Canadian Government Executive - Volume 24 - Issue 02

March/April 2018 // Canadian Government Executive / 11 INTERVIEW After six years there, I moved to the Pacific National Exhibition as their Chief Executive Officer. I was there for 11 years, at which time I was asked by the then- Premier to consider a position as a Deputy Minister in the provincial government. I became the Deputy Minister of Intergov- ernmental Relations, and after six months I was fortunate to take over the 2010 Van- couver Olympics file as President and CEO of the BC Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games Secretariat. Following that, I attempted to retire but wasn’t very successful. The Mayor of Penticton reached out to me through a re- tired former Cabinet Minister and asked if I would apply for the CAO position at the City of Penticton. During my tenure there, I was approached by a search firm and asked to consider the role of Chief Ex- ecutive Officer of the Regional Recreation Corporation of Wood Buffalo, which is in Fort McMurray, Alberta. I thought that would be a great way to end my career, but at the end of 2016, I was asked to consider joining the Regional Mu- nicipality of Wood Buffalo as the Interim CAO. At the end of 2017, I moved from RMWB Interim CAO to CAO, bringing us to today. One key leadership value I’ve learned from the many fantastic mentors I’ve had throughout my career is that you really can’t do anything without the right team around you. Collaborating with the team, celebrating our achievements, valuing my employees and communicating clearly with them is in my leadership style DNA. It has served me very well. Q: Annette, it’s been a tough couple of years for the community of Ft. McMurray, both with the implications of the global energy markets, the downturn in the economy and most importantly as a result of the 2016 wildfires that ravaged the community. Tell us, how’s the recovery going? AA: It’s going well considering the mag- nitude of the disaster and the impact it had on the community. It’s been well documented that it’s the costliest natural disaster in Canadian history. To give you some examples regarding progress since the fire: we’ve issued 1,200 building per- mits, 378 rebuilds have now passed their final inspection and are move-in ready. We have moved mountains to try and expedite people getting back into their homes and helping them in any way we can. We’ve just learned that we’ve been nom- inated for a Golden Scissors Award, which is awarded for a reduction of red tape. I’m extremely proud of the team here, as they’ve done an incredible job. One of the models they used here, which is very different from past disasters, is rec- ognizing the need to have staff that are focused on the rebuild. A recovery task force and committee were created by RMWB Council. The sole purpose of the task force and committee was to identify all the pillars that were necessary to get people back in their homes, and they did a tremendous job doing so. They did a lot of engagement with the community in respect of the fact that residents were at different stages in their recovery and rebuild. The committee did enormous work regarding moving past what it usually takes for permits because they were dedicated to those areas that were the most impacted and that required the work. We brought in extra staff to be able to accommodate those needs. We had people within the different areas who had been affected, so we had construction management teams who the public could talk to about whatever their situation was. That work continues because recov- ery is a three to five-year process, and it doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time. We all work as partners to get there, and different people have different issues, so we try to address them as best we can. Q: I want to shift focus here a little bit, talk about your organi- zation. This disaster must have taken its toll on public servants in the municipality. We talk a lot these days about organizational resilience, but I’m interested in how your organization, the public servants, have kept a focus while their lives have been impacted by the disaster? One of the things we’ve done is to put a lot of resources in place to deal with mental health support. We’ve made sure that has been in place for our staff, both during, after and moving forward. You’re right, the staff kept their heads down, got the job done and at the end of the day, a lot of them were also affected and lost their homes. We continue to put programs in place and make sure that we are letting our staff know what is available to them and what those resources are. We also have the Lessons Learned re- port issued in 2017. From that report came 14 recommendations on which we report to both staff and the public quarterly. We take that very seriously. In fact, there were two reports done by the province, and then we did our own. Those interested in reading the findings of the Lessons Learned report can find it at rmwb.ca/wildfirereview. Q: I do recall at the time thinking that it was an important step to take; formally taking stock through an independent lens and using that as a basis for improvement. Maybe for the readers of CGE, you can go over the contents of those reports and how you’ve used them as a framework for action? We are fortunate to have our Fire Chief Jody Butts leading it. There were certainly some challenges in both the response and the recovery, which the report identified, and as I mentioned, there were 14 recom- mendations and 57 action items arising from the report. What it does is allow us to put together a plan moving forward regarding those Les- sons Learned, like how we respond more proactively, how we conduct an evacua- tion, how we inform our public and how we deal with our staff. Nobody ever, ever expected this magnitude of a disaster and a major crisis. All the traditional responses that you have in place go out the window when you’re dealing with something so vast. We’re doing a lot of modelling around how we react. We’re making sure that we The sole purpose of the task force and committee was to identify all the pillars that were necessary to get people back in their homes, and they did a tremen- dous job doing so.