As part of our commitment to enriching the learning experience for our MPP students, we bring in a diverse group of guest speakers each semester to share their perspectives from across the public policy landscape. Through informal lunchtime sessions held between classes, these speakers create space for candid conversation, allowing students to engage directly with real-world policy challenges and build meaningful connections beyond the classroom.
Kyle Matthews
In September, Kyle Matthews, a practitioner-scholar with experience in conflict zones and humanitarian crises, spoke to students and faculty about the role of emerging technologies in modern warfare. He is now the Executive Director of the Montreal Institute for Global Security and a McConnell Visiting Professor of Practice at Max Bell.聽
After studying at Carleton聽University, his career quickly took him into the world鈥檚 most聽challenging聽regions: Kosovo, Palestine during the Second Intifada, and Zambia. In each, he聽witnessed聽displacement, fragility, and the limits of an international system strained by great-power competition. 鈥淲e鈥檙e going in the opposite direction,鈥� he reflects. 鈥淭he protections we built after World War II are evaporating before our eyes.鈥澛�
This focus led him to the聽cutting edge聽of debates on technology, human rights, and humanitarian law. Guided in part by a NATO-sponsored report, his recent work investigates how artificial intelligence is transforming drone warfare, reshaping transatlantic security, redefining the rules of war, and challenging the very notion of civilian protection.聽鈥淭here鈥檚 always a temptation to invent a new toolbox for new technologies,鈥� Matthews notes. 鈥淏ut the question is whether our existing frameworks, like the Geneva Conventions, are being applied,聽or ignored.鈥澛�
Beyond his research, Matthews has long championed the role of civil society and NGOs in shaping security agendas. He founded the Montreal Institute for Global Security, which is hosting the 3rd聽Annuel Montreal Security Summit.聽For Matthews,聽think tanks聽serve聽as vital spaces to聽anticipate聽emerging issues, educate the public, and influence policy. 鈥淚n civil society, you can move faster, speak louder, and shape the debate,鈥� he says. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 where real impact happens.鈥澛�
Catherine Tait
In October,聽Catherine Tait, former head of CBC Canada, spoke to students about the future of public media and what it may mean for democratic life in an era of political polarization and technological disruption. She now works in public-interest media, thinking about how public infrastructure must evolve to remain relevant and credible.聽
Tait began by situating public service media in the post鈥揥orld War II moment, when democratic governments聽sought聽to build institutions that could inform citizens without becoming instruments of state power. The BBC, she explained, set the model. Its wartime role聽established聽lasting standards of transparency, balance, fact-based reporting, and political independence. These principles were reinforced by governance structures designed so that 鈥渘ot one government controls the airways,鈥� allowing public media to function as a democratic safeguard rather than a political tool.聽
That model, Tait argued, has survived for more than 75 years,聽but it is now under direct pressure. Public media is increasingly framed as 鈥渓iberal鈥� and politically expendable. In Canada, defunding the CBC has appeared as an electoral promise, and in the United States, what once seemed unimaginable has already occurred. 鈥淭rump did what people thought would never happen,鈥� she said. 鈥淗e cut NPR and PBS,鈥� with the greatest harm felt by small, local stations dependent on federal funding.聽
Yet the crisis facing public media is not only political.聽Tait emphasized that traditional broadcasters have already lost much of their audience. The industry鈥檚 鈥淣apster moment鈥� has passed, but governments and regulators have struggled to adapt. Public broadcasters continue to rely on a 鈥渧ocal and loyal鈥� audience over 65, effectively sustaining institutions designed for a 70-year-old viewer while younger audiences look elsewhere.聽
Tait emphasized that public media is investing in platforms its audience no longer uses.聽鈥淥ne hundred percent of people under 30 get their news on social platforms,鈥� Tait noted, even as public broadcasters devote enormous budgets to television and radio. The way forward, she argued, requires difficult choices. 鈥淵ou聽have to聽be brave enough to say, 鈥業鈥檓 going to abandon my legacy assets.鈥欌�� Public media can still exist聽in聽television and radio, but only if it is willing to re-center itself around where audiences actually are.聽
Nick Hart
In November, Nick Hart, President and CEO of the Data Foundation, spoke to students about the role of data and evidence in government and what happens when that infrastructure weakens. His work focuses on when evidence meaningfully shapes policy rather than existing only on paper.聽
Hart emphasized evaluation as a central tool of governance, defining it as the systematic assessment of a聽policy鈥檚聽design, implementation, or results in order to inform learning and decision-making. Through the Data Foundation, a U.S.-based nonprofit, he works to improve how open data and evidence are used across government, supporting both executive and legislative efforts to embed evidence into law and policy.聽
This mission shaped Hart鈥檚 role as Policy Director for the Commission on Evidence-Based Policymaking, which spent two years examining whether the United States should create a single national database. The answer was no. Instead, the Commission developed recommendations on privacy protections and evaluation infrastructure, many of which were incorporated into the Evidence Act. The law required federal agencies to appoint chief data or evaluation officers, creating an evidence infrastructure that had not previously existed.聽
Hart cautioned against assuming 鈥減erfection in implementation.鈥� Some agencies became 鈥渞eally stuck鈥� due to weak leadership, revealing how fragile evidence systems can be. He also emphasized that public trust depends on how government data is produced. Many of the methods used today are 鈥渁 hundred years old,鈥� and without modernization, data risks becoming unpredictable or manipulable.聽
He concluded by pointing to growing risks, including reports of missing data and the dismantling of evaluation units. The durability of evidence-based policymaking, Hart suggested, depends not only on聽good design聽but on sustained political commitment.聽
Peter John Loewen
In December, Peter John Loewen, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Science at Cornell University and former Director of the Munk School of Global Affairs, spoke with students about leadership and democracy. He challenged conventional assumptions by arguing that political systems function without singular leaders more often than we typically imagine.聽A political scientist by training, Loewen challenged common narratives about power and authority.聽
Loewen argued that leadership is far rarer in democratic systems than we tend to assume.聽鈥淎t any given time, the modal number of leaders in democratic systems is zero.鈥� Genuine leaders, he argued, are exceptional rather than typical. While politics is often imagined as driven by singular figures, modern democracies have聽largely been聽designed to聽operate聽without them.聽
Loewen defined a leader as someone who 鈥渟hapes the environment rather than being shaped by it.鈥� By that standard, true leadership is rare. Yet the way we understand politics聽remains聽centered on leaders, shaping how political events are explained and how institutions are designed.聽
As an alternative, Loewen emphasized that democratic systems rely on structures and processes rather than personalities. They聽maintain聽governance through rules, representation, and multiple sites of decision-making, allowing democracy to function without a single agenda-setting figure.聽
This perspective has important implications for how politics is studied. Political science, Loewen noted, often makes 鈥渉eroic assumptions鈥� about representatives.聽In reality, the聽modal politician is 鈥渇undamentally human and constrained as such.鈥� Democracy, he argued, is sociological rather than charismatic. Modern systems rely on legal-rational authority, and the administrative state creates an 鈥渋ron cage鈥� that limits transformative leadership.聽By shifting attention away from leaders, Loewen suggested, scholars can better understand how democratic systems actually work and where political power is most often exercised.聽
