CAMA is Proud to Announce an Exclusive Multi-Year Platinum Partnership with the Canoe Procurement Group of Canada

CAMA is excited to announce a new three-year platinum partnership with the Canoe Procurement Group of Canada, one of the largest public sector buying groups in Canada. 

New this year, CAMA has chosen to partner with a select number of companies in order to continue offering specialized products and services to our members. The Canoe Procurement Group of Canada will help increase our value to our members by providing webinars, regional forums, and tips on procurement, just to name a few. Keep an eye out in our e-brief newsletters and social media channels for unique and specific content provided by Canoe, for all size municipalities.

About the Canoe Procurement Group of Canada

The Canoe Procurement Group of Canada is a cooperative buying group representing municipal, public sector, and not-for-profit organizations across the country. Tracing its origins to a handful of Western Canadian municipalities in 1936, Canoe represents over 5,000 members through collaboration with like-minded municipal associations. Canoe is uniquely positioned to support trade-compliant procurement options with best value pricing to members throughout Canada.

By leveraging the collective purchasing power of public and not-for-profit organizations throughout Canada, Canoe provides members access to over 200 trade-compliant approved suppliers in dozens of categories. Canoe members can get preferred rates and service on everything from office supplies to construction equipment, tires to technology, and fuel to group benefit plans.

“For CAMA, its key to invest in strategic partnerships with leading organizations who understand the products and services that our membership requires, and our partnership with the Canoe Procurement Group of Canada aligns with our strategic plan initiatives.” said Jack Benzaquen, CAMA President and City Manager for the City of Dollard-des-Ormeaux. 

“We are pleased to be a platinum partner with CAMA and look forward to providing procurement support to CAMA members from coast to coast to coast. We invite CAMA members to learn how Canoe can help make them more efficient, save them significant time and money, and serve their communities better,” said Duane Gladden, Chief Operating Officer of Canoe.

For more information about the Canoe Procurement Group of Canada at www.canoeprocurement.ca

NOVEMBER 25TH, 2021 - FREE WEBINAR HOSTED BY HOTSPOT PARKING

​How Do You Know What You Don't Know?

At the Public Sector Leader, our members call this the 'Swiss Cheese Gaps' in your Political Acumen competencies. It’s the missing bits in your experience or knowledge that can sometimes cause problems and challenges for municipal leaders meaning you have to work harder, not smarter. What if you could find out where your Swiss Cheese Gaps are? Good news, you can.

Take the Political Acumen Quiz and find out where your gaps are and how you can fill them in.  The quiz takes 5 minutes, it’s free to take, and it's an important step towards building your competency in Political Acumen. Once you complete the quiz, we'll send you the results immediately plus some bonus Coaching Tips on how the Political Acumen Accelerator program can help. 

HOW DO I HOLD PEOPLE ACCOUNTABLE?

The Career Compass advice columns are a service provided by the ICMA Coaching Program. See the article below on "How Do I Hold People Accountable?" In this issue, Dr. Frank Benest explains how accountability is an ongoing conversation in the relationship between manager employee or staff team.



Previous columns on leadership and career development topics are also available at www.icma.org/coaching.

2021 CAMA Awards of Excellence Submissions:

City of Mississauga & City of Kitchener

Willis Award for Innovation Nomination

Population Over 100,000

Digital Modernization

The City of Mississauga has made a substantial improvement for thousands of online customers through a modernization initiative. With an ambitious vision to create better digital experiences, the City adopted new ways of working to achieve their goal. Staff rebuilt the City’s website through an expansive project involving 6 major transformations: Infrastructure, Platforms, Online Services, Content, Site Structure, and Design. The innovation brought measurable improvements, and required an enormous collective change effort. In the past, innovation was often outsourced to professional services. But to improve online customer experience in a sustainable way the City needed to create new in-house capabilities that included:

• Involving customers directly in the redesign
• Adopting agile methodologies
• Hiring new roles in User Experience Design, Web Writing, and accessible websites.
• Creating a new set of working principles to build services that are fast, clear, and easy to use
• Adopting cloud infrastructure and open source platforms to enable speed and future innovation

The City reinvented their digital teams with new capabilities, and in innovative ways that the City would deliver world class online service to customers.

To view the entire award submission, visit the CAMA Member's Section/Awards of Excellence Best Practices (Search for Digital Modernization.)

Willis Award for Innovation Nomination

Population Over 100,000

Kitchener's Development Services Review - Building a City for Everyone

Kitchener’s Development Services Review looked at how the City’s development functions interact, and made improvements resulting in clearer accountability, stronger collaboration, and ultimately a better customer experience.

City staff engaged diverse stakeholders to define a shared vision and carry out Lean reviews of two community-identified priorities. The review significantly improved the site plan and public engagement processes, increased value for customers, and enhanced a continuous improvement workplace culture.

Grounded in a shared vision of A city for everyone, and a mission of working together, growing thoughtfully and building community, the review achieved tangible, sustainable results for the organization and community, including better understanding customers’ experiences, reducing barriers to engagement, digitally transforming plan review, and reducing site plan approval time.

Kitchener is at the forefront of innovation in municipal development services, with a continuous improvement culture to sustain gains. The creativity and methods key to our success are transferable to other local governments who wish to take a more coordinated approach and enhance collaboration.

To view the entire award submission, visit the CAMA Member's Section/Awards of Excellence Best Practices (Search for Kitchener.)