
PRACTICE MAKES POLICY
This year's Policy Community Conference explores the idea of Practice:
- What are the practices, the skills and mindsets, that support great policy work?
- How do we use these practices to creatively resolve increasingly complex policy challenges?
- What new questions can we ask to transform our practice?
ABOUT

Why gather?
Intentional in design
Thinking about the conference experience we want to give
This year’s Conference offers you a variety of immersive learning and development experiences, including field trips, case studies and a Policy Park with reflective practice training, unstructured time and photo exhibit.
We’re slowing things down and providing a change of pace with fewer plenaries and sessions of varying lengths to allow time for reflection and dynamic discussions. You can customize a program that suits your needs.
We’re also working to connect the Conference to activities both before and after the event as part of a regular heart-beat of your Community vs being a stand alone event.





Choose your own adventure

Skills and Mindsets
How we do it: practice A, B...


AGENDA
Registration
Conference Opening (Also available via webcast)
Teaching
Shifting perspectives: Implementing an Inuit Nunangat policy
Health Break
Concurrent Sessions

Creating Great Choices (Also available via webcast)

How Might we Transform Dialogue Through Generative Listening?

How Can We Make Sense of Qualitative Data? Some Insight through Public Engagement

How might we develop policy grounded in human centred design: Case study and practical tools from a Social Lab aimed at new approaches to Economic Immigration in New Brunswick.

The Park

Where is here? The Art of Place Field Trip
Lunch Break
Concurrent Sessions

Language: Revitalizing the language of policy (Also available via webcast)
Words make (and break) conversations
Conversations nourish (and starve) language
Language creates (and destroys) identity
As a community of practitioners we both think a lot and think a little about the words we use and their impact. But we rarely discuss what language we need when multiple world views mingle, how we want to understand our better selves and what we might be missing in our current interpretation of the world. So how are we doing? Where is the practice of choosing, using and renewing our words taking us? What worlds is it making? What impact does it have on the inner life of policy practitioners? How does it shape our organizational cultures? Where are we stuck and why? Why does this matter? Where are the new possibilities? Why does this matter? Who can help us think about this - help us become wiser?

*12:30 Start
Integrative Thinking Challenge 1

Barn-raising: How to frame problems people can solve

How do we create better outcomes for people? The only framework you need

The Park
Health break
The Clerk in Conversation (Also available via webcast)
End of Day (Also available via webcast)
Giving and Receiving Advice: Politics and Policy
Registration
Welcome to Day 2 (Also available via webcast)
Margins are the Majority
Health Break
Concurrent Sessions

Policy Innovation (Also available via webcast)

Integrative Thinking Challenge 2

Through the Looking Glass: What Might We Learn From Experiments with Policy in an Innovation Space?

Can you think like a futurist?

The Park

Where is here? The Art of Place Field Trip
Lunch Break
Concurrent Sessions

Digital, ethics and inclusion: why policy practitioners should care? (Also available via webcast)

*12:30 Start
Integrative Thinking Challenge 3

Storytelling: How might we drive engagement with research and policy?

Who and what do you need to make experiments happen?

The Park
Health break
Remarks (Also available via webcast)
Trust and Legitimacy
Reflections
Policy Community Champions closing remarks
FEATURED SPEAKERS
Neil Bouwer
Vice President, Canada School of Public Service
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Nadia Duguay
Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Exeko
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Georgette LeBlanc
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Natan Obed
President, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami
Natan Obed is the President of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, the national organization representing Inuit in Canada. He is originally from Nain, Nunatsiavut, and currently lives in Ottawa. For 10 years, he lived in Iqaluit, Nunavut and worked as the director of social and cultural development for Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. (NTI), which represents the rights of Nunavut Inuit. He has devoted his entire professional career to working with Inuit representational organizations to improve the wellbeing of Inuit in Canada.
Photo credit: Hebron JackieDives
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Natan Obed is the President of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, the national organization representing Inuit in Canada. He is originally from Nain, Nunatsiavut, and currently lives in Ottawa. For 10 years,...
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Will Prosper
Co-Founder of Montréal-Nord Républik and the Hoodstock Social Forum
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Jennifer Riel
Adjunct Professor, Rotman School of Management
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Malcolm Saulis
Indigenous Elder (Spirit name: Nil na abis)
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Nadine Smith
Global Communications Director, Centre for Public Impact
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Michael Wernick
Clerk of the Privy Council
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Rachel Wernick
Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Employment and Social Development Canada
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PANELISTS
Nitika Agarwal
Nitika Agarwal is a policy maker turned entrepreneur. Previously a senior advisor in UK government, she has led European negotiations on economic and financial policy, including serving as Chief of Staff of the U.K. Ambassador to the EU. She is now Chief Operating Officer at Apolitical - the free peer to peer learning platform for public servants in 140 countries. Apolitical has been named one of the world's most innovative companies for social good.
Talk to me about:
- Entrepreneurship and innovation in policymaking
- Creating vibrant communities of policy makers which bust traditional siloes
- Government partnering with smaller NGOs and startups
- Building an ambitious, mission driven tech company
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Nitika Agarwal is a policy maker turned entrepreneur. Previously a senior advisor in UK government, she has led European negotiations on economic and financial policy, including serving as Chief of...
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Brent Barron
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Rodney Ghali
Rodney Ghali is the Assistant Secretary to the Cabinet of the Impact and Innovation Unit at the Privy Council Office, Government of Canada. He is responsible for leading the exploration and execution of new and innovative policy and programmatic approaches, focused on improving impact, accountability and value for Canadians. Prior to his current role, Rodney was Director General of the Centre for Chronic Disease Prevention, Public Health Agency of Canada, where he was responsible for overseeing the Federal Government's policy and programs in the areas of healthy living and chronic disease prevention. Previously, Rodney spent a number of years at Health Canada in various positions such as Senior Advisor to the Deputy Minister and Director of Strategic Policy. He has worked on numerous legislative/regulatory initiatives and health-related issues including: food and consumer product safety, reproductive technologies, aboriginal health, blood safety and mental health. Rodney holds a Master of Science (neurobiology) from McGill University and a Honours Bachelor of Science (genetics) from the University of Western Ontario.
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Rodney Ghali is the Assistant Secretary to the Cabinet of the Impact and Innovation Unit at the Privy Council Office, Governm...
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Meghan Hellstern
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Leanne Labelle
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Kaili Levesque
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Isabelle Mondou
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Anna Wong
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REGISTRATION
How to participate
The Policy Community is supported by over 25 funding departments and agencies. These partners receive an allotment of tickets to distribute to their employees as they see fit, with lots of encouragement to send a diverse group of participants to the Conference. Funding departments are also hosting conference webcast viewings in their buildings. Not sure if your department is a funding partner? Check here to confirm.
We also distribute tickets to organizations outside the federal public service as part of our policy shaping ecosystem. For example, provinces, think tanks, NGO practitioners, academia are also invited to attend.
Keep reading to find out how you can win a ticket through our Photo Contest or register to participate virtually.
VIRTUAL PARTICIPATION
Viewing centres
Can’t participate in person? Not a problem. The Canada School of Public Service is sponsoring mini-conferences in various locations across the country to support the face-to-face advantages a conference delivers. Attend in person in your region and meet others from different departments. Check out our list of Viewing Centres.
Conference-in-a-box
We have created a treasure chest of resources, called Conference-in-a-box, that you can use to host your own mini-conference experience. In addition to webcasting, our content collaborators are designing activity kits for groups that you can run yourself. The Conference in a Box will also have poster, email and twitter templates you can use to let colleagues know what you’re planning.
Webcasting
Tune in to the webcast of the plenary sessions and speakers from the live event at the National Arts Centre!
To ensure that you will not have any problems connecting to the live webcast, we highly recommend that you visit this website as soon as possible so that we can address any issues prior to the event.
PHOTO CONTEST
Looking for a golden ticket?
Win your way to the Conference!
Are your Department’s conference tickets all distributed, or maybe your Department isn’t a Policy Community funding partner. That’s OK – we’ve got you covered. Enter our Policy Perspectives photo contest (open to public servants only; travel not included).
Policy Snapshots
“Our lives are measured in moments,” say Chip and Dan Heath in their book, The Power of Moments. Moments can make us feel engaged, joyful, and motivated or they can be sorrowful and difficult. They can mark transitions, good or bad, or happen spontaneously. They are also everyday. Some moments are strengthened because they are shared, others are powerful because they come from within ourselves.
So, what makes a policy moment? Who are the people, what are places, issues and different perspectives that shape our understanding of policy moments? Have you got a view to share? Enter our photo contest to show and tell us a policy moment that matters to you, as a public servant, a member of the Policy Community or a Canadian.
Use the power of visuals to tell your story (a picture is worth a thousand words). Your goal is to capture a policy moment and make people feel like they are there. Evoke, don’t just describe. Move, don’t just convince. Open up minds, don’t close them. Consider your perspective and the relationship between objects in the photograph. Is there a particular way of thinking reflected (real or constructed)? How is that point of view influenced by beliefs or lived experiences? Who is in the frame and who is missing? What is the essence of the moment you want to share? What new questions or insights can you bring on the policy practitioners and challenges that are shaping our world?
The contest has now closed. Thank you for your participation!