SFU CED Public Lecture Archives

Did you miss one of our talks? You'll find the recordings below. Do you have a suggestion for a future speaker? We'd love to hear it at cedinfo@sfu.ca.

Creating Rural Routes to Climate Solutions
Derek Leahy
Thursday, September 21, 2023

Derek Leahy, Director of Rural Routes to Climate Solutions, covers the various strategies Rural Routes uses in having what many may view as a challenging conversation in a perhaps unlikely place: climate solutions in rural Alberta.

Derek and the Rural Routes team have years of experience implementing a climate solutions co-benefits engagement strategy and carefully crafting it to make sense for the rural Alberta context. Whether it is exploring which climate solutions align with Blackfoot culture or discussing the soil health benefits of increasing soil carbon sequestration on agricultural land, Rural Routes' approach to community engagement on climate solutions is very much about finding ways to leverage climate solutions to support thriving and resilient rural communities.

Derek is best described as part community organizer, part somewhat-skilled farmhand and part storyteller. He has over a decade of experience as an organizer and communicator on climate and food security issues and has led Rural Routes to Climate Solutions since its inception in 2017. Equipped with the message of ‘what is good for the climate is good for the farm’, Rural Routes is a on mission to empower farmers, ranchers and rural communities in Alberta with climate solutions. Rural Routes is currently involved in two flagship projects, the Regenerative Agriculture Lab and the Siksikaitisitapi (Blackfoot Confederacy) Agriculture Project. Derek also hosts and produces the Rural Routes to Climate Solutions podcast. He lives in Calgary.

Watch the lecture here.

 

 

Enriching Communities by Applying CED Principles to Organizational Recruitment Practices
Adrienne Kovacs, Locum Home
Thursday, August 17, 2023

How does recruitment influence communities? Likewise, how can the five principles of Community Economic Development be applied to recruitment to build stronger organizations? Adrienne Kovacs has a vision for a proactive recruitment model that is both organizationally effective and community focused. Join this engaging session to learn about how organizations that embrace innovation and unleash creativity can improve the quality of life for both their employees and their community.

Adrienne is a Human Resources professional with fifteen years experience working in Recruitment and HR for large-scale organizations in BC. As someone who has lived in various regions of the province, both urban and rural, she has a unique understanding of the challenges and opportunities that organizations face when recruiting professionals to their communities.

As an optimist at heart, Adrienne was drawn to recruitment because she sees it as ‘the happy place of Human Resources’. But she’s learned that some recruitment practices don’t always lead to positive outcomes so she’s sharing her experiences to ensure that every organization can benefit from a wholistic approach to recruitment.

Watch the lecture here.

Adrienne generously shared her presentation with us, too. Click to open.

 

Creating Welcoming, Innovative & Reslient Communities
Daniela Seiferling, Rural Development Network
Thursday, July 20, 2023

As an employer it can be challenging to find the human resources required to sustain your business and community. How can we create innovative, welcoming and resilient communities through experiential learning? Join Daniela Seiferling to learn more about two projects from the Rural Development Network that are building capacity for rural and remote employers.

Daniela Seiferling is the Program Manager for the READI to Work project and the Rural Roots initiative. She has over 10 years experience with the nonprofit sector, including the delivery of skilled volunteer and experiential learning programs.

Watch the lecture here. 

Fostering Thriving Local Economies: Commercial Real Estate, Inclusive Economic Development and Community Building
Steven Johnston, Community Impact Real Estate
Thursday, June 15, 2023

In a city like Vancouver, real estate is inevitably at the centre of any discussion regarding the liveability of the City. The residential affordability crisis rightly takes centre stage in conversations around the future viability of neighbourhoods and their potential to provide a home to all residents. However, there is a parallel crisis in commercial real estate affordability that is often overlooked. Rising lease rates make it incredibly difficult for non-profits, social enterprises and, small businesses to remain in community close to the constituents they serve. In neighbourhoods like the Downtown Eastside that means residents are losing access to affordable goods and services and growing increasingly disconnected form the place they call home. Community Impact Real Estate was created to think differently about commercial real estate, disrupt the traditional leasing model and, work towards fostering inclusive local economies that provide opportunities for all residents to thrive and prosper. This session will examine the CIRES model and unpack the way commercial real estate can be leveraged to create cohesive, whole communities.

Speaker Steven Johnston is a seasoned executive with more than 18 years of experience in the not-for-profit sector, working to improve the social and economic circumstances of vulnerable populations. He began his career in community economic development at Dixon Hall in Toronto, where he played a key role in building and supporting innovative programming for at-risk residents in the inner city. He relocated to Vancouver in 2014 to lead Tradeworks Training Society, where he guided the growth and revitalization of the agency’s critical employment and social enterprise programs. The majority of his experience supporting populations facing barriers to employment, including concurrent disorders and homelessness, comes from working in two of Canada’s most challenged and impoverished urban communities: Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside and Toronto’s Regent Park. He has developed, delivered, and led innovative programming to provide support and solutions to improve the lives of residents with a focus on income generation and grounded in a social determinants of health perspective. He serves on a number of community boards, including the Advisory Board of the Binners’ Project, and is a mentor to many organizations in the Downtown Eastside.

Watch the lecture here.

 

Cultural Food Assets: Strengthening Our Local Food Economies
Janine de la Salle MA, RPP, MCIP; Principal, Urban Food Strategies
Thursday, May 25, 2023

Cultural Food Assets (CFAs) are at the heart of community. From food markets and districts in towns and cities to hunting and fishing grounds in rural and remote areas, CFAs create a sense of belonging and are intrinsically connected to local food economies. With increasing land values and development pressure in urban to remote areas, CFAs are being displaced and destroyed. Planners, economists, and politicians can play an important role as community allies and stewards of CFAs. This session will present core definitions and examples of CFAs as well as five steps for planning for CFAs in your community. 

Janine de la Salle brings over 17 years of experience in building healthy communities and resilient food systems with government, university, private and non-profit sectors.

Watch the lecture here.

Jane's Walk: Citizen-Led Participation in City Design
Guest speakers Jane's Walk co-chair Wesley Reibeling and former co-chair Geraldine Cahill
Thursday, April 20, 2023

Jane’s Walk is a global event of volunteer free walking tours held in May each year. Since its inception, Jane's Walk has existed in over 500 cities worldwide and can be used as a participatory tool for communities to lead local conversation at any time, anywhere. The global initiative of Jane's Walk is inspired by activist and urban studies scholar, Jane Jacobs.

Wesley Reibeling (he/him) is the co-chair of Jane's Walk, an advisory board member at UrbanMinds, a member of The Highline Equity Toolkit Committee and the Toronto Program Manager at Park People. 

Geraldine is currently serving as Director of Engagement at Social Innovation Canada where she oversees strategic communications development and facilitates multi-stakeholder projects in issues like affordable housing and inclusive economic development. 

Watch the lecture on our YouTube Channel here.  The slides are here.

Interactive Visualization as Tools for Participatory Planning and Stakeholder Engagment
Dr. Robert Newell
Thursday, March 16, 2023

Advancements in geographic information system (GIS), video game development software, and media technologies have created new opportunities for developing realistic, interactive visualizations that can be used as tools for community and stakeholder engagement in participatory planning processes. Dr Newell is the Canada Research Chair in Climate Change, Biodiversity and Sustainability at Royal Roads University, and a Research Associate at the Food and Agriculture Institute, University of the Fraser Valley.

Watch the lecture here. 

The Future of Financial Services in Economic Reconciliation
with Jon Davey, VP Indigenous Financial Services, Scotiabank
Thursday, February 16, 2023

Legislative and regulatory constraints continue to impact the ability Indigenous nations, businesses, and individuals to access capital and generate wealth. Financial institutions are now allocating significant resources to not only meet the demands of Indigenous leaders, but provide innovative solutions to help navigate and remove barriers to economic prosperity.

Watch the lecture here. 

 

Positioning Indigenous-led Organizations in Urban and Rural Context with Mary Beth Doucette
Thursday, January 19, 2023

Mary Beth Doucette is the Purdy Crawford Chair in Aboriginal Business Studies & Assistant Professor in the Shannon School of Business, Cape Breton University. Mary Beth's professional and research interests are focused in Aboriginal-led Economic Development, which she describes as an action-oriented field of study at the nexus of Indigenous-led education, self-governance, and Community-led Economic Development. For anyone working in this space, she suggests it is essential to be attentive of one’s positionality. She will preview the strategies and toolkits she uses when making sense of social cues in context when moving between groups of practice. Mary Beth very kindly shared her updated slide deck with us here. 

Watch the talk here.

Who Owns Your Grocery Store? with author Jon Steinman
Thursday, December 8, 2022

Who owns the grocery store you shop at? Does it matter? Author Jon Steinman thinks so. Grocery stores exert considerable influence on human and environmental health and on local economies. Steinman believes grocery stores are the most influential of any institution in shaping the future of food. With such an important function to play, how might Canadians ensure that our grocery stores operate responsibly? How might a grocery store become a hub for all things Community Economic Development?

Watch the lecture here.

Asset Management and CED
with David Allen, Executive Director, Asset Management BC
Thursday, November 24, 2022

David is a former Chief Administrative Officer with significant municipal experience at five BC local governments. For the past eight years, he was the co-chair of the AMBC Community of Practice. David is the author of the The 4Cs for Sustainable Service Delivery: Collaboration, Capacity, Culture & Council, a regular contributor to the AMBC newsletter and is a passionate advocate of Asset Management.

Watch the lecture here.

Natural Assets Management in CED with Roy Brooke, Executive Director, Municipal Natural Assets Initiative
Thursday, October 27, 2022

How can local governments understand, value and make informed decisions regarding the benefits they receive from nature and ecosystems? By including natural asset management practices, community services provided by nature — including water quality, waste removal, disaster resilience, and recreation — can be provided in a cost-effective and sustainable manner now and into the future.

Watch the lecture here.

David and Cecilia Ting 2022-23 Dean of Environment's Lecture Series, Step into the River: A Framework for Economic Reconciliation

Tuesday, September 27, 2022

Sxwpilemaát Siyám (Chief Leanne Joe), a Hereditary Chief of the Squamish Nation and Transformative Storyteller for Economic Reconciliation at SFU CED, and Lily Raphael, Systems Transformation Tender will share a path for economic reconciliation based on the Framework they co-authored and released earlier this summer.

Economic Reconciliation is more than just normalizing relations with First Nations, it's about transforming the economy for all our collective wellbeing. Step into the River: A Framework for Economic Reconciliation offers a set of values, mind shifts and practices to support how practitioners, local governments, organizations, institutions and industry partners can engage in reconciliation to meet that desired outcome.

After the presentation, panelists will share their experience in incorporating economic reconciliation into their practice before opening the discussion to the audience.

We invite you to step into the river and be part of this journey. Watch it here.

Respondents:

Ginger Gosnell-Myers, Nisga’a-Kwakwaka’wakw Indigenous Fellow, Decolonization and Urban Indigenous Policy and Planning, SFU’s Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue

Marissa Lawrence, Senior Program Officer, First Nation-Municipal Community Economic Development Initiative, Cando (virtual participation)

Chris Syeta’xtn Lewis, Director, Indigenous Initiatives and Reconciliation, Office of the President, Simon Fraser University

Introduction and Closing: Naomi Krogman, Dean, Faculty of Environment, Simon Fraser UniversityWatch it here.

Taking Climate Action Together with Megan Lohmann and Maya Chorobik from the Community Energy Association

Wednesday, July 27, 2022

We learned about multi-government and stakeholder collaboration opportunities to maximize climate action at the local and regional level and they highlighted the new Local Government Climate Action Program, a funding opportunity now available to all Municipalities, Regional Districts and Modern Treaty Nation. 

Missed it? Watch it here.

Step into the River: A Framework for Economic Reconciliation with authors Sxwpilemaát Siyám (Chief Leanne Joe, Squamish) and Lily Raphael

Monday, June 20, 2022

Drawing on Indigenous worldviews about wealth and sustainability, along with the wisdom and lived experiences of Indigenous thought leaders and practitioners in the economic sector in BC, Step into the River: A Framework for Economic Reconcilation explores ways in which economic reconciliation can be a catalyst for transforming our economic system.

The extent to which economic reconciliation can be transformative depends on whether we ourselves are willing to transform. For our economy to shift, we need to rethink what we value, how we relate to one another and how we make decisions. This Framework offers a set of values, fundamental practices and ideas for action to create an impact and embrace transformation. We invite you to step into the river and be a part of this journey.

Watch the CED Public Lecture and launch of Step into the River here.

Download Step into the River: A Framework for Economic Reconciliation here.

The Dividends of Municipal Investments in Banff with Town Planner, Darren Enns

Wednesday, June 15, 2022

What an excellent talk from the Town of Banff's Planning & Development Director, Darren Enns; he shared wise practices and lessons for all communities from the Bear Street Shared Street redevelopment; the Roam Transit system; the new Nancy Pauw Pedestrian Bridge installation. 

Watch the video here. 

Climate-Proofing your Food Systems with Community Economic Development with Ione Smith, Upland Agricultural Consulting and SFU CED Instructor of CED Approaches to Food

Wednesday, May 25, 2022

Climate change is no longer a future scenario, climate change is here. What does this mean for BC’s food system? This seminar will explore some of the impacts of climate change on our food system and what we can do to mitigate effects. Particular emphasis will be placed opportunities to protect ecosystem services on farmland.

You can listen to the talk here. 

How to Use Data to Your Advantage; A primer on helping you find, analyze, and present data effectively with Mike Stolte from CIEL

Wednesday, April 20

“You can’t manage what you can’t measure” Peter Drucker, Management Expert

How healthy is your community? How do you measure it? Good data - combined with compelling stories - allow communities to access funding more easily, make decisions on where to put time and effort, and measure the impact of community and economic development initiatives over time. This webinar will use real-world stories to introduce you to key concepts in finding, analyzing and presenting data through the lens of community well-being.

Speaker Mike Stolte has been working in CED for more than two decades as the founder of CIEL (the Centre for Innovative and Entrepreneurial Leadership – www.theCIEL.com ), based out of Nelson, BC. Despite being a former federal economist, Mike is quite a fun guy. And a nice one, too: he has graciously shared his slides from the presentation, including a few bonus ones! 

You can watch the lecture here.  

 

Game on! Building a Sustainable and Resilient Indigenous Economy 2.0

Wednesday, March 23, 2022

So, you think you can build an economy better than the experts? Put on your best economist cap (or bowtie) and make a series of strategic decisions to build your economy from the ground up. But the question is, how will it hold up to an economic shock? Will it be as resilient as a rubber band? In this webinar, we will learn about the Tulo Centre's Economic Growth Model and apply your knowledge to Tulo Centre's Building a Sustainable and Resilient Indigenous Economy 2.0 learning game.

We explored the complexities of building a native economy with moderators Norm Lavallee and Jesse James through their online game which allows you to choose a scenario and pick strategies to make it make it work before being evaluated on the strategies chosen. Thought-provoking, enlightening and educational: do try it today!

Small Towns, Big Steps in Active Transport Workshop
Rita Koutsodimos, Executive Director of BC Alliance for Healthy Living Society

February 9, 2022

We heard from Rita Koutsodimos, Executive Director of BC Alliance for Healthy Living Society as she discusses active transportation strategies. Come learn how leading communities that have successfully navigated challenges, including:

  • Creating a walkable downtown despite the main street acting as a highway
  • Building projects across jurisdictional boundaries
  • Navigating grants and funding for active transportation projects

We enjoyed a lively discussion about overcoming barriers and what works to support active transportation in smaller communities after her talk, as well. 

Thank you, Rita, and thank you all for a very interesting presentation and discussion! 
If you missed it, Rita very kindly shared her slides from the presentation here and the talk itself is here.