Power Struggle
Improving the energy dialogue in Canada (and beyond) through honest, non-partisan, and fact- based conversations.
The energy conversation is personal: it’s in our homes, in our hands, and now, it’s in our ears. Power Struggle invites you to listen in on honest, non-partisan, and fact-based conversations between host Stewart Muir and the leaders and thinkers designing modern energy.
Watch videos at https://www.youtube.com/@PowerStrugglePod
Power Struggle
Poverty Kills Climate Action (with Susan Downie-Gagnon)
What if we could align climate action with economic growth while empowering communities?
Today we welcome Susan Downie-Gagnon, a changemaker in Canada’s natural resource sector.
Beginning her career in medical science and HIV research, Susie followed her curiosity into various initiatives in sectors like forestry, bioenergy and clean tech. From leading one of Canada’s largest Indigenous equity ownership deals to driving innovation at UBC’s Faculty of Forestry, her journey reflects her commitment to aligning sustainability, economic growth, and social justice.
Mentioned in this Episode:
BC Forest Summit 2020
Mom2Mom
Reach out to us with thoughts, questions, or ideas at info@powerstruggle.ca
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I'm Stuart Muir. Welcome to Power Struggle. On today's episode, we're joined by Susan Downie-Gagnon, a seasoned strategist who's been navigating the complexities of Canada's natural resource sector for the past 25 years. From leading one of the largest Indigenous equity ownership deals in the country to driving communications strategies at the University of British Columbia's Faculty of Forestry, Susan has been at the intersection of industry, government and community interests. For all that time, she's led some other groundbreaking initiatives in sectors like forestry and bioenergy and clean tech Industries, where the tension between economic growth, sustainability and indigenous participation is always at play. Susan's deep expertise and hands-on experience make her the perfect guest to tackle the energy trilemma we explore here on Power Struggle. Susan Downie-Gagnon, welcome to Power Struggle.
Susan:Great. Thank you very much, Stuart. Nice to be here.
Stewart:It's not the first time you've been here, because we've had a lot of discussions over really the years. We've known each other about all of these topics and I just think it's so interesting your background because you have a science background that you bring into it not just science but medical science and I'm just intrigued by how someone who started out working in HIV research got into what you're doing now. So maybe that's a starting point for this discussion. If I could ask you kind of your origins, what got you interested?
Susan:Yeah, well, you know, just, I think pure opportunity and hard work and curiosity are probably the things that got me here. And, you know, and meeting a lot of really great people. I think, doing, you know, really making the attempt to do the right thing, and that's really what attracted me to getting into the area of natural resources and all the industries and sectors that you just listed. So, you know, as you mentioned, I started out in medical science.
Susan:I have a great curiosity in so many things, and so one of the things that I've always wanted to do with my life is to I mean, it sounds so cliche, but make the world a better place. And you know, when you're working in the area of medicine or you're working in the area of business or natural resources, there's so many ways to come about that. One of the threads that kind of tie all of my experience together is that I like to build ventures and companies and initiatives and programs for various organizations that really do contribute to. Is it something with climate change? Is it social justice or, you know, preferably all of the above. So really that's what you know brought me to this place. But again, serendipity, meeting the right people, having the right conversations, all of those things.
Stewart:You spent a lot of time working with people who are in leadership positions and it seems more than ever that it's tough to be, whether it's in elected office in the C-suite of business organizations and not-for-profits, it seems like it's in elected office in the C-suite of business organizations and not-for-profits. It seems like it's getting harder and harder in so many ways, and I'm really curious to hear what you take away from your recent experiences as to how those who are in those positions are navigating through this challenging world.
Susan:Great question. I'm so glad you asked that, and it's something that I think about all the time Complexity. It's really all about complexity and the people who are in leadership positions, whether it's academia or business or government. It's really such a tough challenge when we're looking at the energy trilemma or you know how we're addressing these. These are just such deep, multifaceted issues. There's no one person that has all the information or has access to all the information to be able to solve it.
Susan:And you know, in my experience, the best leaders are navigating these waters blindly, because so many of the issues that we're facing are new and they're very quickly changing you and they're very quickly changing.
Susan:So my observation right now is that the best way forward and the leaders that are making the most progress are the ones that are listening listening to each other and quite often, listening to voices that they might not agree with, and that's a very good starting point to opening up the conversation and the possibilities.
Susan:Once you have a diverse amount of information from various different parties, I think it's easier to crystallize the best possible solution at the time. The other aspect that I would say about the leaders in today's world addressing some of these issues is flexibility, the ones that don't get entrenched in one black and white point of view, is having that flexibility to evolve and say what worked two years ago or 10 years ago or 30 years ago doesn't work now, and then being able to navigate the narrative, the outside narrative that's coming at them. When you've got so many pressures coming at you from, you know whether it's economic or whether it's from media you know ones that are able to navigate those waters as best as possible are the ones that I see you know doing, in my opinion, the best job.
Stewart:But it's highly complex. Recently, at university presidents at the most elite universities in the world who completely failed the test of being able to stay in their positions under duress, I want to ask you if you're the boss and you're bringing people to be around you who are naturally inclined to say, you know, yes, boss, we'll get that done Are those the people who are going to disagree with you and say, boss, I think you're wrong. I think you need to listen to a different perspective. Yeah.
Susan:Academia has been accused of that in the past, but certainly so has industry and certainly so has government. So I think that, you know, when you're kind of looking at the overall landscape, I can't help but think that the best way forward is to open themselves up to those diverse conversations. You know, quite frankly, like Resource Work Society does, that's one of the key mission statements of Resource Work Society is to have some of those tough conversations with diverse voices. So to me it's about inviting diversity of the opinions, about the expertise and having that flexibility going forward.
Stewart:Yeah, and I'll just mention as a sidebar that Susan recently joined the board of the Resource Work Society and that makes her one of my bosses, and it's actually not about that so much as enriching the conversation and what you've brought to it. I think, is important, just pointing that out, because there's so much to do, so many ways that these questions can be explored.
Susan:Yeah Well, I think you know really, one of the outcomes that I've seen of you know, an organization that is, you know, really kind of embedded in itself and its own views. Again, I'll just kind of choose. You know, academia is that you're speaking to. You know your whole audiences, which could be young people, which could be media, and you know and I think that's one thing that you know or if your industry. You might be speaking to public or you might be speaking to politicians, and you know there's a lot of responsibility there. You know you're communicating a certain message in a certain narrative.
Susan:I think it's really important to be mindful of where that can take us in the future. So it's not just the short-term results that you're looking for, I think you're looking at. You know really what's my responsibility when I'm having this conversation and what's the overall vision for all of us. And I think one of the fundamental pieces of that is that in a lot of ways, I believe that people, organizations, might not necessarily agree on the steps to getting there, but quite often the vision is very similar, if not the same, and so so I think that you know maybe kind of getting back to that previous question is that if you know you've got a leader and you've got a group that you know aren't really, you know, quite homogeneous in their views. Being also mindful of of the how you communicate your position is is a very big responsibility.
Stewart:Well, let's go deeper into that because it feels like a fundamentally important point. Find an example. Maybe You've been involved in the forest sector through a lot of things. Maybe we could find an example from that to try to flesh out a picture here.
Susan:If I'm going to look at examples, one of the commentaries of academia is that they are very left wing and then industry can be very right wing if you look at economics. And so when I came to the University of British Columbia and the Faculty of Forestry, I had a few raised eyebrows. So I came from a forestry association. At that time I was a vice president. We did a lot of advocacy work, primarily with government and as well as public, but also with communities and First Nations, and just a lot of also commentary and education.
Susan:So when I moved over to UBC it was, I think, a lot of confusion because those two, ubc and industry in British Columbia really weren't terribly aligned and quite often I think there was a little bit of animosity between them. And I saw that as an opportunity to see about bridging, making some of the bridges stronger and aligning at least some of the work and some of the innovation and, you know, really bringing forward some of those elements of what I think are the shared vision truly, and you know, from knowing people in industry and knowing people in academia, the vision is almost the same. But you know having that, you know bringing it together. So that would be the example I would say.
Stewart:And I would just jump in to point out something, which is that UBC is not just another university with a forestry department, it's actually got a faculty of forestry. It's got when I last counted the 50 professors of forestry. It's one of the biggest and most prestigious forest faculties anywhere in the world, For sure.
Susan:Absolutely To your point, stuart. You know the faculty of forestry was, you know, in my experience, a great place to work. There was an area of conservation, there was an area of innovation, wood science and forest management and it really encapsulated, I think, three highly important tenets. When you're looking at natural resources industry and it looked at it both regionally, within British Columbia and Canada, as well as globally and, as we know, when you're looking at these big issues, whether it's geopolitics or climate change or economy, we're not living in a region, we are living on the planet Earth, and so it's very much intertwined.
Stewart:Well, it seemed like a very exciting department, one where you actually have a forest scientist who has been on the cover of Vogue magazine. How many forest departments can say that?
Susan:I don't think many. Suzanne Simard, of course I'm referring to, yes, such a diverse group of experts.
Susan:Yes, yeah, yeah, absolutely, and I think you know when you're speaking about diverse group of experts. You know Suzanne, you know certainly her work is known worldwide now, and you know, within academia there's always different ideas and different points of view, and that's one of the things that makes academia fiery, in my opinion, is that, you know, it's an evolution of discussions and sometimes arguments and sometimes hard feelings, but based on science right, based on the scientific method, and so it's yeah.
Stewart:I need to ask about the project you led there, which was a watershed one. I don't think it's been repeated. Um, in order to bring together a lot of diverse voices, you did something. Could you, uh, for someone who knows nothing about it, could you describe what that project?
Susan:was, it was mine in, in conjunction with some very, very, uh, very smart people. Um, so at the time I was working with uh dean john innis and uh, who's a nobel prize winner, and so this was uh, you know, his baby, and we worked with some high profile individuals, you know, within the industry as well as government, just to get this together. And so we brought together communities, we brought together First Nations, government officials, academics, of course. We brought an industry and brought these diverse groups people into environmental groups, I should say as well, into one room for one day to come up with a common vision for British Columbia's forests in the next 50 years. But then also, of course, addressing short and medium term.
Susan:You know, it took a lot of planning, because obviously we wanted everybody to get to that shared vision, and a lot of discussion and we were able to come up with a shared vision by the end of the day. But it took months and months of discussion and pre-planning and I think, in my opinion, where we landed is there's no one clear path to a vision. You know, again, getting back to, you could have a shared vision among a lot of diverse voices, but it's the. How do we get there, what's the method of getting there, what's the timing? It can be really, really challenging, and so I always saw working towards that vision as a group as almost stumbling along and kind of revising the steps and the pathway based on the changing landscape and you know. But yeah, a highly worthy project in my opinion.
Stewart:I'd like to go to where you went next, but first of all, what was the name of the project and where can I find out information?
Susan:Sure, it was the BC Forest Summit 2020. And it was we held the actual day-long vision event, I think a week before COVID.
Stewart:Yes, and you know, because of COVID 2020 somehow seems like a long time ago, Although was it? Yeah? But you know I do remember at the time spent a lot of time with that material, and it's not just about forestry, I think anyone who's grappling with these same issues in leadership teams or from any perspective, I would actually recommend looking at the approach. But where you went since is what I wanted to ask you about, Susan, because I think the participation of First Nations and all Indigenous peoples in Canada into the base economy in order to accomplish a whole bunch of social and political and economic aims is really almost the biggest challenge of our moment, biggest opportunity as well, and you've been doing some work in this area. I'd like to see what you can tell us about that and also how it's been the extension of your practice.
Susan:Yeah, it was a fabulous opportunity, and I say that because this work truly is about economic reconciliation and getting back to your question about my roots and social justice and tying these pieces together. You know, what attracted me to natural resources when I first came into the fold in 2012, it seems also like a very long time ago is the opportunity to have many people, many groups of people, participate in what I think is the opportunity to contribute and benefit from a strong economy, and doing it the right way and when I say the right way, I mean doing it, you know, treating people well, respecting their opinions, their expertise, their deep knowledge that might be different from our own, and I think you know. Getting back to your question about this, having the perspective, the knowledge, the partnership with either Indigenous people or other groups in you know we're just speaking about in Canada is so important if we are going to address climate change, if we are going to address some of the regional issues that we have with in terms of wildfires, if we you know, insect infestation, when we're looking at, you know, global warming, when we're looking at some of the extreme weather we've had. That we have these conversations, we listen and we see how we can work together. Conversations. We listen and we see how we can work together.
Susan:And when people are benefiting from a strong and robust, healthy economy, not only are they contributing their voices, but they're at a point in their life where they can actually care about these important issues that we're all trying to address.
Susan:And to me, if you're a family and you're not paying your bills, or you don't know how you're not paying your bills, or you can't, you don't know how you're going to buy back to school supplies for your children, or christmas is coming up, and you know you just don't have the money.
Susan:You're looking at you know more about paying food or how you're going to pay rent. You don't have the bandwidth to care about climate change. At that point, you're caring about really basic things, and it always seems to me like a very clear opportunity in Canada that we have access to such a diversity of natural resources. We can do it well. We are improving it together, but we can do even better. And so you know, when we're looking at economic reconciliation and the work that I've been doing over the last year and a half, to me that's magic. Those are the conversations that need to be happening and, my goodness, are they changing over time. You know, what happened a year ago or a year and a half ago is a lot different than the conversations that we're having now, and so you know, buckle up.
Stewart:How can I stay current on this? How can any person?
Susan:That's a great question. And here's another, I think, really great point that you bring up. You know, when you're in the middle of it and the conversations, I think it's hard to stay current. You know you are, I think, as close as you can be because you're seeing the evolution, but there's always new information coming in. But if you're not working in the area, it's just impossible. The best way of staying current is, you know, if you're interested in the area, is reading up on it. You know, as best you can, maybe read a few articles, maybe listen to a few opinions, try to listen to a few diverse opinions. And the other point is, I would say, is try to be flexible. You know, what one person or one organization says isn't necessarily the reality. It's one point of view and so, and it's their point of view and it's valid. But you know, sometimes, quite often, it's somewhere in the middle or somewhere along the continuum.
Stewart:Susan, you referred to household choices. Where people are wanting to live green lives, they also need to afford things. They also need to know that the choices they make are going to be reliable and always there. That's almost the energy trilemma at the personal level, you know is it affordable, Is it reliable, Is it clean and green? And if you map that onto bigger things going on not just at the family level but in industry and government, you know the world can be described in terms of this energy trilemma and a lot of the conflicts we're seeing can be looked at through the lens of this trilemma, which is what we've been doing on the show here. You've come at it from that personal level. What are your thoughts on how the energy trilemma applies to some of the bigger challenges out there right now?
Susan:Yeah, well, if I understand your question, Stuart, the way I see it, when you're looking at it beyond the household level, it's politics within our province, our country, internationally, and it's business. And so it's what are the policymakers? How are they looking at this trilemma? What sort of information are they getting? What sort of decisions are they making? And obviously it, obviously it's based, you know, in our country, on their constituents, also industry. What's industry telling them? What I've seen in my work over the years in working with industry is how can we do better? How can we include Indigenous peoples in, you know, in our business? How can we include them as partners? How do we address UNDRIP or DRIPA in our province? How do we?
Stewart:And DRIPA is the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Susan:Yeah, in British Columbia. But how do we also maintain a robust business, a profitable business, and those can be great opportunities. But sometimes on the day to day, you know, it can be challenging for industry and it can be challenging from the point of view from government when they're looking at okay, well, you know what's our tax base going to be, how do we support certainty and predictability for industry and and how do we support in our citizens? So you know the energy trilemma. I think it really well encapsulates the issue for politicians that are making these decisions, ultimately with the information that they're getting from families, from industry, from companies, from communities, from First Nations, from environmental groups. If they look at it from this lens, I think that would go a very long way for them.
Stewart:And again, looking at diverse voices, diverse voices, I can't help but notice that Canada is being admonished lately for not keeping ahead for its residents. The economy is falling behind and we seem to be missing something. What do you think that is?
Susan:You know, and I think all of us who you know live in british columbia have been seeing that, and in vancouver we, we do see that um every day. One of the things that gets me for lack of a better word is is how is it possible to be walking past somebody who's literally living on the streets yet there's so much wealth in our country? There's no reason for it. I mean, there are reasons for it, but how I see why we are where we are, assuming that we want to have everything within that trilemma. We want the sustainability, we want it to be economically robust, we want to be able to support our population, our people, our healthcare, able to support our you know, our population, our people, our healthcare, housing, everything that you need.
Susan:Sometimes, the decisions that are made, it's not always clear the path, and so, again, I always see it as kind of a it's almost like a toddler walking forward, stumbling along, trying to find the best way, and sometimes, you know, you kind of stumble one way and you then you kind of go oh, you know, maybe we're we're not really focusing as much on the economy as we should, so then you kind of go another way and it's kind of like this, you know, almost stumbling along and always correcting yourself along the way.
Susan:I think, if people do look at it as as that way, because I think my experience in working with people in government and politicians I think I'm an optimist, but I've seen a lot of really good people who care about what they do and about their work and about making the decisions, even if they're surrounded by, yes, people I think that we do need to have faith in our elected politicians. When they're there, we should continue to have the hard conversations. When we have a democracy, we can also have the power to decide who we want actually governing. You know our province or our country, but you know to your point. I think it's. It's a shame and you know we're getting in that area where we all need to be a part of addressing these big issues. And if they can't get a doctor, if they can't get housing, if their elderly parents are, you know, are suffering, if their children are not getting opportunities, they can't focus as much as they should on climate change or wildfires unless it's directly affecting them or wildfires, unless it's directly affecting them.
Stewart:So where would you put yourself in the energy trilemma, the triangle, as it were, closest to the sustainable, the affordable, the reliable? Where do you fit in, susan?
Susan:Great question. I want to say the middle of the triangle, stuart, but if I had to choose one of three, I would say affordable, because I think that drives the other two. I think a strong economy has the ability may not always do it, but has the ability to support the other two. So that's what I think. I think a strong economy doesn't always, but has the ability to support all three.
Stewart:Susan, you're a mom, yes, and you also volunteer your time with an organization that supports single mothers, yeah. What causes you the most concern about the challenges of supporting single mothers?
Susan:Yeah, well, it's mom to mom.
Susan:Thank you for bringing it up, and the mandate is actually supporting children in poverty in in vancouver and the metro vancouver area, and what drew me to that was exactly what we're speaking about is that, you know, if we can't support children and make sure that they have enough to eat, what the heck are we doing here?
Susan:It just makes no sense whatsoever, and so it's very meaningful for me to, you know, to kind of bring light and shed light on the fact. You know, one tiny voice in this overall conversation, and there's great people who founded this organization and continue to run this, and you know this is meaningful work on the fact that, again, we have almost unmatched, in my opinion, opportunity to support a robust economy, yet the most vulnerable and promising people in our society are not getting the basic support they need, and that needs to change. And so this organization is quite unique. It's got a very effective way of supporting these children in poverty through the single mothers, and the idea is it takes a long term approach to supporting the family to, you know, pretty much live outside of the trauma of poverty, and that's a whole other very interesting area. Poverty is is studied extensively and has a lifelong effect traumatic effect on the brains of children growing up in single parent households that really can't pay their bills.
Stewart:This has really felt like a conversation with a friend Susan, probably because it is a conversation with a friend. A conversation with a friend Susan, probably because it is a conversation with a friend, and what you're doing with mom to mom, I think, is an example of what others could be doing. You know pointing the way, so I really appreciate that. I just want to ask you one last question about where you see yourself headed in the next say, five to ten years. What do you think is the impact that you want to make?
Susan:thank you for asking that you want to make. Thank you for asking that. You know, to be quite frank, I'm in that I'm asking that of myself. I think I've always asked that of myself really, you know, throughout my entire career. But because, not the stakes are higher but things feel more intense than ever before, I feel a real draw to you know, really advancing what we're talking about with this conversation. To you know, really advancing what we're talking about with this conversation.
Susan:So, you know, my background is, as you noted, is strategy, it's communications. I've worked, you know, I've worked with government, I've worked in academia and industry associations and, you know, with First Nations as well more recently, and so I really want to bring all of this together and see what I can do to really advance this issue. You know, make, you know, really address the three tenets of the trilemma that you're speaking about and you know, kind of support people to live lives that they want to live, feel that they're heard and they're listened to have those conversations and address, you know, climate change, really address that and social justice. So, if I can retire someday and my career knowing that I've made an impact, you know, in this way in the area of, I think, natural resources. I will be very happy with what I've done, but I feel like I've got quite a ways to go more, more work to do so we've been talking to Susan Downie-Gagnon today and it's been a real pleasure.
Stewart:I'd like to have you back because there's just so much more. So this has been another episode of Power Struggle, so thanks for being here, Susan.
Susan:Thank you so much, Stuart. It's been a real pleasure.
