By Pepper Parr
June 8th, 2026
BURLINGTON, ON
OPINION
City of Burlington, the Region of Halton Public Health Department and the University of Waterloo – Faculty of Recreation and Leisure Studies were selected as one of four Canadian municipalities to join the conversation about healthy cities in Helsinki, Finland.
The event took place in June 2025
This opportunity is part of the Healthy Cities Research Initiative and has been made possible thanks to support from 8-80 Cities and funding from the Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR).
Helsinki Workshop
The grant to the participants includes all costs for a small group to travel to and stay in Helsinki, Finland from May 16-24, 2025. The group will participate in a workshop to learn about Helsinki’s smart growth strategies, including mixed-use developments and efficient public transportation, healthy urban policy, protecting green spaces, and sustainable growth.
The group includes Mayor Meed Ward, two staff members from the City of Burlington, one staff from Region of Halton Public Health and one faculty member from the University of Waterloo.
Helsinki is considered a global leader in complete communities. The workshop provides an opportunity for staff to see new perspectives and potentially broaden their approach to better serve our community through new ideas, strategies and proven concepts.
Part of the follow-up from the conference was two workshops to inspire new ideas and foster collaboration to implement healthy urban policy in Burlington by adapting Helsinki’s strategies for improving/managing infrastructure, promoting health, and improving Burlington residents’ quality of life.
One workshop will be held with community partners and elected officials and the other will be held with residents. Dates and times of the workshops will be shared once details are finalized.
Mayor Meed Ward representing Burlington in Japan.
The end goal is to move towards the creation of more complete communities that meet people’s needs for daily living throughout an entire lifetime by providing convenient access to an appropriate mix of jobs, local services, a full range of housing, transportation options, inclusive spaces and public service facilities including affordable housing, schools, recreation and open space for their residents.
We have asked the Burlington communications people to let us know when these workshops took place and if they have not taken place when are they expected to take place. There has been no response to date.
The CIHR stresses citizen engagement with this comment:
Citizen engagement is the meaningful involvement of individual citizens in policy or program development. To put it simply, citizens are “engaged” when they play an active role in defining issues, considering solutions, and identifying resources or priorities for action. This “meaningful involvement” can take place at a variety of stages in the research, planning, or implementation phases of a project.
There are a couple of hundred people who will tell you this is not happening in Burlington and they very much wish it were.
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