Policy Case Studies

The Mark Carney Liberal platform promised to “Make the National School Food Program permanent”, entrenching the Trudeau government’s April 2024 historic creation of the National School Food Program, which committed $1 billion over five years, to fund school food programs in all provinces and territories, and in indigenous schools. This case study will examine the decades-long work of the school food movement in Canada, and the unique combination of ingredients - public discourse, community engagement, program development, organizing and mobilizing, which led to this spectacular policy success and is driving the current implementation process. Focusing on the school food example, Debbie Field and David Kraft will reference other social movements for change, outlining a conceptual framework to understand the rise of social movements and their successes and failures. Class time will include lectures and discussion, and the introduction of practical organizing tools through participatory workshops. The course will include a mid-morning snack to demonstrate a key principle of the school food movement – that healthy food is a key ingredient in creating an effective learning environment.

Instructor: Debbie Field & David Kraft

This case study will use the mass murder of 11 people at prayer inside Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue as a way to examine the causes, consequences and possible response to gun violence in the United States. The instructor is David Shribman, who lives three blocks from the synagogue and who as executive editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette organized and supervised the coverage of the tragedy, which won the Pulitzer Prize. The emphasis of the case study is to understand the origins of gun culture in the United States and to examine the resistance, through Constitutional arguments and cultural, historical and political factors, to curtailing the availability of weapons.

Instructor: David Shribman

This case studies will provide insights into how a multinational enterprise goes about government and other stakeholders’ engagement to protect its interests and strengthen its positioning vis-à-vis major government procurement opportunities, in a globally competitive and highly contested industry.

The students will learn about how global trends can feed into local considerations and decisions, and how international trade obligations interact between them and constrain margins of maneuver for government decision-makers.

Through the case study, the students will be able to learn from a real-life example of a successful advocacy campaign to increase domestic content on a rail transit project, bucking a growing trend in the country towards less local preferences. The students will receive a first-hand account of how legal arguments were combined with imperatives to level the playing field for domestic firms, to achieve the campaign goal. Key learnings will include how to mount and implement a complex stakeholder engagement strategy, and how to combine public and private interventions for maximum impact.

Comparisons will also be drawn between government procurement in the civil infrastructure sector, in which the case study is situated, and defense procurement which is shaped by additional strategic and national interest considerations for nations. Further, we will examine through this parallel, how differences in international trade obligations could be determinant for nations’ decisions and behaviors. .

Instructor: Pierre Pyun

This case study provides an insider’s view of Stakeholder engagement an influencing in a high-stakes business environment.   At its core is Russia’s steadfast refusal to provide airworthiness certification to Canadian- and Brazilian-made Regional Jets and their US-made Aero-engines.  This refusal was a blatant attempt to preserve the Russian market for an indigenous RJ in development (the Sukhoi SuperJet). Important context for the case study includes Russia’s ongoing but as-yet incomplete accession to the WTO and Sukhoi’s own attempts to market and sell its aircraft internationally.  We will explore how a group of MNCs from Canada and other countries devised and managed a sophisticated stakeholder engagement campaign at the highest international levels, seeking to change this Russian policy.  

Instructor: Michael McAdoo

This case study will present policy development through the lens of recent changes to federal environmental assessment processes. It will examine the path from public concerns expressed during the Idle No More protests to the shaping of political mandates, the conduct of public engagement and the introduction and passage of impact assessment legislation. Students will learn about the political and policy dynamics associated with major changes in federal environmental policy through the perspectives of interested parties, including industry, governments, Indigenous Peoples and environmental groups.

Instructor: Jesse McCormick

In the era of the internet, fake news, misinformation, and disinformation have emerged as global threats to social cohesion and democracy. A pressing policy challenge of our time is responding to the challenges posed by false and misleading information being pushed into the information environment by malicious and nescient actors. Over an intensive one-week course, students will act as junior policy analysts for the Canadian federal government faced with tackling this challenge. They will become familiar with the policy context and existing initiatives responding to the threat posed by mis and disinformation. They will meet with their manager, incorporate relevant policy considerations into their proposed plan of action, and draft a briefing note. The course will combine readings and case materials with one “fireside chat” and one oral briefing roleplay. This will give students an opportunity to engage with a real-world scenario and to apply their learning to formulate policy recommendations on combating misinformation and disinformation.

Instructor: Aengus Bridgman

International public policy makers continually manage trade-offs among often-competing principles in complex and highly politicized environments. United Nations officials working in situations of violent conflict around the world are faced with daily decisions on how to balance political vs. humanitarian priorities, short- vs. long-term objectives, and expedient vs. principled solutions. Each decision has life and death implications for those affected by conflict, for the effectiveness of the United Nations, and for the viability and legitimacy of multilateral approaches to managing violence and alleviating suffering.

This seminar examines the competing principles at play in international complex emergencies, and the processes by which international public policymakers manage decision making in delicate and dynamic political and humanitarian environments. Looking across a series of historical and ongoing violent conflicts around the world, the course will examine how universal principles come into contact with real-world situations and imperatives. For example, the course will analyse how public policy makers balance trade-offs between the universality of human rights versus sovereignty, and humanity versus neutrality. The course will delve into the management of institutional interests and reputation as a consideration in public policy making and address innate tensions between the universal principle of state sovereignty and the mandate of many international organizations, including the United Nations, to pursue specific normative objectives. 

Using a participatory approach, participants in the seminar will actively engage with the processes for managing these trade-offs, including stakeholder management and consultation, transparency and public engagement, moral and ethical reasoning, and internal debate and decision-making. In so going, the seminar aims to equip participants with an understanding of nuance and complexity in international public policy making; the skills to manage complex operational, ethical, and political questions in highly charged and morally laden situations; and practical expertise applying these skills to a broad variety of real-world scenarios of international public policy, including international aid and development, trade and economic assistance, and international diplomacy and negotiation.

Instructor: Dirk Druet

This intensive course explores Canada's refugee policy through its historical evolution, legal framework, asylum process, settlement and integration systems, and current political and operational pressures. Students will examine the refugee definition, the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, the Singh decision, the Safe Third Country Agreement, current asylum claim trends, Bill C-12, work permit policy, Quebec and Montreal reception pressures, climate-related displacement, and the use of AI and digital tools in administrative systems.

The course uses legal analysis, policy debate, data interpretation, case studies, and practitioner engagement. The afternoon site visit at The Refugee Centre is designed to connect formal policy architecture with frontline implementation in legal services, housing, work permits, employment, language support, and crisis response.

Instructor: Abdulla Daoud

Faced with a growing housing crisis, the Government of Ontario has undertaken a significant restructuring of municipal governance, granting certain mayors in municipalities across the province new executive powers intended, in part, to accelerate housing development. This case study examines the origins, design, implementation, and consequences of Ontario's "strong mayor" reforms. Using the housing crisis as the central policy challenge, students will consider why governments turn to institutional reform in response to problems of policy delivery and whether concentrating executive authority can produce better outcomes. The case will explore the competing roles of provincial and municipal governments, the relationship between mayors, councils, and municipal administrations, and the tensions between executive leadership, democratic accountability, and local autonomy. Through case materials, simulations, discussion, and engagement with practitioners involved in municipal governance, students will assess Ontario's reforms and consider what the strong-mayor experiment reveals about governing cities in periods of policy crisis.

Instructor: Zachary Spicer

Artificial intelligence has become one of the fastest-growing drivers of energy and water demand on the planet, even as the world races to decarbonize and render AI more sustainable. While the human-rights and democratic implications of AI have received considerable policy attention in the last few years, AI’s environmental impact, especially following the rise of generative and conversational AI, is only beginning to challenge digital policy frameworks. This one-week intensive policy case study asks a deceptively simple question: how should governments regulate AI’s environmental implications? Students will act as junior policy analysts who must advise a Canadian decision-maker on a concrete policy response and, in doing so, will confront the central analytic distinction of the course. Currently, AI’s environmental footprint can be governed at two levels: 1) the infrastructure that AI runs on, often called the “direct” or “facilities level” layer that includes data centres, their energy, water, and land implications and 2) the models and compute themselves, referred to as the “indirect” level that looks at how AI models are built, reported on, and deployed.

This course will review each level’s emerging policy instruments and strategies, jurisdictional comparisons, and the policy gaps and opportunities that Canada might emulate in the future. Throughout the course, students will move from a shared foundation in environmental platform governance to a deep dive into each level, including analyzing how different regulatory frameworks such as systemic-risk and soft-governance approaches by various stakeholders and communities are reshaping the environmental governance of AI. The week will culminate in a policy briefing presented to a Canadian decision-maker (your instructor!), and an individual briefing note expanding on the presentation.

Instructor: Sonja Solomun

Cyberspace – the interdependent network of information and communications technologies, including the internet, telecommunications networks, and computer systems – has transformed how individuals, businesses, and governments interact, creating extraordinary social, political, and economic opportunities. Yet these same technologies have raised unprecedented challenges. From ransomware attacks on hospitals and other critical infrastructure to electronic surveillance, disinformation, and AI-enabled cyber operations, the cyber threat landscape is dynamic and complex, with real harms felt worldwide. Cybersecurity, the practice of protecting people, systems, and data from digital harm, has become one of the defining governance challenges of our time. Because cyber operations cross borders instantly and defences are only as strong as their weakest link, effective responses demand coordinated local, national, and global action. Law and policy play a central role in shaping a cyberspace that remains open, secure, and peaceful.

This course examines key cyber threat vectors and how law and policy can address them globally and locally. We will explore geopolitical battles over the internet and cyberspace more generally; existing multilateral processes on cyberspace governance; how international law governs State cyber activities and cybercrime by non-State actors; and how Canada is governing its own cyber landscape.

Instructor: Talita Dias 

Canada's Economic Response to the Covid-19 Pandemic

Instructor: Faizel Gulamhussein