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]

Chris Simpson was born in Moncton in 1967 and raised in Nackawic, a small pulp mill town of 1,000 people in western New Brunswick.  Torn between pursuing a career in music or medicine, he obtained a BSc at the University of New Brunswick while playing saxophone with The Thomists, a 20-piece big swing band based in Fredericton and well-known across the Atlantic provinces. 

He went on to medical school at Dalhousie University in Halifax and obtained his MD in 1992.  He subsequently completed internal medicine and cardiology training at Queen’s University in Kingston and then a Heart and Stroke Foundation Clinical and Research Fellowship in Cardiac Electrophysiology at the University of Western Ontario, under the supervision of Dr. George Klein.                                                      

After returning to Kingston in 1999, he founded the Heart Rhythm Program at Kingston General Hospital, establishing catheter ablation and implantable defibrillator programs as well as the inherited heart rhythm disease clinic. From 2006-2016 he served as Professor and Head of Cardiology at Queen’s University, as well as Medical Director of the Cardiac Programs at Kingston General Hospital/Hotel Dieu Hospital.  From 2016-2021, he served as the Vice-Dean (Clinical) of the Queen’s University Faculty of Health Sciences and Medical Director of the Southeastern Ontario Academic Medical Organization (SEAMO), stepping in as Acting Dean of the Faculty and Acting CEO of SEAMO for 6 months in 2019.

Currently, he is the Executive Vice President (Medical) and Chief Medical Officer at Ontario Health – the provincial agency overseeing Ontario’s health care system.  He is also an Affiliate Scientist with the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES-Queen’s) and a member of the Queen’s School of Policy Studies Health Policy Council.

Dr. Simpson’s primary non-clinical professional interest is health policy – particularly access to care, seniors’ care, wait times and medical fitness to drive.  He served as the chair of the Wait Time Alliance (WTA) – a federation of 17 medical specialty societies and the Canadian Medical Association (CMA) – and is a past chair of the Canadian Cardiovascular Society’s (CCS) Standing Committee on Health Policy and Advocacy.  He has served on the Cardiac Care Network of Ontario (CorHealth) Board of Directors, is a past member of the CCS executive and a former governor of the American College of Cardiology.  He served as the Canadian representative at the World Medical Association. He currently serves as chair of Ontario Health’s Quality Standards Committee. 

He served as the first president of the Canadian Heart Rhythm Society – the national association of heart rhythm specialists and allied health professionals.  Over the years he has served on numerous editorial boards and advisory committees, and has chaired or been a member of several national consensus conferences and guidelines statements, including the CCS Consensus Conference on Medical Fitness to Drive and Fly, of which he was co-chair.  He is a co-editor of the CMA Driver’s Guide. 

He served as the 2014-2015 President of the Canadian Medical Association (CMA), during which he championed seniors’ care and helped to guide the profession on the issues of medical aid in dying (MAID) and medical marijuana.  In 2015, Dr. Simpson was elected to fellowship in the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences and served as CAHS President in 2020-2021. 

An active clinician, educator and researcher, Dr. Simpson has authored or co-authored over 350 peer reviewed papers and abstracts and has won numerous teaching awards.  His clinical and research interests include access to care and medical wait times, medical fitness to drive, atrial fibrillation, sudden death in the young, catheter ablation and cardiac resynchronization therapy. 

Outside medicine, Dr. Simpson is a proud supporter of University Hospitals Kingston Foundation and Queen’s Advancement. He has served as Chair of the Kingston Blue Marlins Swim Team Board of Directors and as a director on the Board of Cantabile Choirs of Kingston.  The proud father of three daughters and a son, he immensely enjoys watching and cheering their academic, musical and athletic pursuits.

Dr. John Muscedere, MD, FRCPC, is an intensivist at Kingston General Hospital (KGH), and Professor of Critical Care Medicine in the Faculty of Health Sciences at Queen’s University. He also serves as the Research Director of the Critical Care Program at Queen’s and KGH, and Co-Chair of the Canadian Critical Care Trials Group (CCCTG) Knowledge Translation Committee.

John is an accomplished critical care researcher whose primary research interests include nosocomial infections, clinical practice guidelines, knowledge translation and critical care outcomes. He has led or participated in the development of many national and international clinical practice guidelines which have guided critical care practice including guidelines for the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of ventilator associated pneumonia, hypothermia post cardiac arrest, calcium channel blocker poisoning and sepsis. 

In addition to his clinical and academic posts, John is the Scientific Director and Chief Executive Officer of Canadian Frailty Network (CFN), a not-for-profit funded under Canada’s Networks of Centres of Excellence (NCE) program. CFN is improving care of the frail elderly by: increasing frailty recognition and assessment, increasing evidence for decision-making, mobilizing evidence into policy and practice, and advocating for change in the healthcare system to meet the needs of this vulnerable population.

As an intensivist, he has first-hand knowledge of caring for critically ill frail older adults both in academic and community settings, as well as a keen interest in the design of healthcare systems to optimize patient centered outcomes.  He has participated in the redesign of the Ontario provincial critical care system including serving as the regional critical care lead for the South East Local Health Integration Network (LHIN) for 10 years.