Water Haller: Never let a good disaster go to waste!
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We can all learn a lot from a disaster, or from any system failure…and it doesn’t have to happen to my town for me to learn valuable lessons. Anyone else’s headache can be an example of what "could" happen to us – allowing us to prevent it, prepare for it, or respond to it. 2024 has certainly provided us with an abundance of disasters and system failures to learn from. We have all been following the watermain break in Calgary, but there have been major breaks across the country causing significant impacts in places like Montreal and Ottawa and Vancouver. A power outage in Edmonton put that city on alert while overwhelming rains flooded Toronto highways and transit systems.
As the advocates for the municipal utility sector in Canada, we’ve been pushing for a renewed infrastructure funding program at the federal level. The last program of over $100 billion was fully subscribed a while ago and the federal government has begun to look at the next phase. CWWA leaders have met with senior policy staff at Infrastructure Canada and arranged for them to meet with many of our members to hear, first-hand, the infrastructure challenges in each city. CWWA has also made formal submissions to the Finance Committee and the Environment Committee of Parliament as well as the Canada Infrastructure Bank.
While there are short term funding programs being announced, they are all tied to housing. Any proposed water project must somehow be related to "new" housing. Our message has been that it is not all related to housing and that our aging infrastructure puts our communities at risk. Now if only there was a good example of how a system failure can impact a community. Lo and behold, we have several examples and they are spread across the country. There is no way that our political leaders cannot take note of these emergencies.
All of this will be a major focus of our National Water & Wastewater Conference (NWWC) in November. While we will hear some of the horror stories related to these disasters, we will be sharing lessons learned. How did we react? How did we deal with Council, the media and the public? How might we handle a similar situation next time? We have invited some of the key players from these cities to share their stories.
Meanwhile, we will also celebrate some amazing successes. Working with our partners at Water Canada, we will highlight a number of exciting projects from their Top 50 Water Projects Report. We will also have a presentation from the Canada Infrastructure Bank sharing a few recent projects in Manitoba financed through the Bank.
But the REAL reason you come to the NWWC is for the professional networking. We bring together hundreds of the most senior utility leaders, consultants and academics to share their knowledge and their friendship. Tuesday at the NWWC is always a memorable event and this year will join that list of legendary celebrations. Fat Tuesday in the Peg will be a New Orleans style party with a Louisiana jazz band and Cajun inspired menu at the Canadian Museum of Human Rights (a spectacular venue) – Do not miss this event!
