Using examples from current issues, Greg Lyle will show us “behind the curtains” of public opinion research and explain how Canadians form and change their opinions about key issues and players in our society. Starting with a brief account of the origins, varieties and methodologies of public opinion research, Greg will draw on the insights gained from more than thirty years in the field to explain how polls can be both astonishingly accurate and sometimes spectacularly wrong. Drawing on his current polls Greg will highlight the issues that matter most to Canadians and what divides and unites us on those issues. 

This lecture is a live, in-person event in Cameron Hall. You do not need to pre-register to attend – just show up.

BIOGRAPHY:

Greg Lyle is the founder and President of Innovative Research Group with over thirty years of communications and opinion research experience. As a former Principal Secretary, Greg has built a career at the intersection of public policy, communications and public opinion. He uses a full range of research tools for a variety of government and corporate clients across industries such as financial services, healthcare and the energy and infrastructure sector. Greg’s research has been featured in many media outlets across Canada and in 2016, Greg received the Public Affairs Association of Canada Award of Distinction. Greg has a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from the University of British Columbia and, when away from his desk, can be found travelling between British Columbia, Ontario, and England to spend time with his wife and daughters.

In his lecture, Sean Conway, a long-time member of the Ontario Legislature and a former senior minister in the Liberal government of Premier David Peterson (1985—1990), will focus on some of the central issues which seem to be roiling our democratic politics in Canada, the Unites States and the United Kingdom. Among these issues are: increased polarization, the decline of trust in our political institutions, the lamentable state of our political parties, the corrosive effect of money in our public affairs, the new media environment and its very worrisome effect upon our democracy, foreign interference in our elections and the passivity of too many citizens at a time when some issues – e.g. climate change and intergenerational stresses in our society – present unusually difficult political choices. Conway will suggest some modest proposals to deal with some of these problems and will argue that for a vibrant democracy to succeed, the citizen must become more engaged if we are to avert real trouble in our town square.

BIOGRAPHY

Born in Pembroke Ontario in 1951, Sean Conway grew up in Renfrew County, studied Canadian history at Waterloo Lutheran University (now Wilfrid Laurier) and Queen’s and was elected ‘at a rather young age’ to the Ontario Legislature in 1975 where he served for 28 years including as minister of education during the Liberal government of Premier David Peterson. In 2007 he received the Churchill Society’s Award for Excellence in the Cause of Parliamentary Democracy. Since his retirement from active politics Conway has taught history at Queen’s, Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson) and the University of Toronto. While at Queen’s, he led a major research project into the public life of the Rt. Hon. Paul Martin, the former prime minister of Canada. He has also been a public policy advisor at the Gowlings law firm and an analyst on TVO’s popular public affair program 4th Reading hosted by Steve Paikin. Conway lives in Barry’s Bay and enjoys reading, dabbling in local history and watching U.S. college football.

Growing up attending Yorkminster Park provided an excellent grounding in the importance of family, a theme that would shape Galen Weston’s path towards becoming the fourth generation of family leaders at Canada’s largest private employer, leading real estate investment trust, and largest network of independent food and drug retailers. In this candid conversation, Galen will share his thoughts about the uniqueness of family businesses and the role of private enterprise in the community.

Galen Weston is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of George Weston Limited where he is the fourth generation of family leaders. Founded in 1882, George Weston represents a portfolio of businesses including Canada’s leading real estate investment trust, Choice Properties, as well as supermarket and pharmacy retailing, fashion, and financial services through its holdings in Loblaw Companies Limited where Galen is Chairman. Galen is also Chairman of President’s Choice Bank, as well as a Director of Wittington Investments Limited and the Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre. Galen holds a B.A. from Harvard University and an M.B.A. from Columbia University.

Lecture Description : R. H. Thomson’s book By The Ghost Light: Wars, Memory and Families is a personal, emotional and intensely engaging exploration of how the stories we tell affect the wars we fight. On publication in November 2023, it was on the best seller list for Canadian non-fiction. In this lecture, R. H. Thomson will talk about the book, the family stories on which is based and about “The World Remembers” WWI memory project.

Biography : R.H. has appeared in film and theatre across Canada, as Matthew Cuthbert in Anne With An E, and as Marshall McLuhan in The Message by Jason Sherman. An advocate for the arts, R.H. has also worked on many history/arts projects. He built The World Remembers-Le Monde Se Souvient, an international World War One commemoration exhibit now installed at war museums in Canada and the United States, theworldremembers.ca. He is a Member of the Order of Canada and was awarded the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award for Lifetime Artistic Achievement.

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Lecture Description : In Wanda’s War, Marsha Faubert introduces a dimension of the Second World War many Canadians have rarely contemplated. Stories of Canadians on the battlefield, the struggles of the home front, even the experience of Britons under bombing, are well known. But many of today’s Canadians trace their roots to the postwar migration of refugees from Eastern Europe and the Baltic states, whose war experiences remain buried.

Wanda’s War reconstructs the lives of Faubert’s parents-in-law, Wanda and Casey, and the lesser-known events of the war that shaped their lives. With not one, but two occupations of their homeland in Poland’s eastern borderlands, both were torn from their homes and deported to forced labour — one to Nazi Germany, the other to subarctic Russia. An “astonishing yet uplifting addition to the great body of literature of the Second World War” (David Marks Shribman), Wanda’s War speaks to the broader refugee experience that has unfolded globally since WWII and, tragically, continues today.

Historian Christopher Moore will join Faubert in a wide-ranging conversation about the book’s themes — the geopolitics of eastern Europe, gulags and slave labour camps, postwar displacement and immigration, and the politics of memory.

Biography : Marsha Faubert is a lawyer and writer of narrative nonfiction. She began her legal career as a litigator, and later worked in various roles in the administrative justice system in Ontario. Her first book,
Wanda’s War — An Untold Story of Nazi Europe, Forced Labour, and a Canadian Immigration Scandal, raises themes of memory and silence, justice and forgiveness through the lens of the wartime and immigration experiences of her husband’s parents. She is in the early stages of a new project which will examine the history and legacy of environmental injustice in her hometown of Sarnia, known to some as Canada’s Chemical Valley.

Lecture Description :

Biography :