Impact Report: 2021/22

This last year as Executive Director of the Centre has been incredible. I’ve come to appreciate the deep integration of our academic offerings with our public programming, the impactful policy work of our Fellows, the exciting new communities we embraced with our Jack P. Blaney Award Recipient – adrienne maree brown, the international impact we have had on climate engagement and the convening power that we have brought to Canadian cities. 

As we celebrated our first 20 years, I’ve been struck by the people who are gravitating to the Centre. They reflect different ways of knowing, convening and understanding the world. They are helping groups move beyond polarization, governments build democratic capacity, and communities heal from trauma. They are dreamers, facilitators, researchers and artists. They are writers, policy developers and scientists. And they are capacity builders, planners and storytellers. The Centre has become a global beacon for those who want to practice and advance dialogue – in all its manifestations.

Dialogue can’t help but alter the people who engage with it. Dialogue has touched me and my engagement with the Centre and its staff, students, faculty, alumni, community partners and donors have shaped me. When you review this report, I hope you will see the power of dialogue and engagement. My sincerest thanks to all of you and to SFU for supporting such a unique Centre in the world. 

Shauna Sylvester 
Executive Director to April 14, 2022 
Professor, Professional Practice

The program themes included Semester in New Times—taught by Dialogue Associates, Am Johal, Stuart Poyntz and Jackie Wong—and Semester by the Salish Sea—taught by Dialogue Fellows Ginger Gosnell-Myers and Dr. Janet Moore along with Sarah Hay, who teaches at Emily Carr University Art + Design and has her own design firm, Slow and Steady. Students from across the world built capacity in leadership, community and self care as well as dialogue and facilitation skills. 

This youth-led initiative brings together local First Nations, municipalities, organizations and individuals in the Salish Sea ecosystem region through public engagement and the spreading of stewardship and educational opportunities.⁠

YOSS was a finalist for the Future Ground Prize by the David Suzuki Foundation, an award that highlights youth-led initiatives in British Columbia and Ontario that make positive impacts on the environment and local communities.

The concept for this program, which was sold out in 2022, was created in the latter half of 2020 through various planning meetings with Semester in Dialogue alumni and an SFU student survey to learn more about what they need for success. CAMPers built invaluable skills and perspectives to feel confident in their future at SFU, all while learning the art of dialogue and making friends.

To increase accessibility and respond to pandemic uncertainty in January, the course was offered online for three hours, once per week. Students engaged in deep dialogues on many topics including trust and power, food colonialism, positionality, childhood trauma, Indigenous world views, resilience and anti-fragility.

The first cohort learned about and critically explored their role in the circular economy and what systemic shifts are required to address zero waste. The second cohort asked youth to learn about climate adaptation and explore ways to prepare cities to better adapt to climate challenges and impacts.

What we heard from a broad range of people connected to diabetes is supporting the Public Health Agency of Canada in the development of of a National Diabetes Framework as required by Act C-237. This information also supports commitments in Budget 2021 to provide $35 million of additional investments over five years.

Co-facilitated by Shauna Sylvester and Elodie Jacquet, participants at this virtual event conducted an informed and focused analysis of ongoing problematic patterns, limitations and obstacles to addressing military sexual violence.

Working group members developed a graphic to depict the paradigm shift required to improve the quality of life of people affected by self-injurious behaviour and video stories of the experience of families to help stimulate discussion at the workshop.

The proposed medical program is designed to be a catalyst for change in British Columbia and across Canada, accelerating health innovation in team-based, preventive and community-based care while emphasizing the health needs of underserved and marginalized populations. We captured views and ideas through these dialogue sessions as well as during an the Indigenous information session, a pair of targeted webinars and an online survey.

The Ottawa Declaration, endorsed by Dialogue Fellow Paul Meyer, emerged from this conference, and a delegation, including Dialogue Fellow Dr. Jennifer Simons, was sent to present the recommendations to parliament.  

He also drafted OSI's submission to the first session of the working group. Paul was featured on an episode of Space Café Canada in which he described his engagement on space security issues and ideas for cooperative action in future.

adrienne is at the forefront of advancing new and more equitable practices for facilitation that focus on healing, trust and joy. We worked with various community members, including Dialogue Fellow Ginger Gosnell-Myers and Dialogue Associate Vanessa Richards, to provide a unique and meaningful series of events.

The inclusion of racialized voices to help determine the needs and purposes for each event ultimately contributed to the success of this project and the connections that were made during the programming.  

This work included SFU Lifelong Learning's Circles for Learning & Unlearning Initiative; Indigenization readiness assessments with Adler University and Vancouver Community College; establishing an advisory with SFU's Sustainability Office; facilitating the Congress 2021 session where the Congress EDI+D Commitee presented its landmark report to the Federation of the Humanities & Social Sciences; and developing a new equity survey with BCIT's Office of Respect, Diversity & Inclusion.

For the Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue, Dr. Robert Daum, Dialogue Fellow Lindsay Heller and Nav Purewall collaborated on our community responses to racism. For SFU's senior leadership team, Dr. Robert Daum and Elodie Jacquet delivered a workshop on how to hold space for difficult conversations. 

The initiative is a collaborative means to enhance social justice, build community and strengthen democratic culture. Last year, the team researched the history and critiques of public hearings, global examples of alternative public engagement practices and best practices for evaluating public participation. Stay tuned this year for updates on the dialogues and next steps of the project.  

Instead of only asking questions about the big topic of democracy, there are questions that apply to five core principles of democratic engagement: build capacity to participate, foster commitment to democratic values, deepen relationships and social connections, be equitable and caring, and establish accountability.  

This was a collaborative and competitive event where teams of high school students analyze and discuss ethical dilemmas. Twelve teams from high schools around the Lower Mainland came together in the Jack P. Blaney Asia Pacific Hall to collaborate and engage in democratic practices.

This forum was a national, democratic dialogue that included youth leaders from four major parties in Canada. These youth leaders came together to discuss their unique perspectives of issues that consisted of climate change, reconciliation, mental health and more.

The infosite provides definitions, goals and the in-depth background information to inform citizens about the facts of mobility pricing in Metro Vancouver.

To explore different concepts associated with mobility pricing, MLR hosted six local virtual dialogues and one in-person dialogue at the Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue building. Residents across the region shared their lived experiences and learned from each other. At the two-day in-person dialogue, MLR took participants through deeper literacy building around key issues facing the region, exploring concepts of mobility pricing, highlighting their own criteria for success in pricing, and developing broader proposals addressing the region’s mobility and pricing challenges.

The panel spoke on strategic preparedness for environmental wins in a polarized world and how to work toward long-term consensus-building with people outside the traditional ‘envirosphere’ so that polarization and politics don’t derail environmental progress.

The forum gathered feedback from parents regarding the Ministry's new model for online learning, changes to the legislation under Bill 8 and the resulting changes to enrolment of K-12 online learning delivery. 

SAMbot was deployed for the 2021 Canadian federal election period and collected data and insights about the online abuse directed at party leaders and incumbent candidates who ran for re-election across the country. The use of SAMbot to track toxic sentiment in other Canadian elections is being explored.

At these custom sessions with co-op residents, HNC activated resources developed in 2020/2021 in collaboration with Happy Cities such as the Together, Apart Toolkit for building social connections in multi-unit housing during the pandemic.

Through multiple, comprehensive dialogues, this initiative strengthened a pan-Canadian network of multilevel climate actors whose work would continue leading up to and during the conference in Glasgow. As part of the efforts of an international team, this initiative saw appropriate emphasis placed on multilevel climate action in the COP26 Presidency texts, and in Canada’s own efforts subsequently. Moving forward the Centre for Dialogue keeps this national network of multilevel climate actors alive as part of the Cities + Climate Initiative leading into COP27 (Egypt) and beyond.

ICEN and partners were selected by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to host an official side event titled “Citizen Engagement for Climate Action”. Additional ICEN events at COP 26 included the “Live from Glasgow: Climate Engagement for Systems Change” web event to connect with participants around the world and an invitational lunch with leading organizations seeking to advance the field of climate engagement.

This work was further featured at the Westminster Foundation for Democracy’s inaugural environmental democracy conference and through a partner session at the 2021 Open Government Partnership Global Summit.

This was the origins of a formalized Canadian Battery Task Force, comprised of 19 key industry stakeholders, which is recognized by provincial and federal governments as a leading industry voice on building Canada’s battery industry. The Task Force’s advice and recommendations to-date have helped to inspire 2021 federal election platforms, ministerial mandate letters and budget allocations. Since the group was convened in spring 2021, Canada’s battery supply chain has risen to the top of federal and provincial government agendas, catalyzing billions of dollars in investment into the industry just in the last year.

Alongside these stakeholders, Clean Energy Canada continues to encourage the federal government to "Buy Clean" with its massive infrastructure budget, simultaneously creating market demand for low-carbon construction products (e.g., steel, cement) and driving innovation. Over the last year, Clean Energy Canada and the Buy Clean Industry Alliance have conducted joint dialogue, building on information created for federal policymakers such as this roadmap and this report on lessons learned for Canada from similar policies in the US.

Prefab construction has the potential to create diverse, secure jobs in forest-based communities to meet domestic and international market demand for sustainable, net zero, low-embodied carbon buildings.

ACT has convened a team of leading researchers and practitioners from across North America to develop a framework for nature-based solutions that multi-task. These solutions will be tailored and operationalized with key stakeholders at watershed, community, neighbourhood and building scales. Natural areas and ecosystem services are even more precious under a changing climate.

Our newest Fellows include: Kris Archie, Djaka Blais-Amare, Lindsay Heller, Dr. Jacqueline Koerner, Dr. Janet Moore, Anil Patel, Dr. Alison Shaw and Mark Zacharias.

In November 2021, the Centre was also pleased to announce the addition of 21 new Dialogue Associates to our esteemed community of over 90 people who are leaders in the practice of dialogue and engagement in our region. 

In that capacity, Mark put on eight workshops for graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, faculty and staff focused on communicating their academic work to public audiences. He also consulted on a number of publications for public audiences from SFU researchers, including Alice Fleerackers, Dr. Jennifer Wolowic and Shauna Sylvester. 

In June 2021, Dialogue Fellow, Sabreena Delhon, joined the Samara Centre for Democracy as their new Executive Director. 

In September 2021, and after her 16-year career in climate resilience as executive director of ACT, Deborah Harford embarked on a new adventure and handed ACT’s reins to Dr. Alison Shaw. Deborah moved on to be Head of Philanthropy and CEO of the Legible Foundation. 

In November 2021, Senior Dialogue Fellow, Dr. Jennifer Allen Simons, was presented the Canadians for a Nuclear Weapons Convention (CNWC) 2021 Distinguished Achievement Award for her longstanding commitment to nuclear disarmament.

In January 2022, Dialogue Fellow, Dr. Robert Daum, completed five years as Chair of The Laurier Institution. He was also invited to become an inaugural member of a new Canadian Network of Law & Humanities (CNLH).

Recent completed renovations include lobby upgrades, Mary Filer glass sculpture installation, room amalgamation to create a programming space for a 100-person roundtable dialogue, technology and audio-visual upgrades and chair upgrades.