No Travel Expenses, but maybe a few per diems ... as City Council and staff take part in UBCM virtual convention this week

There's no travel this year, but still a full agenda to take in
as Prince Rupert City Council members and senior staff take
part in the annual UBCM convention by virtual link up
(photo from past City of PR mailer)

It will be five days of convention attendance without the travel, as once again for the second year in a row, the UBCM Annual convention makes use of a virtual format owing to the COVID situation across the province.

This week's event gets underway at 1:30 today with a pair of meetings on Finance and Insurance, while  a networking event this evening.

The main elements of the week of convention however launch on Tuesday, with a four day program packed with an ambitious list of events, leading up to the final keynote address on Friday morning by Premier John Horgan.

The week is made up of workshops, information sharing sessions and keynote speeches from a range of officials, with an impressive list of guest speakers from outside of the world of municipal government to share some themes with the delegates as the five days roll by.

Among those scheduled to speak are the Honourable Murray Sinclair who will speak on Truth and Reconciliation as part of the Plenary session. 

Also set to speak will be Opposition Leader Shirley Bond and Green Party of BC leader Sonia Furstenau. 

Highly acclaimed Canadian comedian and actor, Rick Mercer, will also be part of the keynote speakers listings, with a Thursday Q & A session with Jody Vance to be streamed to the delegates.

Those participating in the virtual convention can even explore the offerings from the UBCM Virtual Tradeshow, gaining their entry to virtual showroom floor upon resgistration

You can review the full program agenda and explore the list of trade show exhibitors here.

The theme for the five days is Obstacles to Opportunities, a nod at the challenging year faced by many municipalities through COVID, forest fires, floods and extreme heat to name a few areas of note.

Some of those municipal concerns make for some extensive review as part of the Program Agenda. 

One of the most important of the elements of the week will be the vote on resolutions by the municipal officials and you can review what they will have up for consideration and which communities in the Northwest provided for some of the talking points from our notes here.

The Members of Prince Rupert City Council have said nothing of the event in the lead up to this weeks convention, with no mention of their plans or what they may be raising at the conference made through any of their public council sessions, or through the Mayor's social media footprint.

Though such is the scope of the commitment required for the event, that anyone looking to access city council members or senior staff may find a delay when it comes to getting a call or correspondence back this week.

So far the key municipal event of the year has also for the most part gone un-noticed by the Northwest media, with little in the way of background to be found as to what municipal leaders may hope to achieve, or realize from their five days of conference with officials and leaders province wide.

You can access some of our notes and our archive of backgrounders from around the province here.

Check back often this week as we update our files with any new items of note from convention week.

You can also keep up with the daily events through twitter and the #UBCM2021 hashtag

Further notes on municipal themes in Prince Rupert can be found from our Council Discussion archive.