LAS IPE Risk Symposium
By Shannon Devane
Municipal Risk Management Program Manager, LAS
On October 4, LAS and IPE hosted our biennial Risk Symposium. Our keynote speaker, Jim Harnum from Municipal Vu kicked off our event with a discussion around the great challenges and the great opportunities that exist for municipalities. We talked about polycrisis – a term defined by the World Economic Forum. Polycrisis is “where disparate crises interact such that the overall impact far exceeds the sum of each part”. The cost-of-living crisis, mental health crisis, housing crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic form a polycrisis. While a collective human experience, the impacts on every person and each individual organization are not identical. It’s important that risk management isn’t siloed – a solid risk management culture goes a long way towards implementing solid risk mitigation strategies.
Dr. Anabela Bonada spoke next about the work being done around climate adaptation at the Intact Centre for Climate Adaptation, University of Waterloo. Dr. Bonada presented numerous resources for guidance, including the work CSA has completed on guidelines for flood mitigation in both new and existing residential areas. Check out the most recent infographic, Working with Nature at Home.
Our afternoon was spent on all things cyber as October is Cyber Security Awareness Month. Frank C. Fazio from CySAT Security shared with us how cyber incidents involving ransomeware and social engineering are evolving. ISA Cybersecurity followed and walked us through a ransomeware event using a simulation to depict what a ransomeware attack looks like and they showed the group what a ransomware note could look like. We talked about the importance of an Incident Response Plan and what it should contain.
We wrapped up the day with an update from Evan Davis of MISA Ontario who shared MISA Ontario initiatives and what they are doing to assist municipal IT experts. The MISA Ontario conference is coming up at the end of the month in Deerhurst. Learn more here.
All registered attendees will have access to four (4) webinars to be delivered in the coming month. We will dive further into the CSA standards and flooding, risk data, contract reviews and building permits.
We could not have done this without the hard work of the IPE team, AMO team, LAS team and a big thank you to our break sponsor ClearRisk. To our attendees, thank you for your resiliency and joining us virtually.
Wishing you a wonderful cyber security month and a successful fourth quarter as we head towards 2024.