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Pushing Against the Glass Ceiling
Returning to the book chapter about Canadian political narratives, I realized that I hadn’t paid sufficient attention to National Film Board of Canada documentaries. A look through the online catalogue revealed over 100 documentaries in English that deal with politics or politicians. Breaking them down thematically, one group that stood out is women in politics.…
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My Own Hundred Acre Wood
Having long ago delighted my children with the wisdom and humour of A.A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh tales, I intended to visit the Royal Ontario Museum’s special exhibit about Winnie-the-Pooh. Through an over-abundance of Covidian caution I didn’t do it last summer; by fall the Museum closed and the exhibit was dismantled and returned to the Victoria…
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Highway 413: What Would Bill Davis Do?
The Ford Government is planning to build a fourth east-west highway in the Greater Toronto Area: the GTA West Corridor (GTAW). It would run parallel to, and north of, the existing highways 401 and 407, starting at Highway 400 to the east and linking to the 401/407 interchange in the west. (Copious details including route…
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Presentation on Innovation to Brazilians
Two months ago I gave a Zoom presentation on public sector innovation to Brazilian public servants organized by Brazil’s Escola Nacional de Administracao Publica. The presentation has now been posted on YouTube. Here is a time-line of the presentation: 0 – 9 minutes: introduction by my hosts 9 – 16 minutes: my introduction 16-18 minutes:…
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Who Would Write for Wikipedia?
My Experience In a recent post, I discussed commonalities among my five most popular blog posts in the last five years. Noting that one had been referenced in Wikipedia, I came up with the idea of adding content to the Wikipedia entries on topics I had written about, with links back to my blog posts…
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Les Rose: My Father’s Violence
I concluded a recent blog post arguing that “Canadian culture and politics need more Canadian political documentary.” An immediate example of what I am looking for is Felix Rose’s documentary Les Rose (The Rose Family). Supported by the National Film Board of Canada, it represents Rose’s attempt to come to terms with his family legacy,…
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Trump, Reelected, Targets Canada
Now that I have your attention, I’ll explain. I always included a crisis management exercise in my public management course, in which I presented the students with a challenging but plausible future scenario and asked them, assuming the role of the relevant government, to devise an action plan. The Scenario and Assignment Last spring, shortly…
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Peter Morgan’s Gloriana
There has been considerable discussion about the ways in which the fourth season of showrunner Peter Morgan’s The Crown takes liberties with the historical record, most notably Hugh Vickers’s The Crown Dissected. Any discussion of departures from the historical record is incomplete unless it explains why the creators made their narrative choices and outlines the…
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Remembrance Day 2020
Remembrance Day 2020 will be a special one, but not in a good way. In a pandemic we will not be gathering. We will be watching services that will necessarily be sparsely attended, with participants masked and socially distanced. As important as it is to remember those who fell in our defense in the past,…
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Four Election Takeaways (Two Canadian)
Now that the US election results are known and the suspense is over, I have four takeaways, two of which derive from my Canadian perspective. Different Types of Mobilization When all votes are counted, the total presidential vote will be close to 150 million, representing a turnout rate of close to 70 percent, which is…
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Democrats: The New Silent Majority?
As of the weekend before the election, public opinion polls continue to show Biden with a lead of close to 10 percentage points in voter intentions. On the other hand, YouTube view counts still continue to show Trump with much greater social engagement. YouTube view counts are easily accessible, but they are not the entire…
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Events Through Contrasting Lenses
To borrow from (and rewrite) the philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson, “events are in the saddle and ride mankind.” In the US election, events are riding in two directions simultaneously because Democrats and Republicans are interpreting the same event in opposite ways. For the final time I will examine the potential of events – the proverbial…
- 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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