigest (November 2016) - Municipal World's monthly digital digest by Municipal World

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November 2016

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IN THIS ISSUE

The Highway of Heroes Living Tribute Project The Essence of Innovation Coming Events

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CONTENTS

NOVEMBER 2016

MUNICIPAL WORLD – CANADA’S MUNICIPAL MAGAZINE

volume 126, number 11

LIFE, STRENGTH, AND PEACE

NEW FACE OF PUBLIC HEALTH

A new initiative is working to honour the soldiers who gave their lives for their country, while also providing both environmental and beautification benefits.

A new model for a community health centre is improving functionality, accessibility, and design to make the process easier for residents and more efficient for the bottom line.

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THE ENERGY FOOTPRINT OF WATER

A CRYSTAL PALACE

Municipal water and wastewater has a huge energy and financial footprint – and significant action can be taken to improve efficiency. 9

Imaginative thinking and an emphasis on cultural redevelopment allowed one community to turn trash into a cultural treasure.

THE ESSENCE OF INNOVATION

LEGAL NON-CONFORMITY to access great feature

Whether in the public or private sector, certain principles are fundamental to the innovation process … and can be applied anywhere from the individual to organizational level.

FROM WASTE TO RESOURCE Communities across Manitoba are working to turn traditional local “waste” products into biofuels, with promising results.

PEDALING FORWARD Simplified environmental assessment and new funding for cycling infrastructure in Ontario provide an opportunity for communities to expand active transportation. 17

CHANGES THAT STICK Change management strategies need to be applied to ensure that a project’s success goes beyond its initial implementation.

MW MAGAZINE

MUNICIPAL WORLD INC.

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SUSAN M. GARDNER, MPA, AMCT

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articles like these, plus our must-read regular columns each month! 27

Under the Planning Act, identifying and addressing legal non-conforming uses can be challenging, so municipalities must be vigilant.

MAKEUP OF UPPER-TIER COUNCILS In Ontario, the division of seats on upper-tier councils is far from uniform or consistent – and raises questions about inequity and the nature of upper-tier government.

THE R E GUL AR S

29 BE I R C S

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NOW

Coming Events..........................................39 Editor’s Corner............................................3 Environmental Zone...................................35 Governance Zone......................................31 Management Zone....................................33 The Reading Room.....................................37

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MWDigest is a monthly digital publication, highlighting and supplementing content available to Municipal World magazine subscribers. For information on advertising and submitting content for this publication, please contact Anthony Gibbons at 1-888-368-6125 ext. 206.

Life, Strength, and Peace A new initiative is working to honour the soldiers who gave their lives for their country, while also providing both environmental and beautification benefits.

The Essence of Innovation Whether in the public or private sector, certain principles are fundamental to the innovation process … and can be applied anywhere from the individual to organizational level.

Digest Exclusives!

The Romance of Wastewater What could be more Romantic for Valentine’s Day than taking a tour of the local wastewater plant?

Editor’s Flashback This online-only feature column highlights select articles from past issues of Municipal World’s monthly print magazine. In this issue, we share “War Monuments: Remembering World War I, urban space, and the importance of today’s decisions” – from the February 2015 issue.

Coming Events

NOVEMBER 2016

INSIDE THIS ISSUE

commemoration by Mark Cullen

Life, Strength, and Peace The Highway of Heroes Living Tribute Project A generation ago, Canadians worried that the memory of those who gave their lives for our freedom during times of war would be forgotten. The people who experienced World War II were dying off, and the risk was that their stories would die with them. Then, along came the Afghanistan War. Canada lost 158 men and women during that conflict. Once repatriated at CFB Trenton, their bodies were driven to the coroner’s office in Toronto. A very Canadian thing happened during those years: people gathered on bridges that intersected with Highway 401 to wave flags, shed tears, and quietly acknowledge the value of the sacrifice of those who died in Afghanistan. The bridge in Cobourg was the first to attract a crowd. Others locations followed, until all of the bridges were crowded with grateful people every time a body from the war zone was repatriated. The stretch of highway between Trenton and the coroner’s office in Toronto became known as the Highway of Heroes. No government money was invested, and no corporate logos were connected to the effort. It was an organic outpouring of emotion – a sincere form of gratitude from a nation of thankful people. If you have driven this 170 kilometre stretch of highway, you will have seen the signs for the Highway of Heroes – and now you know the story.

Image: Scott Bryk

A Living Tribute About two years ago, a group of tree-loving people with environmental concerns thought that it would be a wonderful enhancement of an already good idea to plant the Highway of Heroes with trees. They would clean the atmosphere, cool the environment, and provide a more attractive drive down an otherwise ugly stretch of asphalt. In addition, it would create a living legacy to our war dead. So, the Highway of Heroes Living Tribute was born. November 4, 2016 marks the first anniversary of the official launch of the Highway of Heroes Living Tribute, and much has happened. There have been many positive steps forward since the initiative’s inception.

11,700 trees – This past spring, 3,000 trees were planted on lands adjacent to and on the Highway of Heroes. The first planting was an exciting day that involved many young people and adult leaders from Oshawa. Over 300 trees were planted in about two hours.

MARK CULLEN is the Chair of the Highway of Heroes Living Tribute and the spokesperson for Home Hardware Lawn and Garden. Through a wide variety of media outlets, Mark’s gardening and environmental messages reach over two million Canadians each week. This year, Mark was awarded the Order of Canada by His Excellency the Right Honourable David Johnston, Governor General of Canada. You can reach Mark via <www.markcullen.com>.

November 2016

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Volunteers – Corporate-sponsored groups – like Corix Water Services from Toronto, who brought more than 25 people out on a rainy day in midMay – have been an important source of volunteer work. Military families have shown up in work boots and gloves to make a contribution to the worksites – including the Vardy family, who came from Innisfil to the Keele Street location in Toronto on that same rainy day. The outpouring of support has been significant, and it’s been vital to the project’s efforts. Volunteer organizations – The Garden Club of Toronto has a history of giving back to the community. As co-founders (with Landscape Ontario) of the annual garden festival Canada Blooms, they have donated over $600,000 to public horticultural projects, most recently the June Callwood Park in Toronto. Now they are back, donating cash and their own in-kind services. About 20 Garden Club members showed up, many with their spouses willingly in tow, to help plant and mulch over 400 trees and shrubs at the coroner’s office in May. Amazing. The Ontario Horticulture Association reached out to their considerable membership (38,000 strong) with a request to raise funds from every corner of the province. The results produced more than $30,000 in the first year, an astounding effort. Remembrance ceremony at the cenotaph in Sarnia, Ontario.

I will never forget standing where the trees were lined up in pots when a 12-year old Scout in full uniform came running up, shovel in hand, with the most disappointed look on his face. “What? The trees are all gone? Ohhhh … nuts.” And off he sulked. A good sulk. Perhaps that young man discovered the miracle of trees that day. By fall 2016, the goal is to plant another 8,700 trees along the highway and on adjacent lands – 10 percent of the campaign’s total goal. In-kind services – The members of Landscape Ontario have stepped up to the plate and hit a few home runs. In the efforts at the planting at Glen Miller Road and the 401, near 6

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Trenton, for example, you see the results quite clearly as you drive in either direction on the 401. On a sunny Saturday in May, another 350 trees were planted – this time, however, they were big, adolescent specimens. It was too much to handle with shovels, so local members of Landscape Ontario arrived with seven pieces of heavy equipment to dig holes and move earth and mulch. At the end of the day, the job was done. And, for every dollar in cash invested in trees, another three dollars was donated “in kind” from landscapers, nursery tree growers, and others. Landscape architect Scott Wentworth deserves special mention for spearheading the effort.

November 2016

Doing It Right This year, the campaign received a huge boost when it was awarded a research grant from Growing Forward, a federal-provincial-territorial initiative. The goal is to use the resources at Vineland Research and Innovation Centre to determine best practices for planting on highway rights of way – an environment notoriously hostile toward tree growth. Dr. Darby McGrath, who leads this program from Vineland, is excited to help develop protocols to ensure an acceptable measure of success when planting on highways. $75,000 has been set aside to create a plan for planting, prepare planting sites, and to pay for trees. The results will be carefully monitored

and made public. As McGrath says, “With the Highway of Heroes Living Tribute and many partners across Canada, we have identified key barriers to tree survival and have developed methods for remediating urban soils and improving tree survival.” This is a very helpful step early in the campaign. The goal is not to plant trees that will die; rather, it is to create an environment for them to thrive and grow for generations. McGrath is one of many enthusiastic supporters of the Highway of Heroes Living Tribute. When asked what her personal motivation is for being involved, she gives an answer that many supporters would echo: “I love trees and I love Canada. I am so grateful to live in a country where we show a respect for the sacrifice of our fallen by planting a tree in their honour. I think it is quintessentially Canadian to create a tribute to the loss of a soldier through the planting of a tree, as a tree symbolizes life, strength, and peace.” The initiative involves a massive tree planting project that provides all of the environmental benefits imagined, plus a living acknowledgement of a very important element in our history. What is not to like?

Going Forward In celebration of the one-year anniversary, Ontario Minister of Transportation Steven Del Duca will join me for a planting in Toronto to provide the media world with an update on the campaign. We will then move to Cobourg – the birthplace of the Highway of Heroes – for a tree planting, and finally to CFB Trenton for the final ceremonial tree planting of the day. While amazing progress has been made thus far, there is still much more to accomplish. As the project continues to grow, we hope to see greater involvement across the province. The goals – environmental benefits, beautification, and a legacy for those who have served our country – make it a most worthwhile cause.1 MW

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1 Please visit <www.hohtribute.ca> to learn more, to sign up for the Highway of Heroes Living Tribute monthly newsletter, or to donate. November 2016

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ENGAGEMENT TRAINING INNOVATION TRAINING CONVERSATION TRAINING CONFERENCE SOLUTIONS

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Public sector or private sector, innovation is innovation Over the past 15 years, I’ve had the benefit of working with scores of private and public sector organizations – including Fortune 500 corporations (consultants love using that phrase!), mid-sized enterprises, tiny startups, and federal, provincial, and municipal governments. People on both sides of the private/public divide are curious about one another, and assume that they are very different. But, when it comes to innovation, it’s the similarities that are most striking. Here are four. Innovation matters – Whenever I facilitate, I ask the group why innovation is important for their organization. And, the answers are the same, regardless of sector: ►► Innovation is a proactive response to the accelerated pace of change; ►► Innovation allows us to improve the products and services we offer our users – whether they’re consumers or citizens; and ►► We need the best people – and having a demonstrably innovative culture is one of the ways we attract and retain the best employees. Culture matters – Your municipality’s culture might have more in common with a local mid-sized engineering firm than it does with the next municipality down the road. There are municipalities (and private companies) that are highly innovative and routinely play high on the innovation curve; and, of course, there are also corporations, non-profits (and yes, even municipalities) that are mired in the past, in politics, and in their own ineffective ways of working. The phrase “ways of working” is key here. A dictionary definition of culture is “… a way of thinking, behaving, or working that exists in a place or organization.” In short, a “culture of innovation” is one where you would see people across the organization “behaving and working” in innovative ways – doing innovation. Process matters – Many of us, private and public sector, have a sub-

Innovation Matters

Culture Matters

conscious bias that “innovators” are a different breed (i.e., not me!), and that “innovation” has to look something like an iPod (i.e., a radical breakthrough!). Innovation mythology is full of stories of lone geniuses, eureka moments, and dream teams creating inspired breakthroughs. In truth, most innovation is accomplished by normal individuals and groups – what we call real teams – seeking breakthroughs to “everyday” challenges. What we see in healthy innovation cultures are individuals and teams everywhere in the organization using a structured process and tools that help them produce consistent results. In fact, our definition of innovation is: “A process that produces ideas, which add value when implemented.” I matter – The beauty of this definition is that even in organizations that face significant barriers to wholesale organizational change, it is still possible for individuals and teams to use a structured process and tools to change the way they work. As individual contributors, we have considerable power to create a micro-culture of innovation within our own spheres of influence. By doing so,

Process Matters

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we will produce better results, and create a ripple effect that will impact the organization at large. Most organizations have a mandate to “be more innovative” – but, they don’t know how to execute on that expectation. This is true in the private sector, and it’s true in the public sector. That’s where Juice Inc. comes in. Our i5 Process and Tools are the product of those 15 years of experience and practice in the field. We have just embarked on a new partnership with Municipal World – and, over the next several months, we will be sharing practical tips and tools to help you create an innovative culture within your municipality. Stay tuned! 

November 2016

RICK BOERSMA is a Partner at Juice Inc. and lead designer for their Innovation Practice. A creative thinker, risk taker, and leader by nature, Rick epitomizes what it means to be innovative. He works with organizations to develop the discipline of innovation by embedding a structured process with practical tools.

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November 2016

water by Ian Chadwick

st Dige ve usi Excl re u Feat

The Romance of Wastewater

What could be more romantic for Valentine’s Day than to take your date on a tour of the local wastewater plant? That’s how the New York City Department of Environmental Protection promotes its highly successful tours, now in their fifth year.1 In 2015, three Sunday tours of 100 people each were booked. Participants took home a commemorative card and lapel pin.2 During the tour, participants got a quick course on how the city treats its wastewater before they are taken around the plant. It all takes about 90 minutes. The event has developed a bit of a cult following and reservations for a spot fill up rapidly. The website tells people what to expect and – importantly – what to wear.3 The result of each tour is dozens of media articles, hundreds of tweets, and Facebook posts, a couple of YouTube videos,4 all free publicity for the municipal water services. Plus, it creates a growing public appreciation of municipal water treatment and its infrastructure, which can only help recruitment. Public understanding of utility services is (at best) sketchy. After all, most of the infrastructure is hidden below ground or behind walls. There’s a disconnect between what comes from the tap and how it gets to it, safely and cleanly. That can be changed. A tour is an opportunity to open the doors and let people see what their tax dollars are spent on. And, they get to put faces to the process, meeting the workers and seeing their environment, which helps them connect to the service better than any charts or numbers will. Water treatment may not seem sexy, but surprisingly many people want to

know more, especially when issues like water quality have become news. Tours and similar activities can draw crowds eager to understand the issues behind the headlines, especially if the event is gamified in some way. Have a contest, offer prizes, make it fun. Mix science and engineering with entertainment. Show videos and have some hands-on experiences. Seattle had a local poet create water blessings in their Brightwater Wastewater Treatment Plant, which people experience on their tours.5 San Francisco hosts monthly tours that attract 2,000-3,000 people annually.6 A lot of Canadian municipalities offer tours of water and wastewater facilities, but few go out of their way to publicize them. That’s why a Valentine’s Day tour can garner a lot more attention: it’s so counterintuitive to the romantic notion that you can have fun building it up in order to make people want to attend.

1 <www.nyc.gov/html/dep/html/press_ releases/16-005pr.shtml>. 2 <http://nag-brooklyn.org/2015/02/the-mostromantic-wastewater-treatment-plant-tourever-valentines-day-at-newtown-creek>. 3 <www.nyc.gov/html/dep/html/environmental_education/digester_egg_tours.shtml>.

You can also build special events around World Water Day or Earth Day to capitalize on the media attention both get. In Milwaukee, the water reclamation facility is one of the major attractions of the Doors Open event and around 2,000 people tour the plant in a single day.7 It’s like retail: get people through the doors and they will do the rest. Give away a few souvenirs, like those lapel pins. Have some publication handouts with basic information including the numbers and statistics of treatment and flow that people can take home with them. And, don’t forget to invite the local media. It’s also an opportunity to build positive public opinion. For many people, their only association with wastewater treatment is a bad odour. A tour can show them how and why everything happens, to explain the challenges and underscore how vital the service is. Make yourself visible. And, while you’re at it, educate people on what is and isn’t flushable. After all, it’s a captive audience. It takes careful planning and active publicity to get established, but once it’s in the event calendar, it will develop its own momentum. Build it and they will come. MW

4 <http://mashable.com/2016/02/11/valentinesday-sewage/#X8plqYp_uGqV>. 5 <www.urbangardensweb.com/2013/08/28/ environmental-art-at-seattle-wastewater-treatment-plant>. 6 <www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/On-thescent-of-a-story-in-the-city-s-most-6227132. php>. 7 <http://news.wef.org/not-your-usual-scenicattraction>. November 2016

IAN CHADWICK is currently Communications Coordinator for the Ontario Municipal Water Association (OMWA). He is author of three books for Municipal World, and a former newspaper reporter and editor. He served on municipal council for 11 years.

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by Robert Shipley

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War Monuments Remembering World War I, urban space, and the importance of today’s decisions I’m going to connect some ideas that may not seem related at first glance: the 100th anniversary of the beginning of World War I; the shape (both physical and spiritual) of Canadian communities; and current attitudes and the decisions we make today as municipal officials and those involved in planning. My part in this story began about four decades ago. I grew up on a military base, the son of a soldier. Perhaps as part of the normal rebelliousness of youth, I acquired an interest in art. These two factors came together when I was in my late 20s and began to notice that, in virtually every community in Canada, there was a cenotaph. Many of these were statues of soldiers, and they were almost the only public art objects to be found. In 1978, with the help of a couple of my former university professors, I was awarded a Canada Council grant to research war memorials. The grant didn’t last long; but, over the next 10 years, I ROBERT SHIPLEY is a Professor in the School of Planning at the University of Waterloo and Director of The Heritage Resources Centre. His book To Mark Our Place: A History of Canadian War Memorials was published by NC Press in 1987.

Veteran’s Memorial – This bronze sculpture by Timothy Schmalz honours the men and women who have served. Located in a Waterloo neighbourhood made up of many “wartime houses” and adjacent to Wilfrid Laurier University, the sculpture is an iconic reference to the community’s history. Photo: City of Waterloo

This article was originally published in the February 2015 issue of Municipal World.

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travelled from one end of the country to the other, photographing and studying war monuments. What I noticed after a while was that I could arrive in a town or city where I had never set foot before and within a short time locate the cenotaph. Slowly, it occurred to me why that was. Communities, no matter what their size, have an underlying pattern and logic to them that I came to believe comes from deep within the shared human experience. Our settlements are more than bricks and mortar. They are expressions of the society that creates them. For me, that was the beginning of a fascination with urban form and development that has never waned; that led me to complete a PhD; and that still provides me with curiosity to study the most basic questions in planning. But, let me return to the three notions I said I was going to connect. The relationship to the 100th anniversary of the First World War is this: most of the cenotaphs were built following that terrible conflict. What my research over 30 years ago told

me, however, was that the statues and columns were not really about the war itself, but about something far more important. In the sad days of reflection after WWI, people all across the country struggled to make some sort of sense of the senseless slaughter of the best part of a generation of young men.

Recognizing the Losses of War It was perhaps natural that many civic representatives turned to the government for some guidance, writing to MPs and to parliamentary officials, and asking what should be done to recognize, mourn, and remember. In what was either a total abrogation of responsibility on the part of officials or an act of unparalleled genius, the government of the day made a deliberate policy decision to do nothing. Perhaps it was a bit of both. But, buried deep in the archives now in Gatineau are sheaves of letters written to villages, towns, and cities across the country telling them that each location was to commemorate the losses of the war in their own way.

That, then, is what they did. Since each monument is the creation of the community where it stands, its symbolism, placement, and inscriptions, carefully and conscientiously chosen, represents a true expression of community sentiment at the time. Local records from newspapers, personal correspondence, and town archives bear this out, as does the evidence embodied in iconography of the memorials themselves. Therein rests the significance, both physically and in the way the monuments captured the spirit of the time. What stands out is that they were not primarily about the war. Rather, they were attempts to explain the horrific losses that the war inflicted. They are not expressions of victory, as memorials and triumphal arches in other countries are. So, what do they mean? The way Canadians tried to understand what had happened was to see their fallen sons, fathers, husbands, and brothers as having sacrificed themselves for a cherished set of civic values: duty, service to others, courage, honour, and truth. Those

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Something that the people who created our war monuments knew (and which we need not to forget) is that war, in any form, is a dirty, rotten business, without glory in its actuality. are the kind of words that are carved in the stone along with symbols of mourning, such as wreaths, more often than swords or guns. Because the monuments stood for those civic values and not some particular war, there were very few new memorials erected after WWII. That is also why the captured guns that stood beside so many memorials when first built in the 1920s have long since disappeared. They were inappropriate to the true meaning of the memorials.

Relationship to Urban Planning What then about the relationship of war memorials to urban planning? As monuments age, requiring maintenance and restoration, this connection becomes more critical. Also, as our communities morph into different physical shapes, the question of location arises. I said that when I was studying memorials I learned to find them almost intuitively. I am convinced that human settlements, regardless of size, have an underlying structure that expresses social needs, and it was my coming to recognize that fact that allowed me to locate the special places that had been carefully chosen for commemoration.

Before WWI, Canadian communities had been evolving functionally, centred on waterways and rail lines, and constrained by the landscape. What they lacked, to a large extent, were symbolic places. The need to find a civic focus coincided with the need to commemorate the war dead. This was especially important in our diverse communities, where the war monument was able to represent everyone, regardless of particular religion or no religion, and national or ethnic background. The current planning issue with regard to monuments, therefore, is the need for those charged with the physical layout, organization, and use of spaces to understand the importance of the original intent and intangible significance of memorials, and to conserve those values when making decisions about the future of war memorials. This has been done well in many municipalities and less well in others.

Walking the Fine Line The final aspect to be considered is the broader question of how communities observe and celebrate the civic values represented by war memorials – values such as duty, courage, and

service. Something that the people who created our war monuments knew (and which we need not to forget) is that war, in any form, is a dirty, rotten business, without glory in its actuality. The challenge is being able to see the fine line between thoughtful remembrance and jingoism. Jingoism is defined as extreme patriotism, especially in the form of aggressive or warlike foreign policy. Some fear that, in Canada, there is rising a special form of this jingoism, which has been dubbed Vimyism. The 1917 Battle of Vimy Ridge might be seen as some kind of victory by WWI standards; but, over 3,500 Canadians died there, and the war dragged on another year and a half. The argument is, that with our whole army fighting together for the first time, it was a nationforging event. I don’t want to debate that idea, but I would argue that the grieving of the country for its lost sons in the years after the war was perhaps a more profound and formative experience. I, for one, try to keep in mind the title of George Stanley and Harold Jackson’s book, Canada’s Soldiers: The Military History of an Unmilitary People. I would urge us to remember very carefully. MW

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W.B. McKAIG J.P. MALONEY

* Certified Specialist Municipal Law (Local Government/Land Use Planning)

1852 Angus Street Regina, SK S4T 1Z4 Telephone: 306.545.9242 Toll: 877.539.2663

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November 2016

Email: info@lexcom.ca Web: www.lexcom.ca

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November 9-10 – Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities Midterm Convention Saskatoon SK. http://sarm.ca November 14-15 – Canadian Council for Public Private Partnerships 24th Annual Conference Toronto ON. www.p3-2016.ca November 15-17 – AAMDC 2016 Fall Convention Edmonton AB. www.edaalberta.ca November 21-23 – Association of Manitoba Municipalities 18th Annual Convention Winnipeg MB. www.amm.mb.ca/events November 21-23 – Municipal Communications Conference Toronto ON. http://summersdirect.com/conference/municipal-communicationsconference-2016/ November 22-25 – fmi*igf Professional Development Week Ottawa ON. www.fmi.ca/ events/pd-week December 2 – Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing 2016 Ontario West Municipal Conference London ON. www.amo.on.ca/ Events/OWM December 6-7 – The Canadian Institute’s Lean Process Improvement in the Public Sector Toronto ON. www.CanadianInstitute.com/ LeanProcess

December 6-8 – National Groundwater Association Groundwater Week and Expo Las Vegas NV. www.GroundwaterWeek.com

2017 January 10-12 – Landscape Ontario Congress conference Toronto ON https://locongress. com/conference January 23-26 – U.S. Composting Council annual conference and trade show Los Angeles CA. http://compostingcouncil.org/compost2017 January 29-31 – ROMA Annual Conference Toronto ON. www.roma.on.ca/Events/2017.aspx January 29-February 1 – Manitoba Water and Wastewater Association annual conference and tradeshow Portage la Prairie MB. www.mwwa. net/events.php February 1-3 – HRPA Annual Conference and Trade Show Toronto ON. www.hrpa.ca/ Conf2016/Pages/2017-Call-for-Speakers.aspx February 1-4 – Ontario Library Association conference Toronto ON. www.olasuperconference.ca February 5-8 – Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association 112th Annual Convention Saskatoon SK. www.suma.org

February 7-9 – Economic Developers Council of Ontario annual conference Toronto ON. www.edcoconference.com February 26-March 6 – OGRA Conference Toronto ON. http://ograconference.ca March 13-16 – Saskatoon Association of Rural Municipalities annual convention Saskatoon SK. http://sarm.ca/events April 21-22 – International Conference on Climate Change Cambridge UK. http://onclimate.com/2017-conference May 2-5 – Ontario Small Urban Municipalities Conference and Trade Show Blue Mountains ON. www.osum.ca/Events May 7-10 – Ontario’s Water Conference & Trade Show Niagara Falls ON. www.owwa.ca/ conference May 10-12 – Saskatchewan Waste Reduction Council Waste ReForum 2017 Saskastoon SK. www.saskwastereduction.ca/events May 16-18 – Local Government Management Association BC annual conference and AGM Penticton BC. www.lgma.ca September 25-29 – Union of BC Municipalities 2017 convention Vancouver BC. www. ubcm.ca

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