Telelearning Session 17: Municipal Government Supports for the Social Economy

December 30, 2009

Friday, January 15th 2010
9:00 am Pacific Time (12:00 pm Eastern time)

  1. What role does the municipal government play in the social economy sector?
  2. What are the best practices in municipal support of the social economy sector?
  3. How can community citizens engage municipal government in supporting the social economy sector?

PRESENTERS:

Marguerite Mendell is Associate Professor in the School of Community and Public Affairs and Director of the Karl Polanyi Institute of Political Economy at Concordia University, Montreal, Canada.

 Jenny Kain is a senior strategic planner in the Policy and Research section, of the Community Services Department of the City of Edmonton.

 Martin Garber-Conrad is CEO of the Edmonton Community Foundation and chair of the Edmonton Housing Trust Fund.

 Peter Hall is an Assistant Professor in the Urban Studies Program at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver. He is Chair of CCEDNet’s Research Advisory Committee and is a member of the BALTA Node of the Canadian Social Economy Research Partnership and will be moderating the session.

 

CALL LOGISTICS:

  • Session Date: Friday, January 15th 2010
  • Call begins at 12:00 pm Eastern time, 9:00 am Pacific time
  • Call-in information will be given upon registration
  • Register before January 11th to obtain dial in information and background papers
  • This session is in English.

 

SESSION FORMAT: 1 Hour

  • Welcome: 5 min
  • Presentations: 10 min by each speaker
  • Discussion: 25 minutes

 

REGISTRATION:

Register by phoning 250-472-4976, or e-mailing with your name, location, and work or volunteer position. For more information about the Canadian Social Economy Hub, please visit: www.socialeconomyhub.ca

 

Limited number of spaces available – Register soon!

 

BIOGRAPHIES:

Marguerite Mendell is committed to partnership research, or to what she refers to as the “co-construction of knowledge.” For more than two decades, Mendell has collaborated with practitioners in community economic development, the social economy and the growing social finance sector, resulting in important innovations in public policy.

At the School of Community and Public Affairs, she has brought this methodology to her students, engaging them in community based research. Her work on the social economy and social finance in Quebec has generated international interest and is part of an ongoing dialogue on innovative economic initiatives to reduce poverty and develop new collective forms of wealth creation. Mendell is also the co-founder of the Karl Polanyi Institute of Political Economy established at Concordia University in 1988.

With Kari Polanyi-Levitt, the daughter of Karl Polanyi, she created the Karl Polanyi Archive, an extraordinary research tool for scholars in all disciplines interested in and inspired by the work of Karl Polanyi, considered one of the ten most important thinkers of the 20th century. The global financial crisis and impending world recession have increased the importance of the work of Karl Polanyi today.

 

Jenny Kain works as a strategic planner in the Policy and Research section of Community Services with the City of Edmonton. She believes passionately in the power of communities to create positive change. For the past 15 years her work has focused on municipal involvement in social economy/CED initiatives and she has been an active contributor to a variety of initiatives aimed at building community and reducing poverty.

Her passion, commitment and leadership have resulted in the establishment of a number of organizations and municipal projects that have made a significant contribution to the lives of many Edmontonians. Among these are Women Building Futures, The Edmonton Social Enterprise Fund and Vibrant Communities Edmonton. Jenny has used her skills for initiating and building collaborative and innovative projects to build healthy, vibrant communities and to support people in the pathway out of poverty.

 

Martin Garber-Conrad Martin Garber-Conrad has been CEO of the Edmonton Community Foundation since March, 2005. For the previous 18 years he was executive director of E4C—a community organization that operates a variety of programs for women, children and youth-at-risk, primarily in the areas of housing, feeding, employment and outreach.

Martin is chair of Homeward Trust and, in collaboration with the City of Edmonton, founded Edmonton’s Social Enterprise Fund, which provides loan financing for charitable and non-profit social enterprises.  He has been with the BALTA social economy research initiative since the beginning.

 

Dr. Peter Hall is an Assistant Professor in the Urban Studies Program at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver. He is Chair of CCEDNet’s Research Advisory Committee and is a member of the BALTA Node of the Canadian Social Economy Research Partnership.

He has held appointments at the Centre for Sustainable Community Development at SFU, the Local Economic Development Program at the University of Waterloo, and in local government in Durban, South Africa. Dr Hall’s research work bridges the disciplines of geography, planning and economics, and is he especially interested in the role of the local public sector in shaping the economic activity and opportunity.