Strengthening Public Advocacy Through Coherent and Credible Actions

Section: Announcements

One of the worst nightmares of policy makers is to hear inconsistent messaging from an industry. In this regard, the role of a national industry association is to ensure that the messages carried forward to government officials, utilities, and other industry stakeholders are consistent across Canada. These messages imperatively need to be accurate, based on solid and verifiable information and need to carry the same coherent vision. Without a strict discipline in this matter, our industry is doomed for failure, one more time.

Over the past five years, many CGC members have indicated their desire and willingness to get more involved in the various CGC activities and projects as a way to advance the industry. CGC Board of Directors (BOD) members have also raised a number of times the importance of creating value for CGC membership and involving CGC members in the daily life of the association. Members also clearly indicated their desire to see more coherence in public advocacy.

As a mean of facilitating those objectives, the CGC Board of Directors (BOD) has regularly discussed the possibility of creating provincial caucuses. A resolution to that effect was discussed and approved by the BOD at their September 24, 2009 meeting. As a result, CGC provincial caucuses were created and formed of CGC members within each province. This model is inspired by successful experiences conducted by other national industry associations.

With close to 300 members nationally and with a strong proportional presence in all Canadian provinces, the CGC continuously seeks to enhance its members’ participation and involvement in the CGC activities both locally and at the national level. Through their membership dues, CGC members have contributed and supported the CGC since its inception. The CGC has successfully leveraged those membership dues to develop a national market transformation initiative for the Canadian geoexchange industry. Without this support from its members, the CGC would not be as strong as it is today. A vision was set for our industry and a clear business plan was developed and implemented.

In fact, the success of the CGC has always rested upon four key factors: (1) a diversified and representative board of directors; (2) experienced and professional association managers on staff and their capacity to develop and implement market transformation initiatives; (3) a clear vision about the future of the geoexchange industry and a willingness to pursue its mission regardless of obstacles and barriers; (4) a solid membership base in all provinces.

At a time when the CGC is consolidating its market transformation initiative, we will increasingly rely on our membership base to further solidify the CGC position in the market place. Furthermore, as the deployment of the CGC Global GeoExchange Quality Program gains momentum – witnessed by the interest expressed by colleges all across Canada – the CGC’s point of view is increasingly demanded by provincial ministries in policy and regulatory discussions. While CGC officers and staff have consulted members in the past, most often on an ad-hoc basis, time came to establish a more formal consulting / reporting mechanism between our membership base in each province and CGC staff / board of directors.

The CGC BOD has discussed the issue of creating CGC caucuses a number of times in the past. Different business models have been analyzed during board meetings in June 2005, September 2007, December 2007 and November 2008. CGC staff was tasked with the mandate of developing a business model that would reflect the developing needs of the CGC and its members, but also the overarching needs of the entire industry.

After many months of analysis and consultation with other associations, CGC staff retained and recommended the creation of provincial caucuses as the optimal option to enhance the participating value of its members both locally and nationally.

Under this model, provincial caucuses are essentially formed by the CGC members within each province. For example, the CGC members in British Columbia form CGC – British Columbia Caucus. The CGC members in Alberta form CGC – Alberta Caucus, and so on. The caucuses act within their province and participate in the CGC decision making process through the CGC National Caucus Council (CGC-NCC) – a group composed of one elected liaison officer per province.

In a nutshell, the caucuses act as sounding boards on policy / regulatory / legislative issues at the provincial and municipal level. In close cooperation with CGC staff, they facilitate discussions between the CGC and other groups within provinces including municipal and provincial governments as well as provincial geoexchange credible interest groups and representative associations where they exist.

CGC members have the ability to participate more fully in the CGC decision making process by formulating recommendations to the BOD and staff through their participation in their caucuses and in the CGC-NCC. The caucus structure is meant to be flexible and adaptable to the changing needs of the CGC and / or the caucuses.

Denis Tanguay
President & CEO

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