Hello Partners and Friends of CWOIL,

This note is to inform you that we have made the painful and difficult decision to postpone the CWOIL Conference: Diversity in the Blue Economy, scheduled for November 14 – 16, 2022 in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador.

There are a lot of elements that influenced this decision including challenges with flights, limited travel budgets, competing conferences, VERY full schedules, and for some the still lasting effects of Covid and transmission at larger events, travel, etc.  I can assure that this decision did not come easily and it caused a lot of anguish and distress for those that have worked long and hard to deliver a fulsome and meaningful experience.

We are grateful to our phenomenal list of oceans leaders who agreed to moderate or participate in our sessions as presenters and panelists.  We also want to thank our sponsors, who have demonstrated their support for this important conference.   Our intent is to build upon the momentum we have started to deliver an engaging and impactful event in 2023.

Onward and Upward Next Steps.

We are working with various stakeholders to determine a new date, taking into consideration of course other oceans events coming up in the spring – early summer of 2023.
Please accept our sincerest apologies for any inconvenience this postponement has caused, as outlined above it did not come lightly.

We will be announcing the new dates in the coming weeks.  We sincerely hope we will see you at the conference in 2023.

 National work-action plan

As you know, over the last several months, the CWOIL team has been working hard to develop our national work-action plan to increase the number of women and under-represented people in the oceans sector.

Our Consultants have conducted in excess of 120 interviews to ensure we have a truly inclusive and diverse representation and know what our challenges are, what the solutions can be, who in the Canadian Ecosystem is best suited to carry out the actions needed and what Government programs and agencies can help us as we work to move the dial and make a meaningful impact on this important sector.

We are currently working on the best ways and means to bring the National Work-Action Plan to our interested parties and we will circle back with further information on how to implement rollout.

Thank you for your understanding and we look forward to working with you all to make the 2023 conference a success. We have closed the registration. New dates coming soon.

If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to reach out to me, cathy.hogan@oceansadvance.net, or our event planner Alexia McGill, amgill@agendamanagers.com.

Kind regards

Cathy Hogan
Conference Chair