About Us

What We Do

Massey College’s Public Policy Program organizes symposia, workshops, panels and lectures in support of the College’s mission to “nourish learning and serve the public good,” and its 2020/2021 strategic priorities:

  1. Empowering the Next Generation of Thinkers
  2. Leveraging the Community for the Public Good

There are two sub-programs: 

  1. The Walter Gordon Symposia
  2. The Ethics Series

Empowering the Next Generation of Thinkers --- The annual Walter Gordon Symposium is the premier activity through which the Massey Public Policy Program engages and empowers students. The Public Policy Program collaborates with the Munk School to provide core funding and mentorship. Massey and Munk Junior Fellows learn to plan and manage conferences by collaborating over symposium’s topic and format selection, budgeting and fundraising, keynote speaker and panellist selection and recruitment, marketing and communications, and event hosting.

The Public Policy Program’s next generation empowerment activities are not limited to the Walter Gordon Symposia. The program attempts to engage Massey Junior Fellows and other U. of T. student in all its activities. Given their academic obligations, most limit their activities to suggesting topics and helping to host events. But many volunteer to panellists at events. The Program Chair and volunteers also make time to meet with students to provide career advice and networking opportunities.

Leveraging the Community for the Public Good --- The Ethics Series is one of many vehicles by which the Public Policy Program attempts to leverage the Massey and broader community for the public good.  It is annual series of four, one-hour long, on-line panel discussions on the ethical dimensions of topical public policy issues. Whenever it is possible, the Series Co-Chairs / Panel Moderators invite at least one Massey Junior or Senior Fellow to be one of the three panellists they interview. 

With the Ethics Series as well as its other events, the Public Policy Program:

  1. Selects keynote speakers and panels of policy researchers and practitioners from the Massey community and the broader Canadian and international communities of academia, government, business, not-for-profits, and journalism; and
  2. Tackles a wide variety of topics including food security, housing, public safety, public health, human rights, climate change, industrial / economic policy, emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and robotics, and threats to and best practices in democratic governance.

The Public Policy Program is always experimenting with new ways to engage a wider audience in Massey College’s mission to “nourish learning” for the “public good.” Today, we market our activities via a variety of traditional and new media platforms, live cast most of them, and post the recordings on YouTube for asynchronous viewing.

 

Who We Are

Massey and Munk Senior Fellow, Thomas S. (Tom) Axworthy has been the volunteer Chair of the Public Policy Program at Massey College since, 2016. As such, he has been the principal fundraiser and event organizer for all its activities.

Rev. Don Gibson is volunteer recruited by Tom Axworthy. He co-chairs and shares the hosting of Ethics Series events.

David Sloly is another of the Program Chair’s volunteer recruits. He pinch-hits with all Public Program events and has been leading a project to the create a web-based archive for the Program.

 

Our History

Founders & Foundations --- Just as Canadian diplomat and philanthropist Vincent Massey was the founder and inspiration for Massey College, Canadian businessman and philanthropist Walter Gordon was the founder and inspiration for the Public Policy Program and the Walter Gordon Symposia. Like Massey, Gordon, shared had a keen interest in “nourish learning” to “serve the public good,” and a particular interest in protecting Canada’s cultural, intellectual, economic, and political independence. They both sought to improve the quality and impact of democratic discourse on critical issues by connecting citizen with experts via public lectures and conferences. Their common purpose and approach were clearly demonstrated in Massey’s 1933 Port Hope Conference, in Gordon’s 1960 Kingston Conference, and in their extensive philanthropic support for institutionalizing such discourse at Canadian academic institutions like Massey College. 

Informal Beginnings (1970s to 1980s) --- Walter Gordon became a Senior Fellow at Massey in 1973 and immediately began to support the research of prominent academics like Abraham Rotstein, also a Senior Fellow at Massey. In 1974-75, Gordon and Rotstein inaugurated a series of public lectures at Massey that was the primogenitor of the future Public Policy Program and Walter Gordon Symposia. This first Walter Gordon initiated and funded lecture series was organized around the theme “Beyond Industrial Growth.” In addition to Rotstein and Gordon, it involved such well-known figures as Charles Taylor, A. W. Johnson, Claude Castonguay and Vivian Rakoff. 

The first Master of Massey, Robertson Davies, was excited about the initiative which he saw as the bonding of town and gown: he wrote that it “involved the College in a kind of political dimension especially suited to an academic institution because it was not of narrowing import or partisan side.” The CBC broadcast the lectures which broadened the then field of political economy by exploring environmental and psychological issues and the University of Toronto Press published them in a volume “Beyond Industrial Growth.”

Formalization & Innovation (1990s to Present) --- Walter Gordon passed away in 1987. But his ideas and philanthropy continue to be a principal source of inspiration and financial support for bridges between “town and gown.” In the 1990, a grant from Walter Gordon’s family foundation, the Walter and Duncan Gordon Foundation, enabled Massey College to launch the first Walter Gordon Symposium (then called Forum). 

Backed by generous grants from the Gordon Foundation, lecture series like the Walter Gordon Symposia helped keep Masey College in the forefront of policy discourse. These public events attracted prominent international thinkers like John Kenneth Galbraith. In turn, these thinkers drew the attendance of leading political actors. Pierre Trudeau, for example, attended the 1992 Gordon Symposium. He came to hear Canadian, Robertson Davis, and the famous Mexican novelist, Carlos Fuentes, discuss the topic of “An Emerging North American Culture.” 

For Walter Gordon, innovation was the objective of public discourse among citizens and experts. In keeping this, the Public Policy Program and the Walter Gordon Symposia are ever seeing better ways of supporting the College’s mission to “nourish learning” to “serve the public good,” passion for innovation. 

One important innovation was 2003 decision to turn the Walter Gordon Forum into an experiential learning and resume building opportunity for Massey Junior Fellows. Under the mentorship of one or more Senior Fellows, they would decide upon the topic, plan the format and agenda, invite speakers, and market and host the event organize the event. It was at this juncture that the Walter Gordon Fora became the Walter Gordon Public Symposia. 

In 2009 the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy became a joint sponsor of the Symposia. Munk Junior Fellows partnered with their Massey equivalents to plan and host the annual event; and the Munk School and Massey College provided with mentorship and core funding. 

The 2000s and 2010s saw institutional websites and social media platforms like Facebook, Flckr, and YouTube became mainstream bridge building tools between the public and academia (Robertson Davies’ “town and gown”). The Massey College and the Public Policy Program have experimented with all of these. 

Whereas the Program once only commissioned the taking and posting photographs and videos online for special events, it is now the norm. The breadth of content of this website and its underlying architecture is innovative; but the Program has long been posting content to Massey College’s website, and to its Facebook, Flikr and YouTube “sites.” 

Increasingly often, the viewership of these postings is several times that of in-person attendance at the original events.

These experiments with websites and social media platforms prepared the Public Policy Program well for cancelling of in-person events during the COVID crisis. The Program responded by initiating its online-only Ethics Series.  For a couple of years, these one-hour long, live cast events replaced all the normal in-person lectures, workshops and conferences. 

COVID faded from most people’s minds, but the Ethics Series endures with the same format. However, instead of substituting for in-person events, the Public Policy Program now uses Ethics Series events as tests for or warm-ups and follow-ups to in-person events. 

The increasing online viewership numbers, the earlier experience with posting event photos and videos online, plus the experience of live streaming the Ethics Series during COVID led to the current practice of the Program live streaming most of its events. 

There are almost certainly many more ways in which the Public Policy Program could innovate to improve its capacity to “nourish learning” to “serve the public good,” and a particular interest in protecting Canada’s cultural, intellectual, economic, and political independence. 

The only limits are funding and people to implement new ideas. 

If you are able help with either, please reach out to us.

Tom Axworthy, Public Policy Chair, 2024