I created this site in 2020 as a place to share ideas and perspectives shaped by a long career in public policy, strategic planning, communications, association management, government, and politics.
When I launched it, I did not fully appreciate how constraining to self-expression it could be to work within Ottawa’s mainstream policy and institutional ecosystem.
Writing carefully, moderating tone and always colouring within the lines may be necessary, even appropriate, but over time it is also limiting. That is why this site did not become the safe place for unvarnished expression I had hoped it would be.
As I write this, I’m in a different place, I’ve left full-time association management and have moved to a different stage of my professional life: One where I can choose, who I work with, what projects I lend my time to and the causes I advocate for.
And with that, I’m reclaiming my own voice — the ability to write and think freely, without the need for perpetual moderation and compromise. This site now reflects that intention more clearly.
I still expect to post the occasional quick take on breaking news, but the emphasis will remain on more considered opinion and longer-form analysis, written honestly and in my own voice.
While the news cycle will shape some of what appears here, my focus will increasingly be on a smaller number of issues of particular concern to me: governance and leadership, mental health and wellbeing in institutional settings, public policy and democratic practice, and the human consequences of how we design and manage our institutions.
And from time to time, I may still share thoughts on a book or two that have little — or nothing at all — to do with public policy.
This site is, at its core, a place to think out loud — freely, honestly, and for me, in a reclaimed voice.
If you’re interested in subscribing, please use the form below.
Two days later in New Delhi, Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand struck a noticeably different tone. Carefully avoiding the question of the legality of the strikes, she spoke of the need for a diplomatic solution and reminded reporters that Canada would not participate in any military operations.
The original statement has now been reinterpreted after the fact. On Tuesday, Mr. Carney even felt compelled to specify that Canada’s position had not been a “blank cheque” — a defence that is all the more revealing given that no one had accused him of signing one.
This was more than a recalibration. This was a retreat. And the explanations that followed it, inevitably bring us back to the speech the prime minister delivered in Davos only a few weeks ago.
At Davos, Mr. Carney did not deliver a routine address. He deliberately offered an ambitious reading of the current geopolitical moment, denouncing the “fictions” of the old international order while calling on middle powers to move beyond comfortable complacency.
The speech was widely praised in Canada and abroad as a clear articulation of a worldview suited to a fragmented world: a “values-based realpolitik” grounded in respect for sovereignty, the consistent application of the same standards to allies and adversaries, and a prohibition on the use of force except in accordance with the UN Charter.
It was presented as a framework suited to the Trump era — a promise of coherence in a world unsettled by incoherence and chaos.
Yet only weeks later, in the aftermath of the U.S. strikes, he endorsed the use of force by an ally without explaining how that action fits within the principles invoked in Davos.
At Davos, Mr. Carney quoted Václav Havel and called on countries to take the “sign” out of the shop window — to stop pretending. Nations, he argued, should face reality and apply the same rules to everyone.
Yet that is precisely what Canada’s position on the Iran strikes — and the subsequent clarifications — make difficult to sustain.
Those – including the Prime Minister — now turning to the Davos speech to explain the recent twists in Canadian foreign policy will invoke realism. They will argue that the world has changed, that the old order is broken, that middle powers must navigate shifting power balances, and that strategic caution is unavoidable.
But realism is a moving concept. It changes with circumstances, partners, and political cycles. By its nature, it is transactional.
And in a world where the only constant is the speed of change, a foreign policy built on constant adjustments eventually loses its anchor.
A foreign policy cannot be grounded in the prohibition of the use of force while remaining silent when force is used by a convenient ally.
One can defend the American strikes. One can condemn them. One can avoid judgment. But one cannot simultaneously proclaim a new normative framework and avoid the implications that follow from it.
The Davos speech was ambitious, elegant, and carefully constructed. It offered an appealing analytical framework for a fractured world.
But an analytical framework – elegant as it may be — does not a foreign policy make.
In that speech, Mr. Carney described an approach based on “variable geometry”: different coalitions depending on the issue, built around shared interests and values.
Yet when variable geometry applies not only to alliances but also to principles, the problem becomes something else entirely.
If principles are always subordinated to circumstances, they cease to be principles. They become variables.
At that point, strategic flexibility becomes indistinguishable from the very complacency Mr. Carney condemned in Davos.
Moving beyond Davos does not mean rejecting the ambition of a clear-eyed foreign policy. It means recognizing that a policy constantly adjusted to shifting winds is meaningless.
The deaths, in rapid succession, of Renée Good and Alex Pretti at the hands of federal agents in Minneapolis may be altering the political calculus in Washington.
Greg Bovino, the strutting public face of federal repression in the Twin Cities, is out and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has been sidelined in favour of border czar Tom Homan.
But if this reshuffling of roles is meant to change the channel it is not likely to change anything on the ground.
What is unfolding in Minneapolis is not simply enforcement overreach compounded by inadequate training and bad recruiting. Of course, it is all of those things. But increasingly it resembles something more deliberate and frightening: a dress rehearsal for an authoritarian takeover of America.
And these forces are not operating discreetly. They are conducting enforcement surges using military tactics: establishing visible perimeters, targeting selected neighbourhoods, parking lots, places of worship and even schools; confronting protesters and bystanders alike, and projecting federal power in spaces traditionally governed by civilian norms.
Taken individually, and under a clear legal predicate, some of these tactics could be defensible. Taken together — and justified by increasingly thin rationales– they signal something more troubling: a deliberate effort to normalize federal paramilitary involvement in civil life.
This matters because it collides and seeks to test the resilience of the First and Fourth Amendments — two foundational pillars of American constitutional order:
The First Amendment protects freedom of speech, assembly, and protest. The Fourth Amendment guards against unreasonable search and seizure — prohibiting the state from stopping, detaining, or entering homes without individualized suspicion and proper judicial authorization.
Recent immigration enforcement practices — randomized police-style sweeps, the use of “administrative” rather than court-issued warrants, confrontations near places of worship, and routine demands for identification absent reasonable suspicion — run directly up against settled constitutional doctrine. None of this is permitted under a robust reading of the Fourth Amendment. Yet these practices are increasingly normalized.
What we are witnessing is an effort to condition public opinion to the visible deployment of federal force in civilian life; while at the same time probing and testing how courts, local governments, and civil society respond when constitutional boundaries are breached.
The endgame is no longer difficult to discern.
The abuses of Donald Trump’s first term are well documented, as is the unresolved legal exposure that still surrounds him and several figures in his inner circle.
Trump understands this. He also understands that his historically weak approval ratings cast a long shadow over the November midterm elections. The stakes could not be clearer. Speaking to House Republicans last month, he put it bluntly: “You gotta win the midterms, because if we don’t win the midterms, it’s just gonna be — I mean, they’ll find a reason to impeach me. I’ll get impeached.”
For Donald Trump, surviving the midterms is not merely a political imperative. It is a personal one. What Minneapolis, Chicago, Los Angeles and Portland have in common is not that they are blue cities — it’s that they have been chosen as proving grounds for what may be the largest voter-suppression exercise in American history.
For years, Trump and leading voices in the MAGA movement have insisted that American elections are being “rigged” through undocumented immigration — that “illegals” were invited into the country by Democratic administrations to fix the vote.
Within that narrative, an expanded federal presence around elections can be reframed not as intimidation, but as protection for the electoral process.
Now cast your mind forward to November 3, 2026.
Voters line up at polling stations. Federal agents establish a conspicuous presence nearby. In some cases, questions are asked and papers are demanded. Word spreads. Fear does the rest.
None of this would be lawful under a constitutional order that still takes the Fourth Amendment seriously.
This is why Minneapolis matters, just as Chicago, Portland and Los Angeles mattered.
What is being rehearsed there is not aggressive immigration enforcement. It is the deployment of federal power to test constitutional tolerance and institutional resistance.
The deaths of Alex Pretti and Renée Good must never be minimized. But neither should they obscure the larger danger.
Dress rehearsals exist for a reason. The only remaining question is whether this one will be recognized for what it is before its November premiere.
