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Public engagement is a fast growing practice that is in many ways adjacent to marketing and communications. On the last afternoon of the North American Conference of the International Association for Public Participation (IAP2), Joseph Thornley sat down for an interview with outgoing IAP2 Canada President Bruce Gilbert.

Topics covered include:

• The growth of IAP2 Canada’s membership at a time that many organizations are seeing declining growth;
• The reasons that the growth in IAP2 Canada’s membership has been greatest in Western Canada while the east has lagged – and what can be done to promote growth in the east;
• The first Canadian skill symposium as a harbinger of an increasing emphasis at the region level to skills and expertise transference;
• The importance of IAP2 Canada providing a training program that is provided in both English and French;
• The importance of the new certification program and the challenge of promoting it to practitioners and employers;
• And his next challenge? Bruce is staying active in IAP2 as Canada’s rep on the IAP2 Federation, where he will continue to participate in the change exercise. And beyond that, as a former senior official in the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, Bruce wants to reach out other senior government officials to prozelityze the merits and benefits of senior participation.

About Joe Thornley

Joseph Thornley, co-host of Inside PR, is CEO of Thornley Fallis and founder of 76engage. He is a past Chair of the Canadian Council of Public Relations Firms. Full bio