Fall is here, and with it comes a great line up of interesting events to inject a little mo-jo into our public discourse. Here are a few we're planning to attend (biased toward, although not limited to Toronto): 1. TEDx comes to Canada: Lovers of the brain candy provided by the podcasts from TED's various conferences will be delighted to know that an independently-organized Canadian version is c... [More]

As a relative newbie to the op-ed pages of the Globe and Mail, I was a bit overwhelmed by the response our op-ed received. Who said no one reads newspapers anymore? In any event, thank you to everyone who responded to our piece last week. I wanted to take this opportunity to summarize and comment on the major points (positive and negative) that we heard and raise a few questions for ongoing dis... [More]

This morning the Globe and Mail was kind enough to publish an op-ed we wrote, arguing that we all need to pull up our socks to get at the malaise in our public life. We've already received a number of terrific comments. Please let us know what you think and we'll share a summary of the feedback with you in the coming days. You can read the article here, and comment on this blog, the Globe sit... [More]

As regular readers know, we're kicking off our exit interview project with former MPs who left public life after either the 38th or 39th Parliaments (to translate: between 2004 and 2008). In the process of developing this work we've spent a lot of time understanding what we know and don't know about political leadership in Canada. The short answer is, unsurprisingly, that we don't all that much. ... [More]