Rethinking Core Performance Principles, Results and Measures: Moving from a Transactional to a Relational focus through a ‘Made in Canada’ Value System
Mar 25, 2025 — 12 p.m. to 1 p.m.
Rethinking Core Performance Principles, Results and Measures: Moving from a Transactional to a Relational focus through a ‘Made in Canada’ Value System
Events in various domains (health, environment, economics, culture, and society) over the past decades have shown that framing results in terms of transactions—whether they are outputs or outcomes—has unduly favored short-term and short-sighted compliance, efficiency, productivity, and growth. This has produced unstable, fragile systems, blinded to their effects on specific groups and people, thereby excluding consideration of rights and interest holders. This approach plays into the interests of powerful key actors, creating large disparities in impact. Not only has this skewed power dynamics towards colonizers and oppressors, but it has also proven susceptible to emergent shocks and changes, thereby reducing resiliency in systems and society.
Conversely, results framing that favors and features true relationship and trust network building can incorporate these as key parts of understanding the performance of policies, programs, and initiatives. This approach creates longer-term, sustained impacts and promotes a value system more consistent with ‘human-focused’ orientations and beliefs. It can also be key to truly managing for results.
The webinar will feature four components:
- Introduction – the problem: emphasizing the transactional over the relational
- The ‘alternative’ principles – a focus on reach, reciprocal relations, engagement, trust, and influence networks as the core of any performance story
- Complementary monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) approaches
- Sharing - Q & A – a brief dialogue with participants shaping next steps and content for the April Summit in-person workshop
These examples and stories will be used to practically illustrate how these values can be applied in various contexts.
Nancy Porteous
VP of the Oversight and Investigations Sector at the Public Service Commission of Canada
Nancy Porteous is Vice President of the Oversight and Investigations Sector at the Public Service Commission of Canada. Nancy previously held various executive positions at the Public Health Agency of Canada and Health Canada. Prior to joining the federal government over 20 years ago, Nancy worked for an applied social research consulting firm and in a number of different roles for the City of Ottawa.
Nancy is a Credentialed Evaluator and a Fellow of the Canadian Evaluation Society. She holds an Honours Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from McGill University and a Master of Science in Social Research Methods from the University of Surrey (England), where she studied as a Commonwealth Scholar.
Larry K. Bremner (Métis) CE, FCES
Social Researcher and Evaluation Expert
Larry has worked in social research and evaluation for 45+ years. In 1984, he established Proactive to provide research and evaluation services to the not-for-profit and public sectors. He is recognized for his depth of knowledge and his willingness to share his knowledge, particularly in the areas of Indigenous and decolonizing approaches to evaluation, including the use of storytelling. Larry, who has worked across Canada and internationally, has been engaged by government departments (federal, provincial, territorial), Indigenous communities and organizations, community-based agencies, post-secondary institutions, school districts, regional health authorities, as well as museums and visitor centres. In 2012, Larry was elected National President of CES. As Past President, he represented CES on the international stage where he was the driving force behind the creation of the global EvalPartners’ network EvalIndigenous. In 2017, Larry received the CES Service Award and in 2018 the Contribution to Evaluation in Canada Award. In 2019, he was inducted as a Fellow of the Canadian Evaluation Society (FCES), the Society’s highest honour. Larry is also co-editor of the new permanent section of the Canadian Journal of Program Evaluation, Roots and Relations: Celebrating Good Medicine in Evaluation.
Linda E. Lee CE, FCES
Social Researcher and Evaluation Expert
Linda, a passionate advocate for using evaluation to create a more equitable, inclusive, and sustainable world, is Vice-President and a Partner in the Manitoba-based evaluation and social research company Proactive Information Services Inc. A CES Award winner and Fellow (FCES), Linda has worked in evaluation and research for 40+ years. She has been a keynote speaker, presented papers and facilitated workshops at many national and international conferences. She has conducted evaluations across Canada and internationally, including many countries in East Central and Southeastern Europe, as well as in Argentina and Lithuania. She is known as an engaging workshop presenter and for her creative and innovative approaches in evaluation and assessment. Linda, a former CES National President, has served on the CES Credentialing Board, the Fellows’ Executive, and was a founder of the original CES Diversity Equity and Inclusion Working Group. She was a member of the CE Competencies Review Working Group which was tasked with revising and updating the Competencies for Canadian Evaluation Practice in 2017/18.
Steve Montague
Partner, Performance Management Network Inc.
Steve has over three decades of experience as a practitioner in performance measurement and program evaluation as a management consultant, an adjunct professor and as an evaluation manager in a major Canadian federal government department. Mr. Montague has managed major and minor projects analyzing a wide variety of programs for Canadian federal, provincial, United States, Scottish and Australian governments, as well as conducting work for the OECD, the World Bank, the European Union and the United Nations. He has published articles on measurement and evaluation in journals in Canada, the US and Europe and facilitated numerous presentations, panels and workshops on evaluation, performance management and information management. He was awarded the Contribution to Evaluation Award by the Canadian Evaluation Society in 2015 and the Carl Boudreault award for contribution to the Local National Capital Evaluation Society chapter in 2007.
Steve is also a founding member and has been a three-time President of the Performance and Planning Exchange.