Interview: Notable Public Servants - Sandra Nikolic

Hassan Arif, Editor at IPAC Victoria, discusses working in public administration with Sandra Nikolic

This is a regular feature of our newsletter, in which a member of our editorial team interviews a notable public servant. Read their bios at the bottom of the article.

Tell me about the path that led you to the public sector and to local government?

Personally, I’ve never been attracted to the business sector. I was the kid that refused to go knock on doors and sell chocolate bars. I was too shy and I’m not a salesperson. However, I’ve always been community-minded. In my undergraduate studies, I focused on urban studies and urban geography.

Between undergraduate studies and graduate school, I had the opportunity to take an internship with BC Parks which opened my eyes to the many areas one can contribute to working in the public sector. This includes benefiting the environment, residents and visitors, as well as the economy. The BC Parks internship was more than I expected and it really opened my eyes to the opportunities the public sector offered.

My graduate degree in public policy at Simon Fraser University provided me the opportunity to further pursue that goal.

I have found that working in government has allowed me to impact policies that shape all levels of government, not just the municipal sector. In my role, I get to bridge gaps and foster collaboration between different government entities.

You work in Intergovernmental Relations, which can expose one to a range of subject matters: housing, transit, climate change, childcare, and much more. How has this contributed to your understanding of the challenges and opportunities facing local governments? 

Well, you have just listed all the challenges that face local government. There are challenges and opportunities working at the local level. Oftentimes, I feel that people do not see municipal level work as the most high profile or “important.” 

And yes, there are limitations for local governments, including limited fiscal autonomy. We are dependent on other levels of government for funding, resourcing, program support, and there’s on-the-ground pressure for us to meet demands, including population growth and demand for further urbanization.

There are therefore challenges, but also many opportunities in working at the local level. For instance, getting to work directly with communities and stakeholders, and really getting a full understanding of the pressures and needs of communities. At the local level, we are on the ground, we see the impacts first. For example, with the housing crisis, we see homelessness and encampments, first-hand. So, what I have found is that working at the municipal level provides the opportunity to inform regional, provincial, and federal policies and programs.

The City of Vancouver is often pursued by other levels of government to learn from experiences on the ground.

A follow up question, you talked about limited authority being a challenge, can you provide an example or two where a municipality would want to do something but would need to seek permission of the provincial government?

You just hit the nail on the head. Most local governments are governed by the Local Government Act and, with the City of Vancouver, by the Vancouver Charter. 

If we want to make a change, for example to official community plans or amenities, we cannot just go ahead and make those changes, we need to approach the Province. We have wonderful colleagues at the provincial level, but it is an additional step.

You talked about how the municipal level is closer to the community. There are issues like housing which are a high priority of the Province. Given that you work in intergovernmental relations, what are your ideas on better collaboration to inform “higher” levels of government with the ground-level perspective you get at the municipal level?

It’s all about relationship building. Wherever possible, we take an opportunity to try to inform programs and new policies that will be set forth by the provincial or federal governments before they are enacted.

We are always asking, is there a new funding stream coming down the line? What will the next year look like and how can we get municipalities’ interests in the door before parameters are set? As, once they are set by the higher level of government, there is no wiggle room.

It’s really in our interests to make the relationships and foster communications before things are ruled out.

We have excellent subject matter experts on staff and relationships throughout different governments, at all different levels of staff, where we can share information, and bounce ideas off one another. For the most part, if we look at the current day, there are a lot of housing related announcements and programs coming out of provincial and federal governments.

So, for instance, regarding the provincial government’s housing targets, we provide our input into these programs and policies either formally or through conversations. That is part of municipalities supporting such initiatives.

We welcome initiatives from senior levels of government that help us get to our goals. I cannot speak for other municipalities, but for Vancouver there is certainly alignment and we are lucky as that does not always happen.

From what you’re saying, communications and relationship building are very important, between the municipality, the province, and the federal government, to help get that ground level understanding up to senior levels of government.

Absolutely. It’s all about working hand in hand, we all want to work together. Often people look at intergovernmental relations as a battle between different organizations but, in my experience, at the end of the day everyone wants to say “yes”, it’s just about finding the right way to define what “yes” looks like.

So how does reconciliation and working with First Nations fit into your work, given discussions of the emergence of a fourth level of government?

That’s a great question. I would argue that the City of Vancouver has been a leader on this. 

In 2014, the City of Vancouver declared itself the City of Reconciliation. After that announcement, it was up to us (public servants) to figure out, what does that mean? It is a huge thing to accomplish, to understand, and one has to acknowledge that mistakes will be made. However, we are going to figure this out.

In all of my Intergovernmental Relations work, I’ve always looked at this.

There are five orders of government. We’ve got municipal, federal, provincial, but there is also regional because we work with Regional Districts, and then also First Nations governments. So in the work I do, I must consider Indigenous governments as our government partners rather than as “interested parties.” That’s key. It’s important work and something the city has committed to.

Our goals in reconciliation are to establish and maintain respectful relationships between Indigenous and non-indigenous peoples within city boundaries and to respect the rights of local First Nations and urban Indigenous peoples.

Back in 2014, we did not have dedicated Indigenous relations staff, so the Intergovernmental Relations team worked on that file with subject matter experts on staff.

The city recognizes that reconciliation is at the core of all the work we do. For any project, there is consideration of the impact on Nations and we work with Nations. We go to our partners immediately.

Now we have a dedicated Indigenous Relations Team which continues to grow. They do fabulous work and with their establishment the Intergovernmental Relations Team has stepped aside. However, the Intergovernmental Relations Team certainly considers Nations as one of our government partners, but now we have a specialized team for this.

Would you like to elaborate further upon urban Indigenous peoples, as opposed to the Nations whose territories are within the City of Vancouver? Any unique issues in this area you have dealt with in your work?   

A lot of the work I did when I first joined the City of Vancouver involved working with urban Indigenous people. The Great Beginnings program, which was a multi-year project that was ultimately funded by the Province, involved some really innovative work. Great Beginnings involved working in the downtown eastside, partnerships and community engagement, that had inclusion of urban Indigenous populations and urban Indigenous serving groups.

Another follow up, about Regional Districts. They are pretty unique to British Columbia where other Provinces have opted for regional amalgamations. Any comments on the dynamics these Regional Districts create?

It is a different level of work when you have representation from 23 different member jurisdictions that constitute the Metro Vancouver Regional District. You can imagine, how do you get 23 individuals into a room to agree on which direction we should go?

There is a lot of work our team and subject matter experts do. We are the conduit to our elected officials trying to inform decisions being made at the regional table. You have to take off your municipal hat and put on your regional hat, to look beyond municipal boundaries and consider what is good for the region, for everybody, for example transportation and prioritizing one bus rapid transit route or another. 

For public servants, what are some skills that are important to have for intergovernmental relations? What skills would an aspiring public servant who wants to work in intergovernmental relations need to have?

There is a lot of on-the-job learning. With every new portfolio I learn something new. I would say first and foremost though, effective communication, whether verbal or written, is important. You have to be able to articulate very complex ideas and negotiate with various stakeholders, to communicate technical work to elected officials from various different organizations, the public, and partners.

You also need strong analytical and research skills. They are crucial to understand the implications of policy decisions across different levels of government. For example, if the federal government is making a decision, how will it affect our municipality? One instance, housing for the new intake of immigrants with the federal government’s decision to bring in 500,000 new immigrants a year (as opposed to 250,000).

I would also say the ability to pivot and course correct, sometimes on a daily basis or even hourly. Organizational priorities can change and you need flexibility in your work plan. 

You talked about communication and technical subject matter, making that understandable to a wider audience. Could you elaborate on that?

If I’m proceeding to brief one of my own, like senior leaders or elected officials for a meeting they may be having with their counterparts, I need to know my audience. If I’m preparing a briefing note for an elected official, I am going to include the main speaking points. Communicating in 20 minutes is important.

Staff will work on the details after the fact.

What are some recent priorities in Intergovernmental Relations? How have they shifted over the years?

Working in the public sector, priorities shift and change depending on who is in power. It used to be three-year cycles, but now it’s four year cycles. Every four years we get a new mayor and council and that sets a new tone, a new direction. So, with a new council you set off on this process of determining organizational priorities.

It’s a very hands-on process, reconciling the interests of our elected council, our capital plan, our corporate strategy, all the while considering impacts on the public.

Our CFO spoke on record recently, looking at modernizing municipal funding frameworks to enable housing delivery, and taking a regional approach to mental health and affordable housing and adjusting funding contributions towards housing and childcare to address cost escalations municipalities face. 

As you can see, there’s a central theme to our three large priorities, and that’s housing. Housing is taking centre stage these days, for multiple levels of government. I don’t see this shifting too much in the foreseeable future. At the moment municipal, provincial, and federal levels of government are for the most part aligned and this is our opportunity to really take advantage of that.

With housing as a big ticket item we have all agreed to work on, it’s our priority. Certainly we’ve got other priorities that will always be there. The good work always has to continue on things like sustainability, climate change and adaptation, transportation, and childcare.

You mentioned earlier, about your earlier work on the Great Beginnings Program, how would you describe some of your work there?

That was a project that was near and dear to my heart. It was my first several years working at the city and I was lucky enough to project manage an interdepartmental program that had dedicated staff, from engineering, planning, zoning and bylaws, and the Park Board.

We had financial support from the provincial government, and our mandate was to go in and work within neighbourhoods like the Downtown Eastside on revitalization projects. However, we didn’t just go in with a funding or granting program, plop in a bunch of money, maybe a little staff time, and then airlift out when that expires and the work stops. 

Great Beginnings had a retention plan. No project was approved for funding without having a community partner we worked hand-in-hand with.

The hope and intent is for the work to continue within the community, to build up the skill-set in the community. 

There’s one great project we did with Coast Mental Health, so that organization then carried on the work even though our project-team typically has for the most part stepped away. We did things like micro-cleaning  and new neon signs in Chinatown. Those were funded by our project to bring light to the night of Chinatown which had kind of went dark for several years. There’s also low threshold employment opportunities for individuals facing dual impacts of mental health and addiction for whom a Monday-to-Friday, 9-to-5 job was not the right fit.

One of my pet projects was working with community groups to take all of the Olympic banners and figure out what to do with them. They were removed by the engineering department but we then had this product you don’t want to throw away. So we found a fabulous group of women, new immigrants and refugees, and we funded them to sew little backpacks. We partnered with a corporate sponsor to fill all the backpacks with school supplies which we then donated to low-income children in the neighbourhood. It was a great project where we got so many people involved, and so many people benefitted, and got job skills as well.

You talked about having collaboration with a community partner to keep it ongoing. It’s like what you were talking about earlier with local governments, they’re closer to the ground.

It makes sense, that was the whole intent of this project, to work with the community. 

Often, for neighbourhood level meetings, instead of having them come to City Hall, I go out to them. For some individuals, they are more comfortable talking in their own communities and neighbourhoods. I’ll show up, not in a business suit, and I’ll listen.

Often, governments go in with a pocket-full of money, with intent to make change, or institute certain programs and policies, but do not go in first and just listen, ask questions like what do you need, you’re in the community we want to serve, how can we help out? It’s a little thing sometimes just going in, being silent, and saying how can I serve you, I am your public servant. That can be forgotten.

Finally, what about work-life balance, your life outside the world of local government?

Maintaining a healthy work-life balance is crucial in the public sector as in any industry. It is a challenge, there are certain times especially, within a legislative or election cycle when things are fast moving. The nature of our work (in government) involves complex issues and very tight deadlines. We are running from one meeting to the next sometimes, getting work done.

I have a two-year-old at home. Sometimes being in the office is relaxing and being at home is like working, I certainly don’t put my feet up.

I’m really lucky to work in an organization where we have flexible work arrangements, so I try to work from home for one or two days a week, as much as I can. That eliminates morning and evening commutes which, coupled with daycare drop-offs, helps reduce stress.

I also play soccer a couple of days a week and am finally getting back into my pre-baby workout schedule. So, I would say physical activity is important for me. I’m not the best at sitting and doing nothing.

More about Sandra Nikolic, Manager of Intergovernmental Relations at the City of Vancouver

Sandra is the Senior Manager of Intergovernmental Relations at the City of Vancouver where she works to advance priorities such as housing, transit, climate change, childcare, and COVID-19 recovery efforts. Prior to her current role, she managed Vancouver's Great Beginnings Program which aimed to restore Vancouver's funding to neighbourhoods and establish a foundation for improvements to the economic, physical and social environments.

She is a board member of IPAC Vancouver.