A great many thanks to everyone who suggested books for the List of Canada's Best Political Writing.  We've compiled everyone's ideas here, and we'll continue to update it with any further suggestions, which you can add in the comments section here. On Monday, we're launching our "Guess Who?" contest, a bi-weekly opportunity for you to win one of the books from the Best Political Writing lis... [More]

Lots of interesting articles to keep up with these days: On democracy and society: An extremely thoughtful piece on balancing citizen participation with delegating expertise in a democracy, by Mike Ananny, a new media PhD student at Stanford.  Here's another good one, on the rise and fall of GDP as a good way to measure social progress.  I'm also trying to sort out my views on this piec... [More]

I'm a big fan of the Munk Debates both because they bring great, and often famous, debaters to a public podium, and also because they work hard to use technology to make the debates accessible across the country and around the world. Tomorrow, Monday June 7, is the next installment, where the resolution is "I would rather get sick in in the United States than in Canada." The debate pits U.S. Sena... [More]

Thanks to Douglas Reid for passing along this excellent article by Mark Lilla that reflects on the current state of politics in America specifically, and in western democracies more generally. Too multi-faceted to summarize here, it gets into the causes and implications of people's well-reported decline in trust for government and other collective institutions in society, and hints that our quest... [More]

Thank you to Samara intern Grant Burns for writing the summary on the inspiring and fascinating Samara/Massey seminar by Ellen Weiss, VP News for National Public Radio.  Edited videos of the talk will be available soon. ----- Hearing news executives talk about the future of journalism is pretty standard these days. But hearing them talk about why the future’s bright for journalism is ... [More]

For more on yesterday's piece on free speech in Canada, a short debate between Paul Saurette and Margaret Wente. Among other things, they discuss the role of controversial arguemnts and individuals in public life.  It was reminiscent of many of themes of last week's emotion and public policy conference. If this continues, I'll surely regret my decision to forgo philosophy in first year unive... [More]

Rumours to the contrary aside, if March is any indication, there is good reason to believe that philosophy is alive and well in modern life. Today, Paul Saurette encourages us to reflect, in light of Ann Coulter's recently-thwarted attempt to address a crowd in Ottawa, on the appropriate justifications for limiting free speech in Canada.  His plea for a "thoughtful and nuanced consideration... [More]

In addition to the good upcoming public policy chit-chat this week, we add two notes which will be of particular interest to the journalistically-inclined. First, on Tuesday March 16 the Canadian Journalism Foundation is hosting a roundtable discussion with four journalists who covered the immediate aftermath of the hurricane in Haiti -a heartbreaking story that was no doubt extremely dif... [More]

Recently back in the big smoke after my annual in-person visit to Question Period, I can assure everyone that emotion - real and contrived - is alive and well in Canadian politics. For those interested in exploring emotion and public policy in a slightly more, shall we say, detached fashion, next Tuesday evening, March 16, there is a free public lecture on emotion and public policy at th... [More]

Perhaps in keeping with Ottawa's recent nomination as among the "most intelligent places to live," I've stumbled across a few events, coming to a national capital near you, that look interesting. First, IPAC and MASSLBP are turning their minds to the future - 2017 to be exact. That year marks the 150th anniversary of Canada and they rightfully want us thinking now about how we'll celebrate. T... [More]

A few things to highlight for those inclined to things of an international or foreign policy ilk: 1. Foreign Policy Camp is scheduled for Monday, November 30th, hosted by a terrific set of Canadian organizations. If you're in Vancouver, Edmonton, Toronto or Montreal, you can participate by registering here. The Mark has a special page dedicated to the deliberations. 2. The second issue of ... [More]

Earlier this month, we shared a couple of events of interest to those who care about the vibrancy of our public debates. In case you missed them, here are the highlights of two and links to where you can learn more. TEDxTO was excellent. Kudos to the organizers. The Torontoist's summary is a good one and the videos should be on at the TEDxTO site soon. Almost all the talks were fantastic, so ... [More]