Welcome to the Summer edition of News Splash. This edition is chock full of knowledge products that CWN has developed over the last quarter, including a new report, Confronting Cost Escalation — which identifies the drivers of cost escalation for water infrastructure projects, provides Canadian examples, and offers strategies that are being used across Canada to contain these costs. [...]

Kelly Lendsay, Chief Transformation Officer, LUMINARY and CEO, Indigenous Works, delivered the luncheon keynote on May 15 at Blue Cities 2025. It was so well-received that we wanted to share his remarks with our network. Here is an excerpt from Kelly’s speech: The relationship between corporate Canada and Indigenous peoples in the early 1990s was a rocky one. In [...]

CWN’s Water Leader Spotlight celebrates the diverse backgrounds of outstanding municipal water leaders serving Canadian communities and shares their insights into the industry. Municipal Water Program Manager Nancy Goucher interviewed Alicia Fraser, the General Manager of Infrastructure and Water Services for the Capital Regional District (CRD). Read on to learn about her journey in the water industry. Can you describe [...]

Carl Yates will conclude his term as Chair on June 20, 2025. CWN and the entire water community thank Carl for his deep commitment, wise counsel and leadership. Carl served for 12 years on CWN's Board, including six years as Chair. He was also a founding member of CWN’s Municipal Water Consortium during his tenure at Halifax Water. CEO Nicola [...]

CWN's inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to Carl Yates by CEO Nicola Crawhall at Blue Cities 2025. Nicola’s remarks: We have now come to our third and final award of the day, which is our lifetime achievement award. This award recognizes a retiring member of the Canadian water sector who has demonstrated incredible leadership ingenuity and who leaves a [...]

On May 13, thirty-six members representing 23 municipalities from CWN’s Municipal Water Consortium gathered in Mississauga for in-person discussion. The meeting fostered a highly engaging and collaborative environment, bringing together municipal water utility leaders to exchange insights, strengthen connections, and address current and future challenges in municipal water management. The meeting also helped set the stage for deeper conversations [...]

In November 2024, CWN launched a project, Managing future risks and building resiliency through adaptive planning. Here's a quick primer that explains adaptive planning (AP): In the parlance of enterprise risk management, organizations need to understand, to the degree possible, known unknowns and unknown unknowns to create effective risk mitigation and resiliency plans. Known unknowns are recognized gaps in [...]

CWN’s Nicola Crawhall and other Board members of the Global Water Research Coalition met during the week of March 17-22 in Cape Town, South Africa. The meeting was hosted by Jennifer Molwanta, CEO of the Water Research Commission (WRC) of South Africa, and was held in parallel with the International Water Association’s global conference on water reuse. At the meeting, [...]

The Blue Cities session, Planning in the Face of Uncertainty, introduced the Canadian water sector to adaptive planning (AP), a globally emerging approach to decision-making to address future uncertainty and accompanying risks. The session was chaired by Gen Neilsen, Director, Water Facilities and Treatment Services at the City of Ottawa, and explored the rationale, challenges and benefits of using AP [...]

At this year’s Blue Cities conference, a timely panel discussion explored how Canadian water utilities can lead the charge toward net zero water operations. Hosted by Canadian Water Network, the session brought together municipal leaders, private sector innovators and global experts to share practical strategies for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the water sector. Chaired by Dave Szeptycki [...]

The last 5-10 years have seen significant advances in new molecular methods that more precisely detect what is in our water and measure the impacts on our health at an earlier stage. These new methods promise to reduce or eliminate the need to kill fish to determine the effects of contaminants. These methods are also being used to aid [...]