Helen graduated from Queen’s with a B.Sc. in Chemistry and Mathematics, then worked for a year as a chemist at Procter & Gamble in Hamilton. With a yearning to see a wider world she signed up with CUSO for a two-year stint teaching in a girls’ boarding school in northern Tanzania. She then completed an M.Sc. at the London School of Economics in Econometrics. Upon her return to Kingston with two young children she was elected as a municipal councillor in 1980. She served as Kingston’s first woman mayor from 1988 to 1993, then began a three-year term as Chair of the Ontario Municipal Board. In the early ‘90s Helen served as President of the Association of Municipalities of Ontario as well as a member of the Premier’s Council on Health Strategy and the Ontario Round Table on Environment and Economy. From 2001 to 2006 she was a member of the Advisory Council of the Nuclear Waste Management Organization. Since 2006 Helen has been a manager within the Ministry of Community and Social Services, mostly recently with program delivery for adult developmental services until her retirement at the end of 2014. She has subsequently indulged in a great deal of travel both in North America and abroad and is also pursuing a long-held goal of completing Route 66 in stages. Her current volunteer enthusiasms are the Queen’s School of Policy Studies where she is a Distinguished Fellow and Oasis Senior Supportive Living where she recently became president. 

After nearly 31 years as public servant and a decade at the Deputy Minister level, Malcolm Brown retired from the the federal Public Service on April 24th, 2019.  He is currently a Senior Strategic Advisor with PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. He is also sits on the Board of the Migration Policy Institute, a Washington, DC based think tank. 

Prior to his retirement he served as the Deputy Minister of Public Safety between 2016 and 2019.  In this role he led major policy and legislative initiatives in the areas of national security, cyber security, emergency management and corrections reform and ensured coordinated actions across the Public Safety Portfolio, which includes the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Canada Border Services Agency, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the Correctional Service of Canada and the Parole Board of Canada.

Malcolm Brown served as Special Advisor to the Clerk of the Privy Council on the Syrian Refugee Initiative between 2015 and 2016 supporting the selection, screening, arrival and settlement of more than 25,000 Syrian refugees.

Malcolm Brown was also the Deputy Minister of International Development from 2014 to 2015.  In this role he oversaw Canada’s international development agenda, and served as Canada’s Alternate Governor for the World Bank.

He was also appointed Executive Vice President of the Canada Border Services Agency in 2011 and Associate Deputy Minister of Natural Resources in 2009.

Malcolm Brown began his federal public service career in the Federal Provincial Relations Office in 1990.  He then worked at Health Canada and later at the Privy Council Office where, among other senior positions, he served as Assistant Deputy Minister responsible for the Reference Group of Ministers on Aboriginal Policy.  Between 2002 and 2009, he occupied assistant deputy minister-level positions with Human Resources Development Canada, Citizenship and Immigration Canada, and Human Resources and Skills Development Canada (HRSDC), culminating with the position of Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic Policy and Research, HRSDC. 

He also worked in the Ontario government in the Ministries of Housing and Intergovernmental Affairs.

Malcolm Brown holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Studies from Queen's University and a Master of Arts in Political Science from York University.

Daniel (Dan) Brant is a member of the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte and resides on the Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory with his wife Roberta Greyeyes. He grew up on the reserve and attended the Indian day school on the reserve and attended high school in Belleville Ontario. 

Currently, Dan is proprietor of Daniel J. Brant & Associates (Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory, Ontario) most recently he was an adjunct assistant professor at Queens University for the fall semester 2020 and summer 2021; he has also served as the Chief Administrative Officer, Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte, Ontario; CEO of Dreamcatcher Charitable Foundation (Ohsweken, Ontario); and previously as a sessional Professor at Algonquin College (Ottawa) and Confederation College (Thunder Bay).

Previously, Dan worked as a Special/Executive Assistant and Senior Policy Advisor to four federal  Minsters and two Deputy Ministers for Indian Affairs, Government of Canada, and in various executive positions, CEO of the Assembly of First Nations (Ontario), CEO of the National Aboriginal Capital Corporation Association (Ottawa), Director of Aboriginal Affairs – Environment Canada (Quebec) and Executive Director of the National Indian Brotherhood (Ottawa).

Dan completed a PhD at Nipissing University focussing on the impact of culture on First Nations leadership. He previously completed a Masters Degree in Public Administration, Queens University, a Masters Degree in Applied Science, (Civil Engineering) University of Waterloo and a Bachelor Degree in Architectural Technology, Ryerson University.

Among Dan’s many leadership and management roles with three different national Indigenous organizations, he was heavily involved in the national expansion of services and establishing many important corporate partnerships.     

As a professional, Dan is a member with the Aboriginal Finance Officers Association (AFOA Certified Aboriginal Financial Manager); Board member with AFAO Canada and Chair of the Education Committee; Board Chair of ‘Outside Looking In’ a non profit supporting First Nations youth; and a member of the Departmental Audit Committee of two federal departments namely Employment and Social Development Canada and Infrastructure Canada. He is also on the Board of Governors of the Glenbow Museum in Calgary and a national representative on the Indigenous Advisory Council for Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation.

Previous Board membership includes, Banff School of Management – Advisory Board; Native Economic Development Board (Federal Order in Council Appointment); Gignul Housing Corporation; Vice-Chair, Eastern Ontario Economic Development Board (Provincial Order in Council appointment); and Chair, First Nations Technical Institute.  

As a visionary, Dan has a gift for seeing the ‘art of the possible’,  a creative mind in designing new approaches to solve problems ; and a strong work ethic, and thanks his parents for teaching his family that ethics matter.

Margaret Biggs was President of the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) from 2008-2013. In this role, she was accountable for policy advice, partnerships, programming and performance management related to Canada’s international development and humanitarian assistance, including Canadian initiatives on maternal and child health, sustainable economic growth, and fragile and conflict-affected states. In this capacity, she also contributed to the horizontal management of major foreign policy priorities such as the whole-of-government mission in Afghanistan. Previously, Ms. Biggs served as Deputy Secretary to the Cabinet (Plans) and Assistant Secretary, Priorities and Planning, in the Privy Council Office. As an Assistant Deputy Minister she held positions responsible for social and labour market policy and for skills, learning and social development programs.

Ms. Biggs has an extensive background in federal-provincial relations and social policy and played a key role in the creation of Canada’s National Child Benefit. She started her career at the North South Institute. Ms. Biggs has represented Canada in numerous international fora and has served as Canada’s Alternate Governor to the World Bank, as International Executive Co-chair of the China Council on International Cooperation on Environment and Development, and on the Board of Governors for the International Development Research Centre. Ms. Biggs is a graduate of the University of British Columbia and the Norman Patterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University.

Naomi Alboim is a Distinguished Fellow at the School of Policy Studies at Queen’s University, where she was an adjunct professor for twenty years. She is also  the Senior Policy Fellow at the Canada Excellence Research Chair in  Migration and Integration (CERC) at Ryerson University. 

Previously, she worked at senior levels in the Canadian federal and Ontario provincial governments for twenty-five years, including eight years as Deputy Minister in three different portfolios. Her areas of responsibility included immigration, human rights, labour market training, workplace standards, culture, as well as women’s, seniors’, disability and indigenous issues.

Ms. Alboim is an active public policy consultant, advising governments and NGOs across Canada and abroad in Europe, the Caribbean, Ghana, Vietnam, Indonesia and Kenya. 

She continues to write extensively on Canadian immigration policy, and advises the federal and provincial governments, universities, colleges, regulatory bodies, and NGO’s on a variety of related topics including immigrant labour market integration and refugee issues..

Ms. Alboim is a recipient of Queen Elizabeth II’s Gold and Diamond Jubilee Medals and is a member of the Order of Ontario.

SSRN Page / ResearchGate Page

Robert Wolfe joined the School of Policy Studies in 1995 and retired in 2017.  He taught the required course on policy analysis in both the full-time and part-time Masters in Public Administration programs, and an optional course on trade policy. He was MPA Program Director from 2002 until 2008.

Wolfe has a B.A. in History from York University (1974), an M.A. in Canadian Studies from Carleton University (1976) and a doctorate in Political Studies from Queen’s University (1995). He joined the then Department of External Affairs in 1976 as a foreign service officer in the political/economic stream, serving abroad in Dhaka, Bangladesh (1977-79) and in the Canadian Delegation to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in Paris (1981-85). In Ottawa he worked in the National Security Section; the U.S. Trade and Economic Relations Division; as Executive Assistant to the Ambassador for Multilateral Trade Negotiations and Prime Minister’s Personal Representative, Economic Summit (Sylvia Ostry); and in the International Economic Relations Division. He retired from the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (now Global Affairs) in 1995.

His ongoing research interests include Canadian trade policy, the World Trade Organization, and transparency mechanisms.

Wolfe is a Fellow of the Centre for International and Defence Policy at Queen's University, a Research Fellow of the Institute for Research on Public Policy, a member of the editorial board of World Trade Review and a member of the Trade Expert Advisory Council, Global Affairs Canada. 

He was the founding director of the Queen's Institute on Trade Policy from 2009 to 2018.

William Leiss is a Fellow and Past-President (1999-2001) of the Royal Society of Canada and an Officer in the Order of Canada.  He is currently Scientist and Associate Director for Risk Communication, McLaughlin Centre for Population Health Risk Assessment, University of Ottawa.  He was Professor, School of Policy Studies, Queen’s University (1994-2005), where he held the Eco-Research Chair in Environmental Policy; from 1999 to 2005 he was seconded to the Haskayne School of Business, University of Calgary, for the NSERC/SSHRC/Industry Research Chair in Risk Communication and Public Policy. 

He is author or senior co-author of In the Chamber of Risks:  Understanding Risk Controversies (2001), Mad Cows and Mother's Milk: The Perils of Poor Risk Communication (1997, 2004), Risk and Responsibility (1994), The Domination of Nature (1972), The Limits to Satisfaction (1976),  Under Technology's Thumb (1990), and C. B. Macpherson (1988, 2009), all from McGill-Queen's University Press; also Social Communication in Advertising (Routledge, 1986, 1990, 2005) and The Doom Loop in the Financial Sector, and Other Black Holes of Risk (2010), from the University of Ottawa Press.  A fourth edition of Social Communication in Advertising will be published by Routledge New York in 2018.

He has also written a trilogy entitled The Herasaga:  A Work of Utopian Fiction, composed of Book One:  Hera, or Empathy (2006); Book Two, The Priesthood of Science (2008);  and Book Three:  Hera The Buddha (2017). 

Over a period of thirty years he has done many consulting projects for industry and governments in the general areas of risk management and risk communication, across a very broad range of health and environmental issues.

In recent years he has been working on risk management and risk communication projects in the following areas:  storage and disposal of low- and intermediate-level nuclear waste, carbon capture and storage, and prion diseases (BSE and CWD).  A number of journal articles in these areas are currently in press.

Dr. Peter Harrison is Professor Emeritus in the School of Policy Studies at Queen’s University, and the former Stauffer-Dunning Chair and Director of the School (2009-2013).  He joined SPS as the federal “Skelton-Clark Fellow” in 2008.

Dr. Harrison is a Geographer by profession and holds a B.A. (1st cl. Hon.) from the London School of Economics and Political Science (1969); an M.A. from the University of Victoria (B.C.) (1970); and a Ph.D. from the University of Washington (Seattle) (1973).  His research, writing and public speaking have focused on the management of the Oceans, with particular reference to the Arctic Ocean and Canada’s Northern regions and peoples.

Dr. Harrison’s first career (1973- 1981) was as Assistant, then Associate (tenured), Professor in the Department of Geography and Regional Planning at the University of Ottawa.

In 1981 Dr. Harrison joined the Public Service of Canada in the Department of Finance.  His public service career lasted nearly 30 years.  He was appointed to Assistant/Associate/Senior Associate Deputy Minister positions in a number of Departments including: the Privy Council Office (PCO); the Department of Finance; Indian and Northern Affairs Canada; Revenue Canada; and Human Resources Development Canada.  In the PCO he was Secretary to Priorities and Planning and Expenditure Review Committees of the federal Cabinet.

Dr. Harrison also served as Deputy Minister of a number of organizations including: Natural Resources Canada; the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO); the Leadership Network; the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) (as Senior Research Fellow, Oceans); and Indian Residential Schools Resolution Canada.

Key contributions to public policy by Dr. Harrison include: amendments to the Indian Act (Bill C-115) to allow first Nations to tax non-Indians on First Nations’ land; shepherding the ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) by Canada in 2003; the creation of the “Oceans Action Plan” (2003); the investment of $150 million in the International Polar Year; the development of the previous government’s Northern Strategy; and the early commitment to the new “Canadian High Arctic Research Station” (CHARS), and leading the public service involvement in the “Residential Schools Apology” in the House of Commons. 

He was the international co-chair (with Professor SU Jilan) of the China Council for International Co-operation on Environment and Development (CCICED) Task Force on the “Sustainable Use of China’s Ocean and Coasts” which reported in November 2010. 

He has also served as a reviewer of: a number of graduate academic programs at several Canadian Universities; research proposals to funding agencies in Canada and abroad (Norway; European Union); and research reports prepared for the Royal Society of Canada and the Canadian Council of Academies.

Dr. Harrison was the Chair of the “International Polar Year (IPY) Conference: From Knowledge to Action” which was held in Montreal in April 2012.  For a number of years he has been the Chair of the Governing Council of the “Ocean Tracking Network”, which is based at Dalhousie University and funded as a “Major Science Initiative (MSI)” by the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) (and, previously, by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Council of Canada (NSERC)). 

Dr. Harrison has been collaborating with the Pew Charitable Trusts (US) on the prevention of potential unregulated commercial fishing in the Central Arctic Ocean (CAO).  An international agreement to this effect was signed by ten jurisdictions (Canada; Russia; US; Norway; Denmark/Greenland; China; S. Korea; Japan; Iceland and the EU) in late 2018.  Dr. Harrison organized a number of roundtables of experts in Asia to promote the Agreement and its signing.  He continues to work with indigenous groups in the Arctic to ensure that an appropriate science program for the CAO is developed with their input.  In relation to this he is Vice Chair of the Board of Oceans North (a new Canadian NGO)

Dr. Harrison is a Fellow, and former Governor and Vice President, of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society (RCGS). 

He was awarded the Gold Medal celebrating the Golden Jubilee of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II for his contributions to Public Service, her Diamond Jubilee medal for his contributions to the field of Geography and to the RCGS, and the RCGS’ “Camsell Medal” for his contributions to the Society.

In December 2019, Dr. Harrison was appointed as a Member of the Order of Canada (C.M.) by the Governor General of Canada: “For his dedication to Canada's stewardship of the Arctic Ocean and to the enhancement of its role in Arctic and Northern issues".

Multiculturalism Policy Index [MCP]

Keith Banting is the Stauffer Dunning Fellow in the School of Policy Studies and Professor Emeritus in the Department of Political Studies.  His research interests focus on public policy in Canada and other contemporary democracies. He has had a long-standing interest in the politics of social policy, and has extended this research to include ethnic diversity, immigration and multiculturalism. He is the author or editor of twenty books, as well as numerous articles and book chapters, and his publications have been translated in seven languages.

Professor Banting was appointed as a member of the Order of Canada in 2004. In 2012, he was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, was awarded an honorary doctorate by Stockholm University, and received a Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal. In 2016, he received the Mildred A. Schwartz Lifetime Achievement Award in Canadian Politics from the American Political Science Association. In 2018, he was honoured by Queen’s University with a Distinguished Service Award.

Professor Banting earned his BA (Hon) from Queen’s University and his doctorate from Oxford University. He taught for thirteen years at the University of British Columbia, before returning to Queen’s. In addition, he has been a visiting scholar at the London School of Economics, the Brookings Institution, Harvard University, Oxford University, the European University Institute, University of Melbourne, Stockholm University and the University of California (Berkeley). In 2016, he was the Willy Brandt Guest Professor at Malmö University in Sweden.

In the field of social policy, Dr. Banting is the author of Poverty, Politics and Policy and The Welfare State and Canadian Federalism.  In 2013, he and John Myles edited Inequality and the Fading of Redistributive Politics, and in 2016 they contributed "Framing the New Inequality: The Politics of Income Redistribution in Canada" to Income Inequality: the Canadian Story (edited by David Green and colleagues). In 2020, Professor Banting contributed “The Three Federalisms and Change in Social Policy” to Herman Bakvis and Grace Skogstad, eds, Canadian Federalism.  

In the field of multiculturalism, Professor Banting is the editor (with Will Kymlicka) of The Strains of Commitment: The Political Sources of Solidarity in Diverse Societies (2017). Earlier, they edited Multiculturalism and the Welfare State: Recognition and Redistribution in Contemporary Democracies.  In 2013, they published "'Is There Really a Retreat from Multiculturalism Policies?  New Evidence from the Multiculturalism Policy Index," Comparative European Politics. The most recent contribution is “Shared Membership Beyond National Identity: Deservingness and Solidarity in Diverse Societies” Political Studies (2021).

In addition, Professor Banting is the co-director, along with Will Kymlicka, of the Multiculturalism Policy Index project, which monitors the evolution of multiculturalism policies across the Western democracies. The MCP Index project is designed to provide information about multiculturalism policies in a standardized format that aids comparative research and contributes to the understanding of state-minority relations. The Index was recently updated to 2020. 

Professor Banting has played a variety of leadership roles during his career. At Queen’s, he has been an associate dean of Graduate Studies and Research (1989-92) and Director of the School of Policy Studies (1992-2003). He was a member of the governing Council of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (1986-1992), and for the last two years was Vice President of the Council. He also served as President of the Canadian Political Science Association (2009-2010).  He is currently a member of the editorial board of several international journals.

CV [PDF 288 kb] 

Thomas J. Courchene was born in Wakaw, Saskatchewan, and was educated at the University of Saskatchewan (Honours BA, 1962) and Princeton University (Ph.D., 1967), with a post-doctoral year at the University of Chicago (1968-9). From 1965 to 1988 he was a Professor of Economics at the University of Western Ontario. Dr. Courchene spent the fall term of 1986 as a visiting Professor at Ecole nationale d’administration publique (Montreal). For the academic year 1987/88, he occupied the John P. Robarts Chair in Canadian Studies at York University. In 1988, he accepted the Directorship of Queen’s new School of Policy Studies (1988-92). From 1992 until his retirement in 2012 Courchene held the Jarislowsky-Deutsch Professorship in Economics and Financial Policy at Queen’s, where he was a member of the Department of Economics, the School of Policy Studies and the Faculty of Law. He remains the Senior Scholar at the Institute for Research on Public Policy in Montreal, a position he has held since 1999. He served as Director of Queen’s John Deutsch Institute for the Study of Economic Policy from 1993-99 and from 2001-02 and as Director of Queen’s Institute of Intergovernmental Relations from July 2006 to February 2010.

Courchene is the author or editor of some 60 books and has published some 300 academic papers on a wide range of Canadian public policy issues. Among the authored books are: a four volume series on Canadian monetary policy for the C.D. Howe Institute; In Praise of Renewed Federalism (C.D. Howe); Social Policy in the 1990s: Agenda for Reform (C.D. Howe); Equalization Payments: Past, Present and Future (Ontario Economic Council); Economic Management and the Division of Powers (Macdonald Royal Commission); and A First Nations Province (Institute of Intergovernmental Relations, Queen’s). A collection of his earlier articles appears in Rearrangements: The Courchene Papers (Oakville, Mosaic Press). His 1994 book, Social Canada in the Millennium was awarded the Doug Purvis Prize for the best Canadian economic policy contribution in 1994 and his book, From Heartland to North American Region State: The Social, Fiscal and Federal Evolution of Ontario (1998, with Colin Telmer) won the inaugural Donner Prize for the best book on Canadian Public Policy. His latest book -- A State of Minds: Toward a Human Capital Future for Canadians -- was published in 2001 by the Institute for Research on Public Policy (Montreal). Among his more recent essays are Rekindling the American Dream: A Northern Perspective (2011, the inaugural IRPP Policy Horizons Essay) and Policy Signposts in Postwar Canada: Reflections of a Market Populist (2012, marking the occasion of IRPP’s 40th anniversary).

Dr. Courchene was Chair of the Ontario Economic Council from 1982 to 1985, has been a Senior Fellow of the C.D. Howe Institute (1980-99), is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (elected 1981) and is a Past President (1991/92) of the Canadian Economics Association and of the North American Economics and Finance Association (2000-01). He has received Honorary Doctorates of Laws from the University of Western Ontario (1997), the University of Saskatchewan (1999), and the University of Regina (2007). On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the University of Saskatchewan (2007) Courchene was selected as one of the 100 Alumni of Influence, and in 2009 was also included among the 100 Alumni of Influence as part of the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the University of Saskatchewan College of Arts and Sciences. He is a recipient of the Molson Prize for lifetime achievement in the Social Sciences and Humanities (1999). In April of 1999, Thomas Courchene was invested as an Officer in the Order of Canada.

in 2014 The Margie and Tom Courchene Endowment Fund was established to create a permanent Speakers Series in the School of Policy Studies, to be known subsequently as the Tom Courchene Distinguished Speakers Series. It continues the tradition that Tom established, as the inaugural director for the School of Policy Studies, to serve as a bridge between the academic and professional policy communities, engaging faculty, students, policymakers, politicians and other opinion leaders, in discussion on major policy issues. The Fund will support the costs associated with bringing eminent academics and public policy experts to Queen’s University campus, with a focus dedicated to a major public lecture and other events relating to Indigenous Policy and Governance, a policy field in which Tom has become increasingly engaged in recent years.

Tom and Margie Courchene live along the St. Lawrence River in Kingston, Ontario.  They have three children, nine grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

CV [PDF 276kb]