Policy Options

Imagine the following scenario: a PhD candidate, before writing his dissertation, sits down with his PhD examiner. She says to him, “as long as you structure your argument in this particular way, and use this specific evidence, I will pass your dissertation. Don’t worry – I’ll be with you every step of the way, in […]

The Trudeau government took office last fall announcing it would reverse Canada’s lagging productivity and competitiveness by investing in social innovation. But it has broken new ground by stating that for its social innovation strategy to succeed, it will require greater collaboration across all ministries as well as between government, industry and research institutions. And […]

The fragile state of Afghanistan remains one of the greatest development challenges of our time. While the joint work of the Afghan government and the international community brought a few benefits for the country, many have not been sustainable. My visits to Kabul and consultations with Afghans at various levels confirm that a large number […]

One of the enduring lessons of my time working on citizenship and multiculturalism issues under former minister Jason Kenney was just how much I and many other public servants were blinded by internal values, ideologies and biases and were thus not able to respond appropriately to the various values, ideologies and biases of the minister […]

While Donald Trump keeps reciting his mantra about the Mexican border, every week brings news about the construction of a new border wall. In the past year, Austria, Slovenia, Estonia, Hungary, Kenya, and Tunisia have stated their intention to build walls or barriers along their borders, while Bulgaria, Saudi Arabia and Turkey will renovate or […]

Oh, the irony. A Brexit vote that was meant to repatriate democratic accountability back to British shores has instead thrown the very question of accountability up in the air. A clear majority of the British people backed leaving the European Union but no one, least of all the political leaders of the Brexit movement, has […]

In the wake of the Brexit referendum, this week’s episode tackles a Canadian issue that might soon trigger a referendum of its own: electoral reform. Harvard University’s Pippa Norris is one of the world’s leading experts on electoral systems. She is currently the director of the Electoral Integrity Project. This $6 million-dollar initiative involves thousands […]

Well, we’ve gone and done it. After 43 years, Britain has voted to “take back control” and leave the European Union. The question on everybody’s lips in the United (for now) Kingdom this morning is “what next”? It’s a strange question to be asking after months of campaigning; in truth, it should have already been […]

I read Ilona Dougherty’s “To enhance innovation we need ‘intrapreneurship’ instead of ‘heropreneurship’” with some interest. The crux of the piece was this: the so called heropreneurs are to be guarded against, and “we can’t rely on just one sector or just one kind of actor to solve our innovation deficit.” For a brief period, I […]

There is nothing like a little distance from Canada to offer a fresh perspective on what is going on back home. While #elbowgate and #prayforsophie were trending, I was one of a dozen Canadians participating in the BMW Foundation Herbert Quandt’s 5th World Responsible Leaders Forum in Munich. It was not surprising that top of mind amongst […]