Voices from FUSION 2026: A Conversation with Neil Loewen, CIP Emerging Planner Award Winner

Each year, CIP’s Emerging Planner Award recognizes a professional within the first 10 years of their planning career who is already making a meaningful impact in the profession.

At FUSION 2026, held in Montreal from July 7 to 9, Neil Loewen received this honour in front of peers, mentors, and leaders from across the country.

Congratulations on receiving CIP’s Emerging Planner Award! What was it like to be recognized at FUSION 2026?

An honour and a surprise! I really couldn’t believe it at first – Canada is a big country with a lot of planners at different stages of …. emergence, so this wasn’t really something that was on my radar beforehand. Of course, I also found it really heartening and validating to have the work I’ve been contributing to validated by my peers. I looked up the list of previous Emerging Planners and was struck by how many creative thinkers and doers I admire are on it. To have my name added to that list feels pretty special.

And meeting Armi – the other winner of the award – has been really cool. She’s doing really important stuff in active transportation equity and it’s been really inspiring to get to know her.

What does the Emerging Planner Award mean to you at this stage in your career?

It’s got me looking back on these first few years of my career and reflecting on what they’ve meant. CIP initially asked me for a lengthy and fulsome bio and then distilled that into the much shorter story they shared when announcing the award – which was an interesting external perspective on what CIP sees as the story arc for my career. Day-to-day work can otherwise feel like a collection of meetings, deadlines, invoices and paperwork, but I think we should all find opportunities to “zoom out” every once in a while, especially when we need a reminder that we’re probably further along than we think.

Can you tell us about your experience attending FUSION 2026?

Well, it was a week spent in Montreal in the summer – what more could you want? It was such a great location for an urbanist conference and a wonderful gathering of inspiring practitioners from across the country. I DEFINITELY over-loaded my agenda though – the days were packed with planning content from dawn until dusk and then networking from dusk to dawn – I think I’m still recovering from it. I made so many friends (my Linkedin and my Instagram truly runneth over) and I’m excited to reconnect with them, be it at future conferences, on future projects, or just when I happen to be passing through their town someday.

How did the conference help you grow as a professional?

What the conference really hit home for me was both the diversity of the practice from coast to coast and, at the same time, the common purpose underneath it all. Planning looks very different in a major metropolitan centre, a small municipality, a rural community or a northern context, but no matter where you are, the work of a planner is ultimately the hard but important work of making places better to live, work and play.

It also made me feel much more connected to the profession as a national community, beyond just the Toronto planning world I’m most familiar with. And before I was a planner in Toronto I was a kid on a farm in rural Manitoba so it was so it was a nice reminder that planning is a profession that can connect very different places and experiences and that there’s a lot to learn when we get outside our own context.

What advice would you give to other early-career planners thinking about attending a future national conference?

My advice? Beg, borrow, steal, do whatever it takes to get there (note: please don’t actually steal, it’s against the Code). Attending the conference is the best way to take in the range of planning work available to you and to meet like-minded individuals from across the country. It’s made me want to travel more since I now have a planner friend in just about any city I’ll visit!

And find ways to be involved beyond attending the sessions – including as a volunteer. I put my hand up to lead the Max Bacon Run, which was a 5km run through Montreal’s Old Port. I co-led the run with Planner and Montreal local Dominic Tremblay and it was a real highlight. Of course, it took work to put together the route and discussion points and shepherd the group the whole way but we met so many interesting folks in a setting that was immediately without pretense. And we learned so much being in the group of nerdy yet athletic urban planners! It’s one of the more memorable experiences I had at the conference.

Looking back, what experience early in your planning career had the biggest impact on the planner you are today?

It’s an interesting question. I learned about research during my time at The Centre for Active Transportation (TCAT) and the research I did with Dr. Shelagh McCartney and Dr. Nina-Marie Lister early on. When I joined Urban Strategies, I got to see how those ideas land in a consultant-client setting, and how to do the most good for both your client and the public – a skill I’ve been honing ever since.

But if there’s one thing early on that’s had long-term impact, I think it was just the openness to saying yes. Truthfully, I couldn’t decide what I wanted to do and was interested in a little bit of everything – so I said yes to every new opportunity that came my way.  Yes to leading walking tours, yes to joining my alumni association, yes to helping out on the Social Committee, and yes to getting involved with CIP. Those yeses turned into a network, some of my best friends, and some of my favourite work experiences.

What’s next for you? Are there any projects or goals on the horizon?

The CIP Emerging Planner award is meant to recognize my “early career” and I’m happy to treat it as a bit of a capstone before I see what “mid-career” looks like. Somewhat relatedly I’ve set up a moment to do my own “zoom out” and some reflection: January 2027 I’m going to be taking a 6-month work leave! It’s both exciting and terrifying at the same time, but either way I’m planning for it to be a moment to catch my breath and look around, catch my breath, level up my skills, and explore community and creative pursuits that I don’t always have time for during the 9-to-5. After nearly a decade of fast-paced consulting work, it feels like a good moment to step back, sharpen the pencil, and think about what kind of planning work I want to do next. It’s cool to be in an office like Urban Strategies where I’m supported in that endeavour, and I’m excited to see what perspective I bring back with me and into mid-career.

Is there anything else you’d like to share with CIP members?

I can’t reflect on career success without thinking about planning school, and TMU’s School of Urban Regional Planning was an incredible place for me to start, learning under great mentors like Dr. Pamela Robinson and Ron Keeble. The connection that followed with the alumni association has been just as impactful – I can’t recommend enough getting involved in your alumni association!

It’s been a wonderful first chapter to this planning career and Urban Strategies has been the perfect place for me to learn and grow as a planner. The opportunities to get involved with CIP have been really enriching and I’d encourage other CIP members to look into ways they can join in. Planning is a profession built around people and places, and I think our professional community should be just as curious, generous and collaborative as the communities we work to build.