Tuesday, March 2, 2021 – To mark the March 11 one-year anniversary of the WHO’s declaration of the global pandemic, the Canadian Urban Institute will release a seminal report that shares new data about how COVID-19 hit Canada’s largest cities. COVID Signpost 365 will highlight examples of how community leaders emerged across the country, and how the country’s largest municipalities have banded together to tackle Canada’s most pressing urban problems.

In It Together: A Tale of Six Cities

The Big City Executive Partnership was created in 2020 in recognition that life in our biggest cities changed profoundly due to COVID-19. City Managers from Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal came together to solve common problems and share learnings. From acquiring empty hotels to house the increasing number of Canadians facing homelessness, to creating new transit routes for essential workers, local governments across Canada moved rapidly to transform the delivery of vital services in response to unprecedented challenges.

Community Stories: CityShare Canada

Throughout the pandemic, resilience and leadership has come from the ground up. CityShare Canada is a crowdsourced online platform that houses stories of city builders and residents creating effective community-based responses to the challenges posed by COVID-19. From libraries that came through with free laptops and wifi hotspots, mental health supports, and food bank services, to students stepping up for racial equality, quilters making masks, care-mongering groups helping neighbours, and local architects collaborating to convert shared public spaces, we saw remarkable demonstrations of local leadership.

COVID Signposts

The Canadian Urban Institute has marked every 100 days since the pandemic was declared March 11, 2020 with the release of stories and data that captured unprecedented events in Canada’s response to this crisis. COVID Signpost 365 brings this chapter of reporting to a close and will serve as a springboard into further conversations and convening with city-builders on how these rapid shifts will shape our cities in future. It starts the conversation about how we embrace all the positive responses that emerged at the local level, the problems that remain, and how we can empower and help our cities build back better in the days ahead.

To receive an advance copy of COVID Signpost 365 under embargo until March 10, 2021, please reply to this email, or contact:

Jill Fairbrother
jfairbrother@canurb.org
416-788-0539

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