Canada’s first ever National Infrastructure Summit (NIS), hosted by the City of Regina in January 2011, was unique in many ways.

One reason is that the conference gathered such a wide spectrum of participants from the private, non-profit, and public sectors. The summit attracted hundreds of delegates, representing diverse industries such as engineering, architecture, construction, and finance. Academics, tax specialists, municipal and infrastructure policy experts, and think tanks were also in attendance. The public sector was represented by elected officials and civil servants from all three orders of government—municipal, provincial, and federal.

By all measures, the summit was a huge success, and work is in full swing for the second National Infrastructure Summit to be held in Regina on September 10-12, 2012. The success of the 2011 National Infrastructure Summit and the importance of the coming 2012 Summit are clear. The 350 delegates who attended the 2011 event were surveyed, and 94% indicated their interest in attending the 2012 Summit. Further, attendees believed that the momentum created in 2011 needs to be continued and expanded. In particular, the discussion needs to move from the theoretical to the practical, with the focus placed on global models and innovative examples that are being tried, tested, and proving successful.

At the 2012 Summit, delegates will participate and engage in discussions and workshops led by leaders and experts in various fields such as global best practices in infrastructure management and new approaches to funding, planning, building, and maintaining our critical public assets.

2012 NIS is designed to expand upon five major themes:

  1. Defining the Need: When defining infrastructure needs, it’s important to have an accurate inventory of all assets and to properly determine, measure, and understand their current condition. This theme will address practical actions and best   practices such as defining appropriate levels of service and identifying new solutions to implement sustainable infrastructure asset management.
  2. Financing the Opportunities: This theme hones in on innovative options to finance infrastructure in municipalities and strategies and solutions that can produce cost efficiencies for infrastructure at any age of its life cycle, while also maintaining service levels expected by citizens.
  3. Politics of Infrastructure: Municipal leaders and infrastructure managers face a number of “real-world” challenges when making and executing decisions about local infrastructure investment. This theme focuses on how municipal leaders can best determine local priorities, communicate infrastructure needs, assess and evaluate funding options, and earn public support for infrastructure investment decisions.
  4. Innovation: Canada’s public infrastructure is aging, with some systems over a century old. Often, the mindset behind infrastructure design is even more archaic. This theme focuses on innovation—designing and implementing innovative, lower cost, and more sustainable methods of providing neighbourhood infrastructure. Innovation is not just about more funding to do more innovative things, but finding new ways of doing what we do now, but doing it better.
  5. Citizen Engagement: Citizen engagement is based on the premise that people should have, and want to have, greater influence on decisions that affect them. True engagement is more than just asking for opinions—it’s about ensuring that issues are framed authentically and sincerely. Informing, educating and gathering public input is critical to the successful implementation of new initiatives, projects, and processes.

A very unique aspect of the 2012 Summit are the two urban renewal competitions that are being held in conjunction with the conference.  The competitions have been tagged with the title Morph My City.

The first competition invites submissions for a long-term and step-by-step design of a new neighbourhood. Beginning with a canola field—an undeveloped, unserviced section of land within the city of Regina—the competition will be won by those who draw up the best plan to build-out a creative, innovative, and sustainable 21stcentury urban neighbourhood.

The second competition involves submission of a conceptual design plan to renew a pre-existing neighbourhood—to turn it into an innovative, long-term, and financially sustainable neighbourhood—again within the City of Regina.

The finalists for both competitions will present their submissions during the summit, and an expert panel of judges will choose a winning submission for each competition. To date, 2012 Summit organizers have received exposure to over 10,000 interested parties through the Morph My City website. Interest has come from all over the world, including Canada, the United States, Australia, India, Mexico, and Egypt.

Alongside the Morph My City competition, the 2012 Summit has yet another added feature—an Invitational Trade Show that will showcase innovative tools for resolving infrastructure issues.

Without doubt, the Summit is one of the most anticipated infrastructure events for 2012. For further details on registration, guest speakers, and accommodations, please visit the 2012 National Infrastructure Summit website at www.NISummit2012.ca or contact Sheila Harmatiuk, Manager of Government Relations at (306) 777-6769 or .