This edition’s thought leader interview features Jimmy Zammar, the City of Vancouver’s director of urban watersheds, sewers and drainage, who shares his experience in implementing the city’s Rain City Strategy. How did the City of Vancouver’s Rain City Strategy come about? The Rain City strategy is the fruit of over 10 years of effort by city staff from across [...]

Parts of Europe have recently experienced drier conditions in early spring due to warmer temperatures, extremely low rainfall and low snowfall in the past winter. The continent is facing a severe water shortage, and there have been discussions of declaring a “drought emergency” in some places like Catalonia that have been brutally impacted. As of April, Catalonia had experienced [...]

Municipalities across Canada are facing numerous challenges, including population growth, aging infrastructure and degraded ecosystem health, while also needing to improve social equity and reconciliation with Indigenous peoples, and foster economic growth. Climate change is exacerbating these already difficult challenges. Inaction comes at a cost. GHD’s Aquanomics report highlights that floods, droughts and major storms could cost the Canadian economy [...]

Canadian Water Network (CWN) is excited to launch a new wastewater-based surveillance (WBS) program in partnership with the National Collaborating Centre for Infectious Diseases (NCCID). This program supports public health practitioners serving both cities and Indigenous regions in interpreting the meaning of WBS data for their communities. It also supports public health practitioners in effectively communicating with decision-makers and the [...]

CWN welcomes Deborah Van Dyk as program manager We’re happy to share that Deborah Van Dyk joined the CWN team as a program manager for our Wastewater-Based Surveillance Program in March 2023. Deborah is leading a 13-month demonstration project to support public health authorities in interpreting the meaning of WBS data for their communities and effectively communicating these results [...]

The Canadian Municipal Water Consortium continues to foster collaboration and innovation within the water servicing sector. Recently, 28 municipal and utility water leaders from across the country gathered for an in-person meeting in Hamilton, Ontario. The meeting provided a platform for valuable discussions, guest presentations, and peer learning around current successes and challenges in servicing urban densification. The conversations [...]

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are widely used chemicals that can be found in the environment, water and air. Now, the Government of Canada has discovered PFAS in the blood of Canadians, confirming the need for adequate assessment of sources and impacts of PFAS on the environment and human health. The nature of PFAS breaking down slowly and building [...]

Canadian Water Network (CWN) is pleased to receive funding from the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) and Indigenous Services Canada (ISC) to deliver a wastewater-based surveillance program in partnership with the National Collaborating Centre for Infectious Diseases (NCCID). The program supports the effective interpretation and communication of wastewater-based surveillance (WBS) data by public health practitioners, including the unique [...]

Xylem Inc., a leading water technology company, recently released a white paper titled The Race We All Win: Mapping the route to water utility decarbonization. The white paper outlines four practical steps for water utilities can take to achieve net-zero targets without taking financing and contracts into consideration. Austin Alexander, vice president of sustainability and social impact at Xylem [...]

Data governance is at the heart of creating a more just and equitable society. This was one of the key insights that Thomas Linder from Open North recently shared with the Canadian Municipal Water Consortium’s Levels of Service Strategic Sharing Group. During the meeting in March 2023, Thomas shared Open North’s perspective on the intersection between big data collection [...]

Seattle Public Utilities (SPU) is leading the charge for equitable practices in the U.S. water utility space. At a meeting held in March 2023, members of the Canadian Municipal Water Consortium’s Rates and Affordability Strategic Sharing Group gained valuable insights from SPU representatives Steve Hamai and Leslie Brinson. One of the key lessons SPU has learned through its work [...]

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that the Government of Canada is investing $420 million over 10 years to help protect and restore the Great Lakes. The announcement was made during U.S. President Joe Biden’s visit to Ottawa on March 24, which highlights the importance of this investment. Funds will be allocated to several initiatives, including the cleanup of 12 [...]

The Government of Canada recently announced new initiatives to reach its net-zero commitments. Although these initiatives don’t impact local governments directly, related initiatives have the potential to open doors for local governments. One of the new initiatives announced by the Government of Canada is that major suppliers to the federal government will be required to disclose their greenhouse gas [...]

Over the past year, the Canadian Municipal Water Consortium hosted several conversations on topics of interest to municipal and utility leaders. These conversations took place through topic-specific Strategic Sharing Groups (SSGs). These SSGs are communities of practice that bring together municipalities and utilities to discuss challenges they are facing, as well as share knowledge and best practices to address [...]

World Water Day on March 22 drew global attention to the threat of climate change to dwindling water supplies. There is plenty of evidence of climate impacts on water availability. Initially, these impacts were most acutely felt in the global south. As a result of these impacts, Cape Town imposed water bans, Syria faced years of drought that contributed [...]

In December 2022, the governments of Canada and Manitoba agreed to support the Seal River Watershed Alliance in undertaking a feasibility study to establish an Indigenous Protected and Conserved Area (IPCA). The proposed IPCA was featured as one of four global examples of how Indigenous peoples relate to land, water, culture and language at an event during World Water [...]

Perth is a city of around two million people in Western Australia. After watching its inflows reduce steadily over 40 years, Water Corporation – the water utility for Perth and most of Western Australia – embarked on an innovative program to diversify its water supply in the face of a drying climate. Now, the city relies on a resilient [...]

Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland delivered the 2023 federal budget on March 28. While most measures that caught the headlines were focused on cost-of-living relief, Budget 2023 was the most significant freshwater budget in decades. This is what we know so far: Creation of a Canada Water Agency (CWA) The federal government has confirmed that the CWA will be a [...]