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The Whole World is Watching
“The Whole World is Watching” was a rallying-cry used by anti-Vietnam War protesters to shame American police and military who were violently suppressing demonstrations. But it now fits the situation in which Canadians find ourselves. What the world has recently seen of Canada in stories that have received international attention is not how we would…
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How to Take Back Ottawa
One component of my public management course was a crisis management simulation. I would imagine a crisis and write a one-page scenario. I would distribute the scenario to the students at the start of class, choose a small crisis management team, and ask the team to lead a discussion. This year’s crisis requires no imagination;…
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Candidate Vetting: Then and Now
This will be the last in the series of posts dealing with my relationship with Joe Clark. It deals with vetting candidates for Parliament. The Background In a 1977 by-election in the Quebec riding of Terrebonne, the local riding association nominated Roger Delorme, a local broadcaster. It turned out – and this was known before…
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The PCP/CPC Caucus under Clark and O’Toole
The Progressive Conservative Party, now Conservative Party of Canada, with its history of mainly being in opposition, has been plagued with caucus fractiousness. In the current session of Parliament, the Conservatives have been able to speak with one voice about ending conversion therapy, but are divided about many other issues, most notably vaccine mandates. Reviewing…
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A PC Party Platform for Canada in the 80s
A major part of my involvement with Joe Clark’s campaign for the leadership of the Progressive Conservative Party in 1976, which I began to discuss in last week’s post, was the preparation of policy papers. Four advisers – me, Carole Uhlaner, Ian McKinnon, and Mark Krasnick (of blessed memory) – did the drafting, and Joe…
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Campaigning with Joe and Maureen
I was recently interviewed by Matthew Hayday, an historian at the University of Guelph who is writing a biography of Joe Clark, Canada’s sixteenth prime minister. My then wife (Carole Uhlaner, now an emerita professor of political science at the University of California at Irvine) and I were deeply involved doing policy work and speech…
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The Last Thing Toronto Needs Now
Recently I became aware of a proposal by Nieuport Aviation, owner and operator of the terminal at Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport (BBTCA), to spend $69 million upgrading it, including the construction of a US Customs and Border Protection pre-clearance hall. The Background I’ll unpack the wordy first sentence with some background. Nieuport Aviation opaquely…
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Messiah: From Concert Hall to the Street
On a holiday season that has quickly shifted from joy to wariness, I have turned to Handel’s Messiah for consolation. Last year I wrote about some of Handel’s techniques (vivid imagery, contrasts, repetition) and motifs (sheep and lambs, corruption, the king). This year I listened to two contrasting versions. The Original Original Instruments Messiah In…
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Attacking Doug Ford on Science
Two days ago (Wednesday December 15) the Ford Government announced it would step up vaccinations and testing. Socially distancing? Hardly at all, the only change being that events of more than 1000 attendees will be reduced to 50 percent capacity. Yesterday the independent Ontario Science Table argued that, with cases of the Omicron variant doubling…
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Attacking Doug Ford on Covid
The reaction to my previous message attacking Ontario Premier Doug Ford on climate change was positive as readers encouraged me to record and post it. Here is my message attacking his handling of the pandemic. I’m also planning messages on democratic values and respect for science. My plan is to record and post all of…
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Finding Our Carbon Footprint
Fighting climate change requires action in the areas of politics and personal practice. Last week’s post was about political action – mobilizing to defeat a premier who is a notorious climate change malefactor. This week’s is about personal practice. My undergraduate class’s climate change action group referred me to the University of California at Berkeley’s…
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Attacking Doug Ford on Climate Change
After a flurry of election ads in October, Ontario is now in the quiet period before the 2022 election campaign, when spending on election advertising by political parties is limited and by third parties is prohibited. This provides an opportunity for individual citizens using social media to get out their messages about the coming election.…
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Read our New Article
I’m delighted to announce that Beth Herst and I have just published a new article entitled Canadian Political Storytelling: Back to a Future?” It is available in its entirety in the online journal New Area Studies. The article is the basis for the chapter about Canadian political narratives on film or television from 1960 to…
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Tony Downs and Heroic Bureaucrats
Tony Downs, a truly original economist, recently passed away at 90. Downs is most renowned for his doctoral thesis, published in 1957 under the rubric An Economic Theory of Democracy, which has a stellar 37,000 citations on Google scholar. Downs pioneered the application of self-interested rational choice to the behavior of voters and politicians, and…
- I am Professor of Public Management Emeritus at the University of Toronto, having retired in July 2020 after a 45-year academic career.
- My latest book, Public Representations: Screen Stories, Narrative, and the Public Sphere, co-authored with Beth Herst, was published in April 2026 by University of Toronto Press (open access).
- On this website I post blogs about politics, narrative, and my life experiences.
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