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Plan to Attend the Keynotes at the CES National Conference in Quebec City

Innovation in evaluation methodologies and thinking is ongoing. How do you know what is working now and how do you prepare for change? Here is the line-up of keynote sessions that can help guide you.

• June 19: “A Legal Standing for the St. Lawrence River” with Yenny Vega Cárdenas, lawyer in Quebec and Colombia with a master's degree in business law and a doctorate in water law 
  
  “A legal standing was recognized for the St. Lawrence River through the adoption of joint legislation, the result of negotiations between the governments of Quebec, Canada, and the First Nations of Quebec and Labrador.” Wouldn’t that change our relationship with the river, and even our relationship with nature?
  
  This change could be upon us; it will require major adjustments to the legal framework aimed at protecting water and ecosystems. Do we have to wait for further degradation of this “walking path,” as the First Nations call it, to act? Are we aware of the urgency to intervene? What consequences would flow from the recognition of the legal standing of nature?
   
• June 20: “Critical and Evaluative Thinking to Foster Transformation” with Thomas Archibald, Executive Director of the Center for International Research, Education and Development at Virginia Tech 
  
  Faced with the complex challenges of the polycrisis, business as usual is unacceptable. Paradigmatic transformations are needed as civil society, industry, and governments rethink success in relation to social, economic, and ecological impacts. In this milieu, for evaluation to contribute to a more equitable and sustainable world, it must also transform.
  
  Reductionist, technical-rationalistic, compliance-oriented modes of thinking and evaluating appear inadequate. Evaluating transformation requires transforming evaluation, as one Blue Marble Evaluation principle suggests. One way to foster transformation in evaluation is to focus on critical and evaluative thinking. Evaluative thinking is both a fundamental philosophical concept at the heart of evaluation, and an approach to democratizing evaluation, to unleash the power of inquiry for social change.
  
  This presentation will share an overview of evaluative thinking, exploring paradoxes and paradigmatic assumptions that inhere this concept, in an effort to advance our collective efforts to evolve evaluation in this rapidly changing world.
   
• June 21: “Program Evaluation in Quebec” with Sarah Leclerc, Director General of Results-Based Management Governance at the Treasury Board Secretariat of Quebec  
  
  In the Government of Quebec, the Treasury Board Secretariat is responsible for implementing a directive that governs government-wide programme evaluation. Based on the results of the evaluation of this directive, this session will provide a picture of programme evaluation in Quebec since the adoption of the directive, put into perspective the main issues related to evaluation practice in the government administration and present how the Treasury Board Secretariat intends to position its interventions to adapt to these issues and thus better meet the needs of departments and agencies.

Find more about these keynotes on the 2023 National Conference site.