One hundred government, business, and community leaders gathered on November 26 at the Scottish Community Centre in View Royal for the 2024 Local Leadership Forum hosted by South Island Prosperity Partnership (SIPP) and produced by SIPP’s Municipal Partners Committee. Participants included representatives from 11 of the region’s 13 municipalities —Sooke, View Royal, Saanich, Victoria, Esquimalt, Oak Bay, North Saanich, Sidney and Langford.
The annual event engaged participants in a facilitated, in-depth exploration of our region’s top issues and opportunities and how we can better address them across jurisdictional boundaries and public, private and third-sector realms.
“This event really is about breaking down silos, about removing those imaginary boundaries that separate [our region], and realizing that when we come together with one voice, we’re so much stronger than the sum of our parts. That might sound like a cliche, but I’ve seen it in practice again and again,” said SIPP CEO Aaron Stone. “Cross-sector, cross-regional collaboration is the only way that we’re going not just survive but thrive over the decades to come.”
His message was echoed by keynote speakers Don Iveson, former mayor of Edmonton, and Gabriel Eidelman, Assistant Professor, University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy. Together, the two co-authored Toward the Metropolitan Mindset: A Playbook for Stronger Cities in Canada, which highlights how collaboration can lead to a stronger, more resilient region that is better able to respond to change.
“The true resilience of a network of people and institutions to react to the unexpected — that’s really what’s in your hands,” said Iveson. “[Collaboration] may be unsatisfying because there aren’t as many quick wins until a crisis presents itself. But you’ll remember that you positioned yourselves to act with high trust, quickly and decisively, to serve your communities’ future better.”
SIPP worked with its Municipal Partners Committee to develop Local Leadership Forum 2024, bringing municipal leaders and business and community stakeholder together to examine tough issues and bold opportunities that — if approached deliberately and collaboratively — will lead us to a more prosperous Greater Victoria. SIPP’s newly released What Was Said report captures key insights and takeaways from the event.
Looking Back, Thinking Forward
Expertly facilitated by the team at the Roy Group, led by Ian Chisholm, this year’s Local Leadership Forum guided participants through two workshops. For the “Future Backwards” Workshop, participants self-selected to take part in one or more conversations focused on the “WestShore,” “Saanich Peninsula” and “Central Area” subregions of Greater Victoria. During the workshop, they shared their perspectives about:
- the current state of our region
- turning points in our region’s recent history that got us to our current state (both good and bad)
- worst-case scenario future states that could emerge (20 years from now) if we don’t take action
- ideal future states that could emerge (20 years from now) if we take action
- potential turning points that have not yet happened but that we can influence that could help us arrive at our ideal future state.
Space to Create the Region’s Future
This Future Backwards workshop was followed in the afternoon by the “Open Spaces” exercise where participants prioritized issues and opportunities around a key guiding question designed by SIPP’s Municipal Partners Committee: “For us to create a prosperous regional economy that retains and attracts the next generation, we would need to pay attention to … ?”
To answer this overarching question, participants generated 20 topics and then divided into discussion
groups based on their topics of interest. An important part of the discussion involved answering the following structured questions for each topic:
- Why does this deserve attention?
- What is possible if we get this right?
- What happens if we don’t pay attention?
- How might we get this wrong?
- What/who do we need to get this right?
- Key messages from the group.
“What Was Said”
The results of both workshops were gathered in “What Was Said,” the post-event report that captures participants’ unfiltered and unedited thoughts and concerns about the future of our regional prosperity and the top issues and actions needed to get us to an ideal future state.
“The “What Was Said” report will serve as a foundation for SIPP’s new 5-Year Strategic Plan,” said Dallas Gislason, SIPP’s Deputy Director of Regional Economic Development.
“In the coming weeks and months, SIPP will host additional dialogues with regional stakeholders on the strategies and actions (and missing pieces) needed to get our region to our collective desired future state. We can only reach this by working together. SIPP invites all stakeholders to continue contributing their perspectives and ideas to build a shared regional vision.”
The Local Leadership Forum content informs the agenda of SIPP’s Rising Economy Conference (March 4-6, 2024) in Victoria.
CLICK HERE to read the “What Was Said” report on conversations about the future of Greater Victoria.
