We’re bringing you an insider’s perspective on the latest updates from Canadian Water Network’s (CWN) Canadian Municipal Water Consortium. The national network is made up of utility leaders who share a common goal of advancing municipal water management.

Introducing CWN’s Strategic Advisory Committee

Earlier this year, CWN established its inaugural 2024/25 strategic advisory committee. This committee, comprised of five water leaders from the Consortium Leaders Group, supports greater alignment between the consortium’s priorities and members’ needs. Committee members include:

• Alicia Fraser (General manager of integrated water services at Capital Regional District).
• Kenda MacKenzie (Acting general manager/CEO of Halifax Water).
• Russ Munro (Director at Saskatoon Water).
• Gen Nielsen (Director of water facilities and treatment services at the City of Ottawa).
• Dave Szeptycki (Director of sustainability, communications and innovation at York Region).

More information about each member is available here.

Hosting virtual dialogues on national topics of concern

Municipalities and utilities across Canada are currently grappling with challenges like how to incorporate climate change adaptation into infrastructure planning, as well as how they can consider factors like affordability and equity while delivering water services. To help our network stay on top of the latest information, CWN hosted two webinars this spring that featured leading experts.

Planning for uncertainty and climate change adaptation

In April, CWN co-hosted a webinar with GHD to discuss strategies for managing uncertainty in water management and large infrastructure delivery. Greg Finlayson and Ryan Brotchie of GHD introduced the Adaptive Pathway Planning (APP) framework, which helps communities integrate climate adaptation into long-term planning and decision-making. They presented international case studies of utilities that have successfully applied the APP framework to plan for key priorities, including wastewater treatment plant upgrade needs, flood management, and water supply and demand. View the recording of the webinar here.

Equity and affordability strategies for water utilities

In May, CWN held a webinar with Stantec on strategies that municipalities and utilities can implement to enhance equity and affordability for their customers. Carol Malesky of Stantec introduced a Customer Assistance Framework that decision-makers can use to develop customer assistance programs, such as bill discounts and emergency assistance. She also shared examples of rate designs and customer assistance programs successfully implemented in U.S. municipalities, which can be adapted for the Canadian context. This webinar supports CWN’s ongoing work on equity, including the affordability strategic sharing group. View the recording of the webinar here.

Convening national leaders to support peer learning on shared priorities

Spring 2024 Leaders Meeting

In May, CWN hosted its much-anticipated annual spring leaders meeting in Edmonton. Thirty leaders representing 19 municipalities and utilities from across Canada convened to discuss leading municipal water management through uncertain times. More specifically, they discussed challenges related to business continuity, emergency planning, procurement innovation and alternative capital delivery methods.

These topics have become increasingly important as leaders have had to proactively plan for a growing range of water service disruptions, due in part to climate change and aging infrastructure. Disruptions can range from slow moving emergencies like multi-year droughts or managing eroding workforce capacity, to unexpected emergencies such as critical infrastructure outages or floods.

Canadian municipalities and utilities are also exploring more innovative, collaborative approaches to procurement. This is to address key drivers, such as growth pressures and challenging market conditions, and balance short- and long-term utility goals.

Highlights of the meeting included presentations by municipal leaders, including a presentation by  EPCOR on its response to a critical outage at their WTP this winter. Guest experts also joined the meeting, including presenters from Bird Construction who spoke about integrated project delivery and Don Iveson who spoke about opportunities to tackle climate change alongside housing. Leaders also had the opportunity to share insights and lessons learned on other priority topics, including workforce retention, growth, equity and risk communication.

Strategic sharing group meetings

The affordability SSG held its annual check-in meeting in June. Participants reflected on missing pieces in their customer assistance program initiatives, and the next steps they need to take to advance this work. Participants highlighted the shared challenges of gathering and sharing the data needed to inform decisions and the impact of the affordable housing crisis on late utility bill payments. They also discussed opportunities to support low-income residents through rebates, leak forgiveness programs, and support for customers living in multi-generational homes.

Also in June, the data SSG held its third regular meeting. Participants learned about the City of Calgary’s strategy for aligning people, processes, technology and data to effectively implement strategic objectives. They also had an opportunity to engage in small group discussions about the obstacles they encounter within their own organizations when trying to apply an operational or business perspective to digital transformation. As well, participants discussed the next steps they wish to undertake to delve deeper into this area of work, including connecting data repositories across business units and increasing integration of business units to share data.

Connecting with industry members and beyond

Katina Tam, senior program advisor and lead of CWN’s data strategic sharing group, attended the 2024 Smart Water Network (SWAN) conference in May. There, she had the opportunity to hear from international experts on the latest opportunities in water and wastewater digital transformation. The conference underscored the importance of treating data as an asset requiring regular maintenance, on par with capital assets. It also highlighted ongoing worldwide innovations using AI to improve efficiencies, inform decision-making, and engage customers, such as lead detection in service pipes and customer-installed smart home water monitors. Additional challenges discussed included the recruitment, retention and upskilling of the water utility workforce, cybersecurity risk mitigation, and the use of data to inform water equity. Insights from the conference will help inform CWN’s work plan on data governance and digital transformation.

Upcoming networking and peer learning events

This summer, CWN is hosting meetings for two strategic sharing groups. The stormwater strategic sharing group will meet in July to continue sharing insights and lessons learned on topics including low impact development and nature-based solutions, stormwater utility funding models, and stormwater program financing opportunities. The contaminants of emerging concern strategic sharing group will meet in the fall, where members will share and learn about current practices for managing risks from contaminants of emerging concern, such as PFAS and microplastics, in wastewater discharge. We are also preparing a new initiative to support municipal leaders in effectively communicating risk to their communities.