While governments around the world experience demographic and labour market shifts, opportunities to share knowledge, insight, and cautionary tales and to develop innovative and creative mechanisms that retain the know-how and lessons learned from past experiences abound. Despite shifting technology, one tool – case studies – toted by adult educators has continuously proven useful across demographic lines and drives home true knowledge transfer.

Leading the day will be Professor Andrew Graham of Queen’s University, Kingston and Editor of the IPAC Case Study series who will present case studies as an important strategic tool in knowledge retention and transfer. His most recent publication, Making the Case: Using Case Studies for Teaching and Knowledge Transfer in Public Administration, will provide the basis for presentations, discussions among participants and sharing experience with those who have prepared cases in the international context.

In 2009, Wayne G. Wouters was appointed Clerk of the Privy Council and Head of the Public Service of Canada. Drawing from an extensive public sector career that began in Saskatchewan in 1977 and his current “seat of power”, the Clerk will share his personal experiences with values and ethics in action and speak about the impact and importance of sharing stories about the public service.

BC will chalk up another first in climate change leadership with the launch of Climate Insights for civil servants. The animated online courses have been produced by the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions.

Vancouver City Council has a goal of becoming the greenest city in the world by 2020. Achieving this ambitious goal requires collaboration from everyone who lives, visits and works in Vancouver. How can a municipal government create effective partnerships and empower its citizens to make meaningful steps towards sustainability? Pursuing green building strategies plays an integral role in achieving waste, carbon, energy, healthy and mobility goals. Sadhu will share examples from Chicago and Vancouver to show how cities can engage businesses, residents, academia, other levels of government and civil society in ongoing effort to transform the way a city operates and achieves green results.

Housing is the foundation of safe and healthy communities. To support these communities, both Alberta Housing and Urban Affairs and the City of Toronto have led innovative initiatives related to homelessness and affordable housing. A key focus has been shifting the role of government from managing homelessness through emergency shelters to ending homelessness by providing permanent housing and the supports needed to break the vicious cycle.

When major projects apply for approval by governments, sustainability is often cited as a key value. This value has been interpreted differently over time.

The Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry that Mr. Justice Berger carried out offers a powerful lesson in community consultation and the priorities of sustainability almost 40 years ago. In March 2011, the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline was granted a National Energy Board Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity. The Joint Review Panel and hearings that led to this decision included sustainable development as one of the considerations. Another generation of young northern leaders continue to examine sustainability through community engagement and will hold governments accountable.

A contemporary discussion of public service capacity wouldn’t be complete without a discussion of existing and emerging First Nations Governance. The record is mixed. First Nations and governments have made concerted efforts to improve the standard of living for First Nations, however, many First Nations still lag behind non-aboriginal Canadians.

There is reason for optimism despite this. There are some very successful First Nations that have built economic and social strength, while remaining true to their individual cultures. But how do we adapt these models of success so other First Nations can benefit?

Canada’s public sector is validating private sector models of achieving financial efficiency with mounting pressure to be more accountable, transparent and effective. In response, they are embracing advances in technology to deliver higher quality service at a lower cost.

An emerging trend is to engage the market in innovations and best practices globally to re-engineer internal operating processes to reduce administrative costs. For example, there is an increasingly vast adoption in the Public Sector of Shared Service Centres – a single approach for finance activities with an aim to standardize, enhance controls and achieve better cost management. A Shared Service Centre may have such treasury functions such as improved risk management, standardization of policies and technology, identity management, enhanced cashflow forecasting and other functionality. Increasingly, all levels of governments are implementing this best practice across the world.

Sponsored by Citibank Canada

New research is presented by IPAC practitioners and scholars. This is an opportunity to see rising stars present their work on emerging issues and trends. Topics range from the use of Talking Circles for citizen engagement, horizontal governance to resolve a major social problem (suicide), and the narrative of the patriation of the Canadian Constitution.

Catherine Althaus, Assistant Professor, School of Public Administration University of Victoria
Loretta Dennis, School of Public Administration, University of Victoria
Talking Circles: Exploring an Indigenous-Centred Method of Determining Policy

Megan Lawrance, Menzies School of Health Research, Darwin, Australia Horizontal Governance: All Above Board

Penny Bryden, Professor, Department of History, University of Victoria
Controlling for Narrative: Telling Constitutional Stories in the Patriation Era

Moderator: Darrel J. McLeod, Regional Director, Canada School of Public Service

Conference Luncheon and IPAC Awards Presentations (Carson Hall)
2011 Pierre De Celles Award Presentation – Allan Tupper, Professor and Head, Department of Political Science, University of British Columbia

IPAC has honoured our great teachers of public administration with the Pierre De Celles Award since 2002. These individuals instruct, inspire and guide new generations of public servants and academics, and help more seasoned executives and leaders fine tune their contributions in the public sector.

Homage to Peter Aucoin, one of Canada’s distinquished scholars in public administration.

Lunch sponsored by the University of Victoria and Canadian Association of Programs in Public Administration (CAPPA)

What do F-16s, cows and riots have in common? Heather Landon is Chief of Administrative Services in one of the UN’s largest peacekeeping missions. Join her to discover how storytelling plays an integral role in coaching and mentoring UN civilian staff and managing cross-culturally.

In today’s information age, Canada is starting to regain its position as a key multilateral nation. This regeneration of Canadian multilateralism is not necessarily being done in traditional ways such as peacekeeping and the United Nations, but rather online, through digital means. Whether it’s by ensuring global dialogue on the state of the world’s economic recovery or engaging public sector employees in meaningful policy dialogue, there is a multitude of Canadian thought leaders and partnerships that are impacting our world today.

Concurrent Sessions II – Public Service Values
Session 1 – Managing Public Sector Ethics: Doing Fine or Losing Touch with Reality? (Sidney - Level 2)
John Langford, Professor, School of Public Administration, University of Victoria
Allan Tupper, Professor and Head, Department of Political Science, University of British Columbia

Moderator: Joy Illington, former Merit Commissioner, Province of British Columbia

Is the glass half full or half empty? In this session, John Langford and Allan Tupper will discuss and debate recent efforts to redefine and strengthen the ethical responsibility and professional behaviour of public servants.

Moderator/Discussant: Julie Ireton, Business Reporter, CBC / Radio-Canada

Although it is common to find workplaces that hold integrity and respect as principal values, employees can find themselves in situations where those values are clearly not being upheld. This panel will address the breadth of this issue in public services throughout Canada. Panel members will talk about what to do when the work place does not live up to the values that it aspires to and speak about the consequences of whistle blowing from a base of experience. Research shows that Canada’s record on protecting whistle blowers is one of the worst in the western world and the panel will talk about what has to change.

Session 3 – Wicked Problems: Decisions in Complexity (Oak Bay – Level 1)

Public policy questions often cross jurisdictions and disciplines, and some of these issues are intractable. These panelists will discuss a selection of “wicked problems” from policy analysis, to indigenous child welfare to economic development using clusters. They will introduce new tools and approaches, and provide insights and advice to practitioners.

Evert Lindquist, Director, School of Public Administration, University of Victoria
Beyond Stories and Narratives: Exploring Visualization Techniques for Analysis, Advising and Engagement on Complex Policy

Karine Levasseur, Department of Political Studies, University of Manitoba; Fiona McDonald, Assistant Professor, Department of Political Studies, University of Manitoba
Accountability Insights from the Devolution of Indigenous Child Welfare in Manitoba

Moderator: Janet Higgins, Assistant Deputy Minister, Natural Resources, Government of New Brunswick

Moderator: Kin Choi, Assistant Deputy Minister, Corporate Services, Health Canada

Bob’s provocative keynote will focus on the emerging innovative thinking and practice in employee, stakeholder and citizen engagement. Real game-changing may demand a letting go of our mental models, rethinking leadership and learning models through a lens of personal corner of the desk practice and communities of practice. Most critical, we have to find more modern and practical tools that would truly engage individuals, teams and systems. His game changing approach to even the keynote itself will have two thirds of the keynote as an engagement piece in and of itself.

Sponsored by Open Text

Moderator: Rolet Loretan, Director General, International Institute of Administrative Sciences (IIAS)

The study of public administration pays little attention to history. Most publications focus on current problems and desired solutions or organizational structures and output targets. But what are we missing by not consulting our history? What do the lessons of the past have to tell us about how we should approach our future? Will we listen?

Academics, public managers and policy-makers from across all sectors will share their learnings, reflect and draw conclusions as to what history has taught them and what it means for improving public services and the future of public administration. They will reflect on what they have learned in the last decade in the areas of crisis management, e-government, regulation and inter-governmental organization and collaborative governance.

New research is presented by IPAC practitioners and scholars from across Canada. This is an opportunity to see rising stars present their work on emerging issues and trends. The topics include presentations on the Clerk of the Privy Council’s Annual Report, innovative training for civilian and military public servants and benchmarking CAOs’ performance in Nova Scotia.

Patrice Dutil, Associate Professor and Undergraduate Director Department of Politics and Public Administration, Ryerson University
Peter Ryan, Ryerson University
Bonds of Institutional Language: A Discursive Analysis of the Clerk of the Privy Council’s Annual Report

Barbara J. Falk, Associate Professor, Canadian Forces College
Canada’s National Security Program: A Case Study in Innovation and “whole-of-Government” Education

Bart Cunningham, Professor, School of Public Administration, University of Victoria
Benchmarks for Guiding CAO Performance in Nova Scotia: Stories of Exceptional and Substandard Performance

Moderator: Nancy Croll, Executive Director, Crown Investment Corporation, Saskatchewan

The results of the last federal election brought to light a disconnect between the stories that shaped the campaign and those that much of the media and the chattering class focused on. That disconnect illustrates the perils and the opportunities of communicating in an increasingly wired world.

Moderator/Discussant: David Hume, Executive Director, Citizen Engagement, BC Ministry of Labour, Citizens’ Services and Open Government

As governments across Canada begin to think and act in the area of open data, how will public organizations help make that data relevant to the lives of Canadians? This panel will explore how telling stories with data can be an important tool for sparking powerful conversations between government and the public.

Storytelling is the oldest and most immediate form of communication and can serve as a strategic tool to connect the organization at all levels. In this highly interactive session participants will discover practical uses for storytelling in the following areas: employee engagement, alignment to values, strategic direction and change illustrating desired behaviours and best practice.

This session will review examples of successful storytelling. Together the group will discover why storytelling works and techniques and processes to capture and deliver stories to align with the goals above. Participants will build their own stories and come away with a process to use storytelling within their groups and departments.

This session will tell the story of how the BC Public Service has become a leading employer in British Columbia and Canada by embracing a shift from a culture focused on minimizing risk to one focused on maximizing the potential of all that can go right. The importance of culture has been at the heart of the Being the Best Human Resource Plan since the first edition of the plan in 2006.

Kim Henderson will share the story of how the focus on transforming culture not only offers a more positive and productive employment experience, but also leads to improved retention, recruitment and engagement, which in turn leads to better service to the public.

Moderator: Andy Graham, Adjunct Professor, School of Policy Studies, Queen’s University; Editor, IPAC Case Study Program

Export Development Canada applied the LEAN approach to a re-engineering of business processes in their international financial services. EDC Vice President Dan Mancuso will discuss how LEAN changed EDC and has revealed possibilities and applications for public agencies.

Passport Canada rose to the challenge when Canadians suddenly needed passports to visit the US, an increase in business of 47%. Passport Canada CEO Christine Desloges will discuss their remarkable business transformation and what it means to Canadians. IPAC`s case study editor Professor Andrew Graham will moderate this exchange and provide his analysis on why EDC and Passport Canada`s experiences resonate in the public sector.

Sponsored by EDC

Moderator: Reeta Chowdhari Tremblay, Vice-President Academic and Provost, University of Victoria; President Canadian Political Science Association

Sandford Borins will introduce four archetypal public sector fables drawn from his new book Governing Fables: Learning from Public Sectors. He will illustrate them with classic films, show their emotional impact, and apply the fables to the recent federal election campaign. Professor Borins will discuss how public servants can create effective organizational and personal narratives in their own work, implicitly drawing on the four fables.

Debbie Delancey will provide a practitioner’s “in the trenches” perspective.

The Annual Galimberti Memorial Lecture was established in 2007 in memory of Joseph Galimberti, IPAC's Executive Director. Joe devoted his life to the principles of excellence in public service and to enhancing the theory and practice of public administration around the world.

Professor Paul Thomas, Professor Emeritus and former Duff Roblin Professor in Government at the University of Manitoba is the 2011 lecturer. An extraordinary teacher, author and advisor to governments, Prof. Thomas has been honored with IPAC’s Vanier Medal in 2003 and the Pierre De Celles Award for teaching excellence in 2007 and the Order of Manitoba.

Promising New Professional Award
Addresses from Outgoing and Incoming IPAC Presidents

Sponsored by Deloitte

Much of the public sector still believes social solutions are “distractions” and of limited business value. Social is the new “e-word. Louis Richardson will explore how you and your organization can use social capital and create a new culture to dialogue with leaders and people across organizational boundaries to address business problems and find the best solution.

Concurrent Sessions IV – Public Sector Capacity
Session 1 – Doing More or Less Differently: Issues and Innovations of the Voluntary Sector (Esquimalt – Level 1)
Michael J. Prince, Lansdowne Professor of Social Policy, Faculty of Human & Social Development, University of Victoria
Caroline Bonesky, CEO, Family Services of Greater Vancouver

Moderator: Heather Kirkham, Program Manager, School of Public Administration, University of Victoria

In this session Caroline Bonesky and Michael Prince discuss policy challenges and issues facing the voluntary sector in relationships with governments in Canada at the federal and provincial levels, as well as examine some actual and potential innovations for the voluntary sector.

Moderator: Rebecca Mellett, Director, CIDA Pacific Regional Office

In times of financial crisis, where development dollars are at a premium, one can’t find a more shining example of “doing more with less” than IPAC’s Deployment for Democratic Development (DDD). Supported by the Canadian International Development Agency, this rapid-turn-around, results-oriented program provides high-level Canadian expertise in response to requests for immediate and practical development assistance. The flexibility of DDD to provide stand-alone, short-term, modestly funded initiatives within tight timelines has led to significant results for the money spent. This panel will profile some of these successful initiatives and the Canadian experts who dedicate their time and energy to democratic development worldwide.

Moderator: Jim Copeland, CA, CMC, National Managing Partner, Advisory Services, Grant Thornton LLP

Showing accountability, being transparent, learning from experience, and making strategic decisions are all well-worn phrases used in setting the backdrop for tracking and reporting on metrics; carrying out evaluations and reviews; and adopting a results-orientation among management as well as in governance. To truly realize reconciliation between doing more with less, and doing less with less, in the public sector, it is imperative that these practices evolve in a way that enables their broader and more integrated use across government.

Specialists from Grant Thornton LLP will discuss their experience and future directions in performance measurement.

Sponsored by Grant Thornton LLP

Moderator: Debbie DeLancey, Interim Deputy Minister of Health and Social Services, Government of the Northwest Territories

This dynamic panel will discuss the challenges and opportunities of operating within a growing and maturing jurisdiction with small governments, unique issues and limited resources. Panelists will focus on four key areas:

Policy capacity development: Yukon government’s efforts to increase capacity in the policy field with the development of a community of practice, and innovative workshops.

Intergovernmental relations: How Yukon is making a mark on and contributing to national issues and creating unique relationships with other jurisdictions.

Capacity Development in Yukon: The ways that Yukon Government and Yukon self-governing First Nations are developing capacity to implement land claim and self-government agreements.

Community Economic Development: Working in partnership with communities and industry to ensure sustainable economic development.

New research is presented by IPAC practitioners and scholars from across Canada. This is an opportunity to see rising stars present their work on emerging issues and trends. Topics include Aboriginal Self-Governance, the use of European Ideas in Canadian Federalism, and Haisla Nuuyum (Way and Life of Laws) compared to financial structures and regulations.

Dr. Charles Conteh, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Social Sciences, Brock University
Transcending Institutional Boundaries and Leveraging the Vision of Aboriginal Self-Governance

Dr. Donna Wood, Research Associate, Department of Political Science University of Victoria;
Dr. Amy Verdun, Professor of Political Science and Director of the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence, University of Victoria
Using European Ideas to Open Up Canadian Federalism

Jacquie Green, Associate Professor, School of Social Work, University of Victoria
Conservation and Regulations as seen in Haisla Nuuyum (Way and Life of Laws)

Moderator: Ken Armour, Executive Director, Intergovernmental and Community Relations, BC Ministry of Aboriginal Relations and Reconciliation

All organizations want to be more creative in their thinking, services and processes. In fact, more and more we are seeing organizations that have an insatiable thirst for knowledge, expertise, methodologies and work practices around innovation. In today’s competitive environment, we all have a choice—innovate or get left behind. So how are organizations around the world tapping into that wellspring of creativity in order to make innovation a way of life? They are starting by creating a culture that encourages it—one that embraces risks and unique ideas, and tolerates the occasional failure.

Terry Stuart will share his perspective as Deloitte’s Chief Innovative Officer as well as what is happening in organizations around the world.

Moderator: Wynne Young, Deputy Minister, Tourism, Parks, Culture and Sports, Province of Saskatchewan

The world saw the very best Canada has to offer during the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. The Games set a new standard for organization that will be a model for all future games. It also set a new standard for the inclusion of indigenous cultures in the development and presentation of the games.

However, very few Canadian or international viewers understand how much time, planning and effort by different levels of government were required to deliver the Games. Public servants from federal, provincial, local governments and First Nations contributed to the overall success witnessed by millions worldwide. These unseen contributors helped create the legacy of the Games that will live on in Canada for years to come.

Moderator: Evert Lindquist, Director, School of Public Administration University of Victoria