Designing for stronger infrastructure

Whole of Society Critical Infrastructure Project Applying risk management to design for a stronger tomorrow

The report connects to our Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) goals of improving our organization’s risk maturity. It showcases the work of all involved partners, Design Lab participants, and key identified SMEs for additional feedback. 

The project aims to improve risk capabilities and share how to use this technique to solve problems with diverse partners.

Background

In 2019, Public Safety Canada worked alongside the Calgary Emergency Management Agency (CEMA) to develop and release a plan to protect important services in Calgary. They worked with different groups like public, private, and community organizations. The plan looked at ten key areas: Energy, Water, Food, Transportation, Health, IT/Communications, Government, Finance, Safety, and Manufacturing.

For this project, they focused on four main Critical Infrastructure areas. Click on each section to learn more:

Food resilience

This sector involves all infrastructure, people and processes associated with providing food to communities. Due to the manufacturing strategies of most companies involving international partnerships, a great deal of food for most must be imported from various jurisdictions.

Examples of Critical Infrastructure Sector Functions: Grocery Stores, Food Hamper Programs, Food Pantry/Fridges, Schools with Food Programs…etc.

Key dependencies: Transportation, IT/Communications, Water, & Energy

Key dependents: Safety, Social Infrastructure

Key Partners: Food Resilience Team, Climate & Environment, Customer Services & Communications, Resilience, Performance Measures and Budgets, Urban Alliance and The University of Calgary

Sector Review Completion Timeframe: Q2, 2025

See the first Design lab report [Need file/link]

Transportation

This sector encompasses the infrastructure, people and processes associated with enabling transportation locally, regionally and nationally. 

Examples of Critical Infrastructure Sector Functions: Public Transit Infrastructure Rolling Brownouts.

Key dependencies: IT/Communications & Energy

Key dependents: Health, Safety, Food

Sector Review Completion Timeframe: Q4, 2025

Water

This sector is composed of the infrastructure, people and processes associated with the management, treatment and distribution of water. 

Examples of Critical Infrastructure Sector Functions: Water Supply (distribution, treatment, storage), Potable or drinking water supply (storage, treatment, distribution), Wastewater Removal, Flood risk monitoring

Key dependencies: Transportation, IT/Communications, & Energy   Critical Infrastructure Defining the sectors   Public Safety Canada. (2018). Multi-Sector Network Interdependencies Workshop – Findings Report. Critical Infrastructure Directorate.

Key dependents: Health, Safety, Social Infrastructure, Food, Manufacturing

Sector Review Completion Timeframe: TBD (2026)

Energy & utilities

This sector involves the infrastructure, people and processes associated with providing power to our homes, infrastructure and various modern technologies both within our borders and abroad.  

Examples of Critical Infrastructure Sector Functions: Wastewater Recovery for Energy Generation and Distribution, Electricity, Infrastructure Prioritization…etc.

Key dependencies: IT/Communications & Transportation

Key dependents: Health, IT/Communications, Transportation, Water, Safety

Sector Review Completion Timeframe: TBD (2027)

If you would like to learn more about the project please refer to the Project Overview Q&A.

Vision & Outcomes

The Risk Implementation Skills Collective (RISC) project helps local service operators learn about risk and how to manage them. Its goal is to help advance The City's overall Risk Maturity. It measures risk maturity using the RIMS Risk Maturity model which considers 5 pillars:

  • Strategy
  • Culture
  • Capabilities
  • Governance
  • Analytics

The three main goals of this project are:

  1. To build partnerships (Strategic pillar).
  2. To use risk management for all types of hazards (Culture pillar).
  3. To share and protect information quickly among partners (Governance pillar)


Through a series of design labs, the project asks partners to apply risk management to each critical infrastructure area. They work together to solve complex problems with shared risk priorities. The labs use ideas from Public Safety Canada’s Critical Infrastructure Strategy and Action Plan (2019). They are designed to reduce and rethink barriers to effective service delivery.

Contact us

Please fill out the following form, if you would like to be involved with the project or stay connected

Fill out this form

If you have any questions please contact:

Kerrie.Green@calgary.ca
undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null,undefined/null