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(The Harper Government’s) Money Can’t Buy My Vote
It so happens that, as a suburban household with one adult working outside the home and two active children we are the Harper Government’s target voters. As such, we have received the full panoply of tax credits and payments over the last ten years. We received the Universal Child Care Benefit for our younger son…
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Stephen Harper and the Politics of Lying
Lying is sometimes a criminal offense (fraud) and sometimes not (white lies). There are many types of lies in the managerial and political world, some more acceptable than others. Steve Job’s reality distortion field was a tactic to stimulate innovation on the technological frontier: minimizing the challenges in developing a new technology and overstating the…
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Kenneth Courtis on the Harper Government’s Economic Mismanagement
Dr. Kenneth Courtis is a Canadian who has had a distinguished career as an academic, an analyst, and commentator on the global economy, particularly Asia, where he has lived for the last thirty years, as investment banker, and as an investor. He has taught at universities in Europe, the US, Asia, and was tenured professor…
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Canvassing with a Precocious Twelve-Year Old
My son Nathaniel has been getting increasingly interested in politics in the last year. He and I decided to volunteer for the campaign of Rob Oliphant, the Liberal candidate in Don Valley West. We accompanied Rob going door to door after the official opening of his volunteer office a few weeks ago. Watching Rob was a…
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Visiting Japan with Nathaniel
Last fall, our eleven year old son Nathaniel approached me with a proposition. He had been saving his allowance and gifts for several years and was willing to put all the money towards a visit to Asia. I chose Japan because I liked it when I had first visited several decades ago, because there would…
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Questions I would have Asked Richard Suzman
Recently I saw a lengthy obituary in The New York Times for Richard Suzman. I remembered meeting him four decades ago when he was a teaching fellow in Harvard’s undergraduate social studies program and I was a sophomore. His specialty was Freud, the thinker with whom the students were least familiar. He generously offered an…
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Public Management and/or Political Messaging
Two weeks ago I received an envelope from the Canada Revenue Agency that, surprisingly, was full of good news. First, it contained a letter from the Tax Centre that handles our returns listing the names and birthdates of our two children under the age of 18 on whose behalf my wife will be receiving the…
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Sherlock Holmes or Robert Langdon?
I purchased Dan Brown’s latest book, Inferno, for an airplane flight and got around to reading it a few weeks later. The Wall Street Journal’s reviewer, featured on the back cover, called Brown “the master of the intellectual cliffhanger.” Excuse me, I always thought that accolade was reserved for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author of…
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Alan Hockin’s Grace under Adversity
Alan Hockin had a distinguished career as a senior public servant in the Department of Finance and then as executive vice-president at Toronto-Dominion Bank. His third career as Dean of the Faculty of Administrative Studies (now Schulich School of Business) at York University was likely his most challenging. When Alan became Dean in 1985, the…
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The Investing Wisdom of George Luste
As we mourn George Luste, former University of Toronto physics professor and transformational president of the University of Toronto Faculty Association, who passed away on March 21, I want to discuss his wisdom and legacy as an investor. I came to understand George’s investment philosophy on the basis of several discussions, some in the company…
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Julian Fantino: A Liability in Veterans Affairs but an Asset in Vaughan?
When Julian Fantino had his first major confrontation with his department’s constituency, I predicted in my post of Feb. 13, 2014 that it wouldn’t end well for him: “Perhaps in a few months Harper will have a done-like discussion with Fantino, telling him not to expect to remain in cabinet if the Conservatives are re-elected.…
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Meistersigner’s Hans Sachs as Leader
I watched the Met’s wonderful production of Meistersinger yesterday. In addition to the program I was aided by my Berkeley colleague Michael O’Hare’s teaching note on the opera’s lessons about leadership and innovation. I look forward to Michael posting his thoughtful and original ideas about Meistersinger on his blog. The character who most impressed me…
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Practitioner Perspectives on Encouraging Public Sector Innovation
Last Friday I spoke at a public sector innovation conference in Minneapolis sponsored by the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota. The conference attracted a large and enthusiastic crowd of 200 participants from state, county, and local governments. I will report on an executive seminar that I led for a group…
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More Student Stories: Seneca’s “Because it Matters” Campaign
While recently riding the subway, I saw Seneca College’s ads. Like York University’s, which I wrote about a month ago, these too are based on students’ stories. The first line of the ad I saw was “Drove,” the second “Bus to Survive” and the third “Herself to Succeed.” In those seven words was a very…
- 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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