This panel presentation will share the experience of developing the first multi-jurisdictional sea level rise strategy in Metro Vancouver and possibly in BC. Located on the traditional territories of the Coast Salish First Nations, the North Shore region of Metro Vancouver extends over 65 km of Salish Sea shoreline. Sea level rise is a significant concern, as coastal land uses include port, industrial and commercial, critical transportation and power infrastructure, high-density mixed-use and single-family residential, park, and sensitive ecosystems. The session will explain how the District of North Vancouver, City of North Vancouver, District of West Vancouver, North Shore Emergency Management, Port of Vancouver, and Squamish Nation collaborated to develop the award-winning North Shore Sea Level Rise Risk Assessment and Adaptive Management Strategy (2021). Panellists will review the project’s process, explain how partners worked across jurisdictions, what the technical analysis revealed, the communications and engagement tactics used, and lessons learned. Attendees will learn how the strategy is being implemented with a new Coastal Development Permit Area in West Vancouver.

On the occasion of World Town Planning Day, November 8, CIP hosted the webinar "International Approaches to Healthy Communities." 

With the increasingly complex issues affecting communities globally, the ties between community design and health status are ever more salient. What are planners and organizations doing worldwide to put human and environmental health into the core of city building? This webinar examines international programs and projects that target community health and improvement. 

This presentation offers a powerful and practical argument for local governments to invest in conservation and to consider ecosystems and the services they provide on par with their built infrastructure when considering both short-term and long-term planning. Through the presentation the two unique urban problems of infrastructure decline and ecosystem decline, audiences will see how municipal natural asset management can act as a nature-based solution for both of these problems. 

This presentation critically explores, through a planning perspective, current approaches to policy intended to address the need for adaptation to climate change. By exploring and ultimately facilitating critical thinking about the many multifaceted aspects of climate change vulnerability, the barriers in planning practice that prevent adaptation policy from being truly effective and equitable are discussed. Ultimately, the presentation argues that the urgency and complexity of climate change requires overcoming socio-political barriers within the existing adaptation paradigm, balancing technocratic methods with a collaborative approach focusing on the social, economic, and ethical components of vulnerability to climate change. 

Rural communities are more vulnerable to climate change shocks and stresses due to community-based vulnerabilities associated with low and ageing populations, out-migration of youth, less funding distribution, and less access to skill based human resources. As a result of these vulnerabilities, the ability for the local governments to adequately prepare rural communities for the impacts of climate change is limited, contributing to reduced resilience. To address these vulnerabilities nature-based solutions and trade-offs have been examined to understand the scope in which they can be used to increase resilience in the context of rural communities. 

This presentation focuses on three high-profile and ongoing pipeline protests over the past five years: Standing Rock Sioux opposition to the Dakota Access Pipeline, Giniw Collective activism against Line 3, and Wet'suwet'en resistance to Coastal GasLink at the Unist'ot'en Camp. Each of these protests serves as a case study of one element of planning: sovereignty, values, and futurity. Recognizing Indigenous pipeline protests as planning is importanct because it disrupts the reification of planning by the settler state and affirms Indigenous self-determination. Understanding how Indigenous communities continue to plan under occupation and affirming that as planning will allow settler planners to shift towards models of co-governance rather than domination. 

PLACE is a national planning and geography conference that takes place every fall. Every year, a group of students organize PLACE, bringing together like-minded students, professionals, and others from across Canada to present research and discuss topics in geography and planning. 

This year, PLACE 21 was offered virtually, organized by VIU Masters student volunteers, and hosted by the Canadian Institue of Planners on their GoTo Webinar platfrom. 

On August 25, CIP hosted the webinar "Planning for Disaster Resilience." In line with CIP's key policy priority of climate change planning, this session delved into the question of how we can plan communities that are more resilient while building capacity and managing risk. 

As climate change continues to exacerbate the frequency and severity of natural disasters, the importance of the profession's commitment to reverse the climate crisis by 2030 remains increasingly urgent. In April, CIP hosted a webinar on climate change to discuss climated-related hazards, planning strategies and policies and climate change mitigation. 

In this webinar, participants learned how to use and find climate data on the Climate Atlas of Canada, about flood risk strategies in Nova Scotia, and gained insights into the World Resources Institute's guide on climate change and inequality.