Discover the key topics that will be explored at Blue Cities, the premier water conference for strategic decision makers. Our sessions, including keynote addresses, plenary panels, and concurrent discussions, will cover pressing issues such as project delays, budget constraints, emerging contaminants, and decarbonization. Gain valuable insights and practical solutions from Canada’s leading experts and practitioners to help you navigate future challenges and drive success in your projects.
Keynotes and Plenary Panels
Keynote – Inside the systems that shape our world: How infrastructure works
Blue Cities Key Note speaker, Engineer and Materials Scientist, Dr. Deb Chachra, from the Olin School of Engineering, will challenge and inspire you with her insights on how infrastructure systems connect us to the past and the future. Our daily lives are shaped and enhanced by the infrastructure systems embedded in our landscapes. Infrastructure decisions made years ago brought about a public health revolution and set the stage for a prolonged period of prosperity. At the same time, while many benefited there remained some that were underserved or harmed, a physical manifestation of existing inequities in society. Over time infrastructure has become more equitable, providing universal access to essential services in many Western cities. Infrastructure planners now face new challenges. Current infrastructure systems that were designed to move resources through a stable landscape of the past will work less and less effectively as climate impacts worsen. As we rebuild and expand our infrastructure systems, they must be designed to be equitable, resilient and sustainable in a world of climate instability. While this will be costly, the investment is worth it, for the same reason that massive investments were made in the original city-wide infrastructure systems – to allow our societies and the individuals in them to thrive and prosper.
Fireside Chat: Challenges in financing and delivering infrastructure (Sponsored by Xylem)
This session will feature a one-on-one discussion exploring the complexities of delivering large-scale infrastructure projects in challenging economic and fiscal conditions. Key topics will include considerations for infrastructure investment decisions, the role of infrastructure in meeting housing targets, and the outlook for 2025. Matti will share his insights and strategies, highlighting the significant challenges faced by the water and infrastructure sector. His talk will build on preceding sessions that address risk mitigation and strategies for aligning infrastructure delivery with accelerated housing needs, providing a comprehensive overview and actionable insights.
Lunch Keynote – Promoting Indigenous Innovation in Canada’s Water Sector
Kelly Lendsay, MBA, CFAM, is a social entrepreneur and leader of Cree and Métis ancestry. He is president and CEO of Indigenous Works and founder and chief executive of Luminary: Advancing Indigenous Innovation. Kelly is internationally recognized as one of Canada’s foremost innovators and organizational development experts in Indigenous engagement and workplace inclusion systems, models and corporate/Indigenous partnerships.
During his exclusive keynote, Kelly will be speaking about economic reconciliation with Indigenous peoples and Luminary, a new initiative that engages Canada’s academic community, business schools, research agencies, and Indigenous businesses and organizations to grow the Indigenous innovation ecosystem through research and innovation, investment and Indigenous talent.
Join Kelly to learn how the Canadian water sector can support Indigenous employees and businesses and contribute to Indigenous-led water research, innovation and investment.
Plenary Panel – Management of risk in uncertain times: Current challenges
Those responsible for delivering infrastructure are facing climate shocks, cost inflation, construction delays, maintaining aging infrastructure and responding to service interruptions, and providing new servicing for accelerated housing. How can we anticipate and plan for these pressures in the near term and what strategies can we deploy?
Plenary Panel – Management of risk in uncertain times: Future and foresight
Climate impacts, political instability, changes in social values, rapid technological innovation, are some of the trends that could affect water services and infrastructure delivery over the coming years. Hear from futurist Jessica Thornton and a panel of strategic thinkers about what to expect and how to prepare for future risks.
Closing Plenary Panel – Foresight and Action: Shaping the future of water
The Blue Cities closing plenary will be an interactive ‘meeting of the minds’ with Canada’s water leaders. Panel chairs will share key insights, strategies and solutions discussed during sessions. Delegates are invited to build momentum by proposing calls-to-action to advance these solutions and strategies, for the benefit everyone in the Canadian water sector.
Concurrent Sessions - Current Challenges
1A – New finance and investment strategies in an affordability-challenged landscape
Water utilities are facing unprecedented cost escalation as a result of inflation, cost of imported materials, skills shortages, among other factors. Hear from experts on solutions and alternative strategies to mitigate these risks and secure needed investments.
2A – Water servicing for new urban housing
Building additional servicing for new housing is a challenge facing water utilities nationwide. This session will examine critical facets of effectively delivering and financing water services for increased density and new greenfield development. Options and approaches to development fees, cost of servicing, re-purposing existing commercial building stock, and building standards for new construction, will be explored.
3A – Strategies for effective project delivery
Is Canada ready for more innovative delivery models for large water infrastructure projects? What are the alternative delivery models that support effective infrastructure project delivery, manage and share risk among the parties involved and procure services more equitably? In this session, you will learn about and share strategies to deliver projects on time and budget.
4A – Transforming the water workforce: The power of people
As the workforce ages and retires, recruiting new skilled workers with the technical, decision-making, problem solving , project management, and operational competence is proving challenging across the water sector. Education and training programs are not keeping pace with the needs of the sector, leading to a shortage of professionals with the necessary skills to leverage and manage the water utilities of the future.
Concurrent Sessions - Future and Foresight
1B – Planning in the face of uncertainty
Traditional linear planning locks in current assumptions that can result in costly over or under estimations of growth, capacity, climate impacts, water availability, fiscal capacity, among other variables. CWN’s adaptive planning project, funded by Natural Resources Canada, explores multiple possible futures, and creates decision pathways with built-in adaptability to help municipal utilities manage for future risk and create a forward-looking, anticipatory organization.
2B – Securing Canada’s water future: Strategies for availability and demand management
Drought is a recurring reality, particularly for central Canada. Groundwater and river-based systems will come under steady and increased pressure with climate change and growth trends. Learn from the best on how to stretch your supply and manage your demand.
3B – Mission net zero water
Wastewater fugitive emissions, nitrous oxides and methane, are a particularly potent source of GHGs. Canada has pledged to reduce its methane emissions by 35% by 2030 based on 2020 levels. Learn how CWN is working with a network of municipal utilities, private sector leaders and global experts to develop made-in-Canada pathways to net zero water that will support Canada’s Global Methane Pledge. The Net Zero Water Roadmap Project is funded in part by the Government of Canada through its Implementation Readiness Fund.
4B – What’s in the water? Trends and developments in environmental surveillance
The last 5-10 years has seen major advances in new molecular methods to detect what is in our water and measure the impacts on our human health at an earlier stage. With recent changes to the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, and similar changes to European Union water rules, these methods will eventually be mainstreamed into water monitoring and chemical assessment. Learn about the significance of these new methods, how they may be used by municipal utilities, and how they may revolutionize our understanding of real exposure to contaminants.