Born and raised in Kingston’s King’s Town district, Councillor Gregory Ridge is a lifelong community member and proud alumnus of Queen’s University, St. Lawrence College, and Laurentian University, recently completing his Professional Master’s in Public Administration at Queen’s. Before his election to City Council, he served as a Legislative Assistant to former MPP Ian Arthur, led a tax clinic returning over $2 million to the community, and remains passionate about public policy, affordable housing, food security and sustainability, and the arts.

Any students who are interested in this program are invited to join Acting Director Eugene Lang for an information session on the Master of Public Administration (MPA) Program on November 26.

The School of Policy Studies at Queen's University offers a rich and rewarding learning experience that is unsurpassed in Canada and matched only by the best public policy programs in the world. Through high quality interactive teaching and integrated learning, we enhance leadership in public policy by providing students the inspiration, skills, competencies and connections to become better contributors to the public good.  The MPA curriculum includes core courses in economics, policy analysis, governance, management and quantitative methods.  Through elective courses, students apply their skills to the analysis and resolution of concrete policy and management problems.

The Queen's MPA is a one-year, multi-disciplinary program for full-time students.

Much has been said about diminishing support for immigration in Canada. In this talk, Mireille Paquet will argue that this might not be the most important story about immigration policy and politics in Canada right now. Instead of focusing on attitudes, she will highlight several policy trends that should receive more attention, including growing administrative backlogs, poor regulation of migration industries, and the aging technological infrastructure of the immigration department. While scholars have yet to decide whether attitudinal changes will be long-lasting or determine their consequences for immigration politics, Mireille believes these structural issues in Canada's immigration system are likely to shape our future in ways that are not discussed enough.

Mireille Paquet is professor and Concordia research Chair on the politics of immigration at Concordia. An expert in Canadian immigration politics, she is also the author of several books and articles on comparative migration politics. She is the Concordia lead for the pan-Canadian Bridging Divides project and a lead for the Réseau de recherche Québécois de la recherche sur l’immigration, l’intégration et les relations interculturelles.