On May 15, 2002, the Canadian team attended a Competition pre-event in Tokyo, along with the eight other teams from around the globe. A four member delegation consisting of Mike Harcourt, Sebastian Moffatt, Elisa Campbell and Jane McRae, participated. Two formal presentations were made - the first in a closed session with the organizing committee of the World Gas Conference’s International Competition, and the second in an open symposium to the other teams and to 400 members of the energy industry, government and academic institutions in Tokyo.

The closed session was intended to update the organizing committee on each team’s activities and plans for their submissions. The open symposium was designed to have competition entrants present to each other and to a public audience of 400. The topics of the presentations included:(1) requirements for sustainable urban communities in the next 100 years, and (2) issues and challenges faced by the selected urban areas and how the teams would approach planning for sustainable urban communities in the future.

The Canadian delegation concurred that it was a very useful exercise. The three day event provided an opportunity to assess our competition and allow us to re-conceptualize the format of our final submission. More importantly, however, we identified numerous opportunities to use the competition as a catalyst for ongoing partnerships with other metropolitan areas around the world. The pre-event was cleverly designed to promote a collaborative competition with a lasting legacy - a goal all teams seem eager to support.