Couchiching Award for Public Policy Leadership

Conference

The Couchiching Award for Public Policy Leadership

The deadline for nominations for the 2010 Award was December 18, 2009.

“We still think of a powerful man as a born leader and a powerful woman
as an anomaly.” – Margaret Atwood

“All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership.” – John Kenneth Galbraith

The Couchiching Institute on Public Affairs established the Couchiching Award for Public Policy Leadership to honour the accomplishments of a Canadian who has demonstrated leadership in public policy. This award recognizes the actions taken by an individual to create policy that has had a proven positive impact on Canada or a community within Canada, often in the face of public opposition.

This award recognizes, after the fact, such leadership demonstrated by the recipient.

The award is presented annually at the annual Couchiching conference.

Measures of Excellence

The winner of the Couchiching Award for Public Policy Leadership will be an individual who best meets the measures described below. CIPA may choose any Canadian citizen, including a leader currently in office or a leader who has held public office in the past.

The winner will have:

Established a clear vision for public policy direction
Strongly communicated and advocated for that vision
Demonstrated qualities of leadership and initiative on behalf of public policy alternatives
Faced demonstrable public opposition/controversy to the cause
Received post fact recognition that the choice of public policy or articulated view was appropriate for the Canadian economic, social, cultural, security or other sectors in its time
Worked on behalf of a broader vision of the constituency
Had a long-term perspective on success or a lifetime achievement in a field
Had a length of tenure, if an elected official

2009 Recipient

The Honourable Lincoln Alexander

Mr. Alexander served as Lieutenant-Governor of Ontario from 1985 to 1991. He was a Member of Parliament from 1968 to 1980 and served as federal Minister of Labour in 1979. A Companion of the Order of Canada and a recipient of the Order of Ontario, Mr. Alexander has served on numerous public service boards including the Canadian Race Relations Foundation and on the Ontario Press Council.

He is currently Chairman of the Ontario Heritage Trust, Chancellor Emeritus of the University of Guelph, and Chairman of the Raptors Foundation. He continues to serve on public and private boards and as Patron of many charitable organizations. Mr. Alexander’s memoir, entitled Go to School, You’re A Little Black Boy, chronicling his remarkable life, was published in the fall of 2006.

Mr. Alexander presently serves on the Board of the University of Guelph and fifth term as Chancellor. He also serves on the Boards of Doctor’s Hospital, the Shaw Festival and the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair. Mr. Alexander is also a consultant to the Board of George Weston Ltd. and serves on the Board of Canadian Banking Ombudsman and the Chamber Works Ensemble of Hamilton.

Mr. Alexander has received numerous honours and awards including: the Government of Ontario Award for Outstanding Achievement in Human Rights, 1998; the Vice-Regal Badge, presented by the Lieutenant Governor, 2000 and the Golden Jubilee Medal, presented by the Governor General, 2002. He has also received the Degree of Doctor of Laws (honoris causa) from the University of Toronto (1986), McMaster University (1978), the University of Western Ontario (1988), York University (1990), Royal Military College (1991) and Queen’s University (1992).

Motivated by his continuing concern for social justice, he has led an exemplary life as a lawyer, politician and Lieutenant Governor of Ontario. He has broken many barriers during his lifetime. Known for his good judgment, tolerance, compassion and humanity, he has served the citizens of Ontario well, striving to instill these values in young people and working tirelessly for improved race relations.

Photo courtesy of Gilbert & Associates, Toronto

2008 Recipient

J. Fraser Mustard

Following the completion of his MD in Toronto in 1953, Dr. Mustard began his distinguished research career during his PhD studies at Cambridge where he focused on the role of blood platelets in cardiovascular disease. This research continued for ten years at the Blood and Vascular Disease Research Unit in Toronto and during this time the inhibitory effect of aspirin on platelet function was demonstrated.

Platelets remained the focus of his research after he moved to McMaster University in 1966 where he recruited many international scientists who helped to establish McMaster as a major center for thrombosis research. As a founding member of its medical school he was deeply involved in developing its innovative problem-based program of medical education that has been adopted as a model around the world.

In 1982 Fraser Mustard changed his career path and took on the challenge of establishing the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIAR), serving as its president for 14 years. To create this “institute without walls” Fraser brought together distinguished investigators from across Canada and around the world to carry out research in interdisciplinary teams exploring significant scientific and social challenges.

Fraser Mustard now heads the Founders’ Network, involving more than 1000 individuals with whom he made connections as he developed and arranged funding for the CIAR programs. Currently, his primary mission is emphasizing the crucial importance of a child’s experiences in the first six years of life. In 1999 he co-authored the Early Years Study on early learning with specific community recommendations. In 2002 he set up the Council for Early Child Development and Parenting and has become a tireless advocate nationally and internationally of the importance of early brain development for health, behaviour, learning, and quality of life.

Throughout his career, Fraser Mustard influenced health policy in Canada by serving on many federal and provincial committees, councils and royal commissions. He has received many awards and honorary degrees, including the Gairdner International Award, the Canada Council Izaak Walton Killam Memorial Prize, and the William J. Dawson Medal of the Royal Society of Canada. He is a Companion of the Order of Canada and a Laureate of the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame.

Fraser Mustard’s many accomplishments have relied on his outstanding ability to establish connections, networks and interdisciplinary research. Those who have worked with him are awed by his energy, vision, insight, and leadership ability.

2007 Recipient

Preston Manning

Mr. Manning served as a Member of the Canadian Parliament from 1993 to 2001. He founded two political parties – the Reform Party of Canada and the Canadian Reform Conservative Alliance – both of which became the official Opposition in the Canadian Parliament. Mr. Manning served as Leader of the Opposition from 1997 to 2000 and was also his party’s critic for Science and Technology.

Since retirement from Parliament in 2002, Mr. Manning has released a book entitled Think Big (published by McClelland & Stewart) describing his use of the tools and institutions of democracy to change Canada’s national agenda. He has also served as a Senior Fellow of the Canada West Foundation and as a Distinguished Visitor at the University of Calgary and University of Toronto.

Mr. Manning is currently a Senior Fellow of the Fraser Institute and President and CEO of the Manning Centre for Building Democracy. The Manning Centre (www.manningcentre.ca) is a national not-for-profit organization supporting research, educational and communications initiatives designed to achieve a more democratic society in Canada guided by conservative principles.

Mr. Manning continues to write, speak, and teach on a variety of subjects including the revitalization of democracy in the Western world, the revitalization of Canadian conservatism, Canada-U.S. relations, strengthening relations between the scientific and political communities, the re-balancing of Canadian federalism, the regulation of the genetic revolution, and the management of the interface between faith and politics.

2006 Recipient

Elizabeth May, environmentalist, writer, activist and lawyer

Elizabeth May is an environmentalist, writer, activist and lawyer. Since the 1970s, she has led innumerable campaigns to protect Canada’s environment, starting with a triumph over an aerial insecticide program in her native Cape Breton.

In 1986, May became senior policy advisor to Tom McMillan, the federal minister of environment. She resigned over a matter of principle in the granting of permits for Saskatchewan’s Rafferty and Alameda dams.

In 1989, she became the first national staff member of the Sierra Club of Canada and, soon after, its first executive director. She has pushed to protect vast areas of Canadian wilderness, promote bylaws against the use of dangerous pesticides, act on the threat of climate change and clean up the Sydney Tar Ponds, among other issues. In 2001 she went on a hunger strike to get government action on hazardous waste.

When she received the Order of Canada last year, May said, “This honour is one that belongs to every Canadian who works to protect a forest ecosystem, to stop a pesticide spray program, to fight a toxic incinerator or for real progress in reducing greenhouse gases. We are all standing on guard for Canada.”

May is a former member of the board of the International Institute of Sustainable Development and is former vice-chair of the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy.

In 1999, Dalhousie University created a permanent chair in her honour, the Elizabeth May Chair in Women’s Health & the Environment. She has received numerous awards, including the United Nations Global 500 award and two honourary doctorates. She is the author of four books. In 2005 Elizabeth May appointed an Officer to the Order of Canada.

2005 Recipient

Dr. Henry Morgentaler

The Couchiching Award for Public Policy Leadership is presented annually to a nationally recognised Canadian who has demonstrated public policy leadership that results in positive impact on Canada or a community within Canada, often in the face of public opposition.

The Couch Award Committee has selected Dr. Henry Morgentaler as the 2005 recipient of the award. Through his sustained challenge to the equity and fairness of the laws pertaining to women’s reproductive health, and through the direct and measurable impact he has had on public policy, Dr Morgentaler has exemplified the high level of leadership required of award recipients.

Only a handful of public policy issues have the potential to ignite passionate responses from the public; arguably the biggest of these is “abortion” – or the right to reproductive choice. Advocates for the right of the patient to have meaningful choice in their medical care have faced formidable opposition, including threats to personal security.

The women’s movement of the 1960s found in Dr. Morgentaler a person who understood that women’s equality could not be achieved within the existing restrictions on medical services for reproductive choice. In offering women access to necessary services that faced considerable restriction elsewhere, Dr. Morgentaler used both his professional status and personal skills to fight for women’s rights, while placing himself at risk. His actions have brought about fundamental changes in Canadian law and to the health care system and in so doing dramatically affected for the better the lives of Canadians from coast to coast.

Biographical Note

Born in Poland, Dr. Henry Morgentaler survived the Holocaust and came to Canada at the end of World War II. After completing medical studies at the Université de Montréal, he opened a family practice in Montreal. As a Humanist leader, he promoted the idea that people had a right to control their own sexuality and reproduction, without interference by the state.

In 1967, he presented a brief on behalf of the Humanist Fellowship of Montréal to the House of Common’s Health and Welfare Committee, where he urged that Canada’s restrictive abortion law be repealed. In 1968, Dr. Morgentaler founded the Humanist Association of Canada, of which he is now Honourary President.

Dr. Morgentaler founded the Canada’s first abortion clinic in Montreal in 1968. In the following years, he challenged the criminal code in Canada by providing safe abortions for women in his clinic in Montreal, and later in Toronto and Winnipeg, in a campaign of civil disobedience to an unjust law. Dr. Morgentaler faced several trials and was acquitted each time by a jury; he went to jail for 10 months for his convictions when a jury acquittal was reversed by a higher court. His belief in a “Woman’s Right to Choose” eventually led to a change in the law. Finally, after years of struggle, the law against abortion was declared unconstitutional and struck down by the Supreme Court of Canada on January 28, 1988. He has continued to campaign province-by-province seeking to provide abortion services to women deprived of access, a struggle that continues to this day. Throughout his long campaign Dr. Morgentaler has received the loyalty and support of women’s groups across the country who lobbied governments and raised funds for legal fees.

In June of 2005, Dr. Morgentaler was honoured with a doctorate of law from the University of Western Ontario. Today, he operates six clinics in Canada providing excellent care for women in need of abortion and contraceptive services.

2004 Recipient

Jane Jacobs

As a nation, Canadians are too often accused of failing to recognize exceptional talent. The Couchiching Institute on Public Affairs has put an end to the drought in recognizing outstanding citizens who have made a recognized contribution to public policy in Canada.

Jane Jacobs has had a varied and unique career. Born in 1916 in Scranton, PA, she spent her first 30 years in New York City and has been, since 1968, a prolific author, a vocal commentator and supportive resident of Toronto.

Beginning with her seminal 1961 work, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jane has been a strong proponent of cities where urban development is “organic, spontaneous and untidy.”

Jane has had a significant impact on Canadians’ approaches to cities, urban development and the economic potential of urban centres. The Economy of Cities (1969), Cities and the Wealth of Nations (1984), Systems of Survival: A Dialogue on the Moral Foundations of Commerce and Politics (1992), The Nature of Economies (2000) and The Dark Age Ahead (2004) have each placed her vision of the driving role that urban centres play in the regional and national development of economies. In fact, there is an argument that Jane has been more economist and less urban critic than has been generally perceived.

Her views run counter to those of most urban planners who have an affectation for top down planning…and her views are very much “bottom up.” In a 2001 interview with Reason magazine, Jane noted that one critical element of dynamic urban centres is the concept of “corner”…the corner store, the corner bar, the nexus where citizens meet and greet.

At the 1997 conference titled “Jane Jacobs: Ideas that Matter,” the Jane Jacobs Award was launched to recognize unsung heroes involved in community development in Toronto.

And in 2004, The Couchiching Institute on Public Affairs is most pleased to offer its Award for Public Policy Leadership to one of Canada’s great thinkers, one of its great activists, one of its great authors. Congratulations!

Biographical Note

Jane Jacobs is a celebrated author known for her creative perceptiveness and beliefs concerning the development of cities. The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961) challenged the dominant establishment of modernist professional planning and asserted the wisdom of empirical observation and community intuition. After residing in New York City for thirty years, Jacobs moved with her family to Toronto in 1968, in opposition to the Vietnam War.

In the early 1970s she helped lead the Stop Spadina Campaign, to prevent the construction of a major highway through some of Toronto’s liveliest neighbourhoods. Jane Jacobs has been a fierce critic of the Ontario Hydro, supported broad revisions in Toronto’s Official Plan and other planning policies, and opposed expansion of the Toronto Island Airport. Her subsequent books include The Economy of Cities (1969), The Questions of Separatism (1980), Cities and the Wealth of Nations (1984), Systems of Survival (1993); and most recently The Nature of Economies (2000).

Inaugural Recipient (2003)

The Honourable Michael H. Wilson

Throughout Michael’s political career in Ottawa, his mission was to significantly change the competitive structure of the Canadian economy through the reforming of its tax and fiscal policies. These changes were not always well received by the voting public, but as Paul Martin noted in our 1998 Couchiching Conference, his ability to reduce the deficit in the mid 1990s was a direct result of the efforts of his predecessor.

As Minister of Finance during the initial negotiations on Free Trade with the United States and then as Minister of International Trade during NAFTA, Michael made a further contribution to Canadian trade and economic policy.

Following Michael’s re-entry into the private sector, he lost none of his interest in trade and economic policy. But he took on as well the challenge of increasing the awareness of Canadians on mental health, an issue that we far too often overlook or push aside. He has taken a personal stand and made a real impact on the lives of thousands.

Whether one looks at his accomplishments in tax and fiscal policy, supporting the negotiation and conclusion of the Free Trade Agreement, the North American Free Trade Agreement or post politics in his pursuit of increasing public awareness and accountability in the area of mental health, Michael Wilson has changed the face of Canada for the better. The Couchiching Institute on Public Affairs would like to say “we appreciate your effort and energy”. Congratulations.