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A big idea for Ontario's colleges and universities With 10 weeks to go before the provincial election, the campaign is still stuck on snooze. What Ontarians want right now is a little well-earned time in the hammock. Billions for transit, green energy or autos barely creates a stir. So to get things rolling, here's a simple, sweeping idea that would create a legacy for the next government, put higher education on the public agenda and really give people something to talk about. | More
Deciding democracy Globe and Mail, August 2, 2007 Political sociologist Peter MacLeod says political polarities are being scrambled as Ontario ponders a fundamental decision: Stick with the current first-past-the-post voting system or switch to mixed member proportional? | More
Okay. Time out. The campaign hasn't even begun and we need to blow the whistle. We're 11 weeks from a referendum that will decide whether Ontario adopts a new, more proportional way to elect provincial politicians. And while most people are tending their backyard barbecues or cooling their toes in the province's northern lakes, the language game has begun in the fight to define how the referendum debate will be portrayed. The big prize is "democracy. | More
Yesterday we learned that on July 1, the CN Tower will get a facelift. Quietly, for months now, engineers have been installing thousands upon thousands of super-bright LED lights inside the elevator shafts and upward to the top of the tower's mast. | More
Globe and Mail, January 23, 2007 Is the Family Compact alive and well in Ontario? It must be. It's the only way you can explain why the biggest democratic innovation in the province's recent history is getting such a drubbing from certain corners of the academy and the press. | More
January 10, 2007 As our eighteenth century political institutions struggle to maintain their legitimacy in the
The Tyee.ca, July 14, 2006
Alberta College of Art and Design, May 18, 2006 And its here, in our shared concern for tomorrow, that our worlds – the political and the aesthetic -- start to converge, that the political significance of your choice to become a member of a creative profession meets up with the first question any democrat or thinking citizen must ask: what is my vision for the community of which I am a member? Is a better society possible? How might it be constituted? What might it achieve? | More
Representation and Recognition: Reflections along the Low Road to Democratic Reform Queen's University School of Public Policy, April, 2006 Late last month, the centenary project of Britain’s Joseph Rowntree Foundation released the findings of an eighteenth month investigation into the state of British democracy. The project was called the Power Inquiry and it has enjoyed a status similar to our own Royal Commissions. A blue ribbon panel of experts was convened. They called witnesses, hosted consultations across the country and conducted comparative research. Their final report is fascinating because they systematically demolish the hoary myths of citizen engagement. | More
Rethinking Constituency Offices Parliamentary Review, March, 2006 It’s an unusual feature of contemporary political life that members of parliament are expected to be in two places at once. Prior to the proliferation of cheap air travel, an MP could comfortably expect to spend a short winter session in Ottawa and return to their riding through the spring, summer and early fall. Parliamentary life was keyed to agricultural cycle. Today, like the modern election campaign, it’s keyed to the capacity of jetliners to cross time zones and the expectations of citizens to see their MP perform local duties as evidence that they haven’t yet lost touch.
The Low Road to Democratic Reform Privy Council Office, March 2005
The Tyee.ca, December 7, 2005
Time to Join the Eurosphere The Tyee.ca, October 2, 2005 The softwood lumber dispute is in its twenty-third year. Canadian free-traders and their opponents alike are hopping mad. Most everyone will acknowledge that the once-vaunted dispute mechanism is broken and short of a full out trade war, our options are few. "Hold up the oil," say some. "Just wait until they get thirsty," say others. It's hard not to think back to Trudeau's warnings about getting into bed with an elephant and his hope for a 'third way'. | More
The Risk Revolution, Creative Cities Summit Toronto, June 2005 I want to plant one idea with you – I want to give you a phrase to jot down and take away if you think it’s any good. We’ve been talking about creative risk. I want to talk about ‘creative security’. I’d like to see politicians in Canada talking about the need for Creative Security -- which might sound strange, because I don’t mean niftier forms of homeland defence or artistically-inclined police. I mean Creative Security in the way Americans once talked about Social Security – a set of programmes, institutions and guarantees that the state makes to its citizens – and I’d like to see in the upcoming federal election at least one party produce a Creative Security Agenda. And I’m going to spend the rest of my time explaining why. | More
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