Edging Forward

As Canadians, we are faced with a choice: do we continue to allow communities to merely survive or can we help them to thrive?

Dr. Ann Dale has dedicated her life to studying Canadian communities and how they can transition towards more sustainable development paths. Since publishing her book At the Edge over fifteen years ago, her new book chronicles the various options that Canadians have to step back and actively implement sustainable community development practices.

But what factors are stopping Canadian communities? How can a single ‘story’ dominate our development? What are the barriers and drivers and how do we reconcile competing agendas, and vested interests against changing the single story?

Once again, Dr. Dale draws upon both the personal and the professional to discuss her own journey in reconciliation, reconnection and the power of relationships and ultimately love and compassion as one of the most important pathways for transforming human development.

With 10-years of new research backed by many social innovations and progress in implementing sustainable community development, Dr. Dale concludes that there is hope but there is much more to do. As a country, we’re only edging forward when we need to be leaping forward. 

Ann Dale is a professor with the School of Environment and Sustainability, Faculty of Social and Applied Sciences at Royal Roads University and holds a Canada Research Chair in Sustainable Community Development. She chairs the Canadian Consortium for Sustainable Development Research (CCSDR), a consortium of all the heads of research institutes across Canada, and is active in the Canadian environmental movement. Dr. Dale chairs an organization she created, the National Environmental Treasure (the NET) and is the Executive Co-ordinator, Research and Public Policy for the Canadian Biodiversity Institute. From 1998-2000, she led an energy efficiency program on behalf of the Association of Canadian Community Colleges. Previously, she was an Executive with the Federal Government, and was one of the two public servants behind the creation of the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy (NRTEE). Dr. Dale is a Trudeau Fellow, as well as a Fellow of the World Academy of Art and Sciences. She is also a Board member of the World Fisheries Trust, and the Advisory Committee to the Montreal Institute for the Environment. Dr. Dale holds degrees in psychology and public administration from Carleton University, and a doctorate in Natural Resources Sciences, McGill University. Current research areas include governance, social capital and sustainable community development, biodiversity policy, and deliberative electronic dialogues She is a recipient of the 2001 Policy Research Initiative Award for Outstanding Contribution to Public Policy for her book, At the Edge: Sustainable Development in the 21st Century.