Few people have bothered to defend the Majoritarian, winner take all character of the current Canadian electoral system. This parliamentary system has been in existence in the same form since the founding of the modern state in 1867. In these remarks, I offer a defense of Majoritarianism in the Canadian context when the alternative is some form of Proportional Representation. These remarks were prepared as an opening statement in a debate on electoral reform at a Faculty of Public Affairs 75th Anniversary conference at Carleton University, March 3, 2017.
The debate arose because of the Prime Minister's announced intention to replace the current system with some other during the election campaign that led to his victory in 2015. The debate occurred a few months after the release of a lengthy report on electoral reform by a special allparty committee of the House of Commons. A few weeks before the debate, the Prime Minister announced (independently of the debate, of course) that his government would no longer pursue electoral reform, perhaps because it looked like he would not be able to avoid a referendum, a process which is hard to control. In any event, and especially in the light of recent attempts to change the system both at the federal level and in some provinces, I think it is important for people to understand that the existing electoral system is a sensible one that likely will continue to serve us well.
The purpose of this article is to improve understanding of internationalization as a strategic response to the catalysts of globalization and the knowledge society. The paper will attempt to critically identify and interpret how the aforementioned elements are being recontextualized and translated into responsive internationalization policies and systemic institutional change. The article takes a critical analysis approach on current internationalization efforts and provides a conceptual framework for developing a performance indicator set through a combination of institutional change theory (North 1990) and the Delta cycle for internationalization (Rumbley 2010). Recommendations on future research areas are made at the conclusion of the article.
Report based on Community First: Impacts of Community Engagement (CFICE) research, posted on Community Campus Engage Canada.
Abstract:
While many studies have addressed the successes and challenges of participatory action research, few have documented how community campus engagement (CCE) works and how partnerships can be designed for strong community impact. This paper responds to increasing calls for ‘community first’ approaches to CCE. Our analysis draws on experiences and research from Community First: Impacts of Community Engagement (CFICE), a collaborative action research project that ran from 2012-2020 in Canada and aimed to better understand how community-campus partnerships might be designed and implemented to maximize the value for community-based organizations. As five of the project’s co-leads, we reflect on our experiences, drawing on research and practice in three of CFICE’s thematic hubs (food sovereignty, poverty reduction, and community environmental sustainability) to identify achievements and articulate preliminary lessons about how to build stronger and more meaningful relationships. We identify the need to: strive towards equitable and mutually beneficial partnerships; work with boundary spanners from both the academy and civil society to facilitate such relationships; be transparent and self-reflexive about power differentials; and look continuously for ways to mitigate inequities.
This paper is an overview of the important considerations that arise at the outset of a project.
There are numerous ways that a work team may decide on which methods should be
prioritized among the many tools available for community engagement. As the project comes
to grips with the scale and the scope of a 7-year project on Community Engagement, it will be
essential to explore how the various evaluative methods: Theory of Change (ToC),
Developmental Evaluation, Collective Impact, and Action Research are combined, and how
Evaluation scholars have typically approached these subjects in the past. Is it possible to use
‘Theory of Change’ at the same time as other methods? One may answer this question with a
resounding “Yes!” In the community sector, there are many versions of a Theory of Change. The
term may be applied to both one’s personalized impression of the arrow of change, as well as
according to traditional Log Frame models for mapping long term ‘policy change.’ Even if there
are dilemmas in coming up with language to describe what is meant by “Theory of Change,”
there are many opportunities for ToC to be fused with other methods, and tried and tested
over the life of the CFICE project, whatever the original connotations of the researcher or
community practitioner may be.
Completed for: Community Opportunity & Innovation Network (COIN), Supervising Professor: Tom Whillans; Trent Centre for Community-Based Education
Abstract:
The Trent Centre for Community Based Education (TCCBE) brought together graduate students from Trent University’s Sustainability Studies Masters program with Peterborough’s Community Opportunity & Innovation Network (COIN), to collaborate on a community based research project for the Peterborough Centre for Social Innovation (PCSI). This workshop report outlines phase one's literature review on social innovation governance and strategies, workshop results and discussion, as well as recommendations and the conclusions of this community-based research.
Completed for: Community Opportunity & Innovation Network (COIN) Supervising Professor: Tom Whillans Trent Centre for Community-Based Education
Abstract:
Abstract: This workshop implemented SAS2 community-based research methods to facilitate direction for the Peterborough Centre for Social Innovation (PCSI) on their governance, operations, collaborations and finance strategies during their pilot project. The results will be used to provide direction on the selection of two or three case studies for interview to understand how successful social innovation organizations have connected to the community need. The results of the governance models workshop demonstrated that the PCSI should remain flexible to be reactive to the environment as many participants supported a hybrid governance and collaboration model. In addition, the operation and collaboration workshop showed that there was strong support for work space, kitchen space and programming that would provide outreach opportunities to the community. Facilitating a locally-focused social innovation centre was also a key foundation for the participants. This workshop report outlines phase one's literature review on social innovation governance and strategies, workshop results and discussion, as well as recommendations and the conclusions of this community-based research.
Prepared by Sara Fralin,Andreina Pulido and Elizabeth Teleki
Completed for: Trent Centre for Community-Based Education : Supervising Professor: Nadine Changfoot
Abstract:
The Community First: Impacts of Community Engagement (CFICE) is a Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) funded research project designed to provide insights into how post-secondary institutions and community partners can establish and maintain successful relationships that ultimately maximize the value created for non-profit organizations. CFICE is organized into five self-managing research hubs; the focus of this report is the Peterborough and Haliburton section of the Community Environmental Sustainability (CES) hub. Hub members participated in interviews and a focus group to discuss the results of four first year demonstration projects. For the most part, results were favourable, especially for community-based organizations, who pointed to a high level of influence and a number of net gains such as increased capacity and the development of valuable resources. A notable finding was the important role of community-university bridging organizations, U-Links and the Trent Centre for Community-Based Education. Participants identified both organizations as a critical ingredient to the smooth functioning of demonstration projects. Challenges participants identified included delay of grant funds, delayed ethics approval and university resistance to community-based research projects in some areas.
This report highlights the lack of action from ministries and organizations to help end violence against women, created by Action Research Change with the support of CFICE’s Violence Against Women Hub.
Completed for: Abbey Gardens & Peterborough GreenUP; Supervising Professor: Tom Whillans; Trent Centre for Community-Based Education
Abstract:
Finding Common Ground for Facilitating Collaborative Partnerships stemmed from a desire among several employees of Peterborough GreenUP and Abbey Gardens to explore the potential for collaboration between both organizations. In the winter of 2014, planning began for a meeting between members of GreenUP and Abbey Gardens facilitated by Trent graduate students in the Sustainability Studies program through the Community First: Impacts of Community Engagement (CFICE) project and Trent Centre for Community Based Education (TCCBE). What this meeting would look like and what would be discussed evolved over the next few weeks and culminated in a daylong workshop in Bobcaygeon on April 1st, 2014.
This report summarizes the main ideas that came up in several activities and presentations. It contains resources on the background of the project, next steps, and the contact information of participants from both organizations. Appendices include the presentation slides from the respective organizations presentations, staff lists and contact information for each organization, and detailed activity notes from the workshop.
Completed for: Peterborough GreenUP Professor Tom Whillans, Trent University Trent Centre for Community-Based Education
Abstract:
This document is a compilation of research reports written by students in the Environmental
Resource Studies/Science (ERTS) 3160H class at Trent University in the winter of 2014. The
research was completed in conjunction with GreenUP, Trent Centre for Community-Based
Education (TCCBE), and Taylor Mackey (a graduate student research assistant in Trent’s
Sustainability Studies program). The students looked critically at urban food forests around the
world and made suggestions for designing a food forest in Peterborough. These reports will help
inform this process alongside a report written by Taylor Mackey as part of his research
assistanceship: An Urban Food Forest for Peterborough: Planting for Our Future.
An urban food forest is an area in a city or town where trees, and often other plants, are
intentionally planted for food production. These urban food forests often attempt to mimic
natural ecosystems. Currently urban forests are generally considered valuable solely for the
ecosystem services they provide, such as stormwater management. In the past these urban
forests were often managed for the products they produced, rather than just the services they
could provide.
There is increasing interest in creating edible landscapes in urban areas. Some are starting to see
urban forests as more than something that can clean the air or reduce the stormwater runoff.
Some are starting to see the potential to create areas that can provide these services as well as
produce food for human consumptions, as well as a host of other benefits. Most of the studied
urban food forests focus on food security. Urban food forests have the potential to provide the
same services as our current urban forests, but also produce food (and perhaps increase
biodiversity in the process).
Completed for: Peterborough GreenUP , Supervising Professor: Tom Whillans; Trent Centre for Community-Based Education
Abstract:
An urban food forest is modelled after a wild forest, but is intentionally designed and planted with food production in mind. Essentially an urban food forest is a combination of wild forest and orchard. They are made up of a close-knit community of plants that help each other. There are many benefits that an urban food forest can provide. They can improve the environment we live in; help build stronger, more resilient, communities; and can provide a host of economic benefits as well. Urban food forests help us create more sustainable communities that are healthy and enjoyable to live in.
We need to rediscover our past, when we cultivated urban forests, not just for the services they provided, but also for the products as well. It is not just rural forests that can provide useable products. In fact it might even be argued that urban forests can be more productive, per unit of area, because of the intentional planning and design that goes into them. An urban food forest is a community within a community, the plants help and support one another, just as we help support one another in our communities.
Closing the Loop: Community Engaged Pedagogy in Business Courses is a CACSL and Carleton Raven’s Den-funded CFICE evaluation project that looks at the impact on Sprott School of Business’s community partners of adopting a community service learning approach to pedagogy.
Over a number of years and across a variety of courses, Sprott has implemented projects ranging in duration and topic in order to facilitate a ‘practice’ perspective for the students in Sprott’s Bachelor of Commerce and Bachelor of International Business programs. Sprott has received lots of feedback from students, in the form of anecdotal accounts and more structured feedback exercises, and some feedback from community partners, but mostly the latter was limited to student performance during the actual project and anticipated benefits should the organization adopt the recommendations made by the student teams. Sprott therefore undertook this study to determine the impact their CSL projects made on community partners over a longer term.
This project is still ongoing, with evaluations scheduled for the Fall/Winter term from 2016 – 2017.
Wondering what the Community First: Impacts of Community Engagement (CFICE) project has been up to for the past four years? Well you’re in luck. We just completed and submitted our SSHRC Midterm report on February 29, 2016 and it’s chock full of details about CFICE’s activities and learnings from Phase I!
This paper is intended to inform discussions between industry and government policymakers in and beyond Ottawa, Canada about climate change and potential impacts on residential development regulations and corresponding industry practices. Ultimately, both private and public stakeholders must acknowledge the impacts of urban form on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and, conversely, the impacts of climate change on cities, for any meaningful progress on urban sustainability to ensue. Section 1 introduces the basic relationships between urban development and climate change. Urban form is directly tied to energy consumption and GHG emissions, mainly through building and transportation energy consumption. Section 2 summarizes regional changes from climate change projected by various research organizations. Projected weather changes include more severe heat waves, rain and freezing rain in the future, with flooding identified repeatedly as the main concern for the Ottawa region. Section 3 reflects on the potential impacts of more severe weather on buildings and on the building industry. Impacts may include risks to structures and workers, as well as shifting regulations and insurance liabilities. Section 4 provides an overview of changes to government environmental policies that may signal future regulatory change. And finally, Sections 5 and 6 pose questions of interest for future regulators and builders.
Edited by Karen Schwartz, Liz Weaver, Aaron Kozak & Magdalene Goemans.
Produced by the Poverty Reduction Hub of Community First: Impacts of Community Engagement (CFICE), a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC)-funded project, coled by Carleton University and Vibrant Communities (an imprint of Tamarack Institute). CFICE website: https://carleton.ca/communityfirst/
Abstract:
Contents:
Preface - Pathways to Poverty Reduction through Community-Campus Partnerships
Chapter One: Creating Strategic Partnerships to Influence Policy (Liz Weaver)
Chapter Two: Models of Community-Campus Engagement in the Poverty Reduction Hub of CFICE (Karen Schwartz)
Chapter Three: University and Community Collaboration: Achieving Social Change (Erin Bigney, Tracey Chiasson, Melanie Hientz, Robert MacKinnon and Cathy Wright)
Chapter Four: On a Path of True Reconciliation: Investing in a Poverty-free Saskatoon (Colleen Christopherson-Côté, Lisa Erickson, Isobel M. Findlay and Vanessa Charles)
Chapter Five: Using Campus Community Engagement to Build Capacity for Poverty Reduction (Amanda Lefrancois)
Chapter Six: Shifting Societal Attitudes Regarding Poverty: Reflections on a Successful Community-University Partnership (
Mary MacKeigan, Jessica Wiese, Terry Mitchell, Colleen Loomis and Alexa Stovold)
Chapter Seven: Models of Collaboration: Does Community Engagement with University Colleges Have an Impact on Poverty Reduction? (Polly Leonard and Karen Schwartz)
Chapter Eight: A Peephole into the Student Experience: Student Research Assistants on their Experiences in the Poverty Reduction Hub (Aaron Kozak, Zhaocheng Zeng and Natasha Pei)
Chapter Nine: Poverty Reduction Hub Evaluation (Aaron Kozak, Karen Schwartz, Amanda Lefrancois and Liz Weaver)
Chapter Ten: Conclusion (Magdalene Goemans)
In the winter of 2015, when the Community First: Impacts of Community Engagement (CFICE) project was in the preliminary stages of planning its transition to Phase II, the Community Food Security (CFS) Hub prepared a discussion paper to synthesize collective reflections from hub partners on their proposals for action priorities to be implemented over the next four years of the project (2015-2019). This discussion paper was developed based primarily on interviews conducted with approximately 30 individuals representing the broad array of community- and campus-based partners related to the CFS Hub and reflections from the CFS Hub Management Team.
Following the release of this discussion paper, the CFS Hub gathered additional feedback from CFS Hub participants. at a CAFS meeting in May 2015, and via email for those unable to attend.
Free access to this e-book is available to readers, scholars, and students located in the Global South whose institutions lack the resources to purchase access to these books as well as to those in other regions who are part of non-profit or community organizations concerned with displacement and who lack alternate forms of access to the book or the resources needed to purchase these publications. Please see full access conditions below.
Abstract:
Refugees and displaced people rarely figure as historical actors, and almost never as historical narrators. We often assume a person residing in a refugee camp, lacking funding, training, social networks, and other material resources that enable the research and writing of academic history, cannot be a historian because a historian cannot be a person residing in a refugee camp.
The Right to Research disrupts this tautology by featuring nine works by refugee and host-community researchers from across Africa, Europe, and the Middle East. Identifying the intrinsic challenges of making space for diverse voices within a research framework and infrastructure that is inherently unequal, this edited volume offers a critical reflection on what history means, who narrates it, and what happens when those long excluded from authorship bring their knowledge and perspectives to bear. Chapters address topics such as education in Kakuma Refugee Camp, the political power of hip-hop in Rwanda, women migrants to Yemen, and the development of photojournalism in Kurdistan.
Exploring what it means to become a researcher, The Right to Research understands historical scholarship as an ongoing conversation - one in which we all have a right to participate.
Free access to this e-book is available to readers, scholars, and students located in the Global South whose institutions lack the resources to purchase access to these books as well as to those in other regions who are part of non-profit or community organizations concerned with displacement and who lack alternate forms of access to the book or the resources needed to purchase these publications. Please see full access conditions below.
Abstract:
The global refugee crisis is staggering in scope. The United Nations Refugee Agency reported that 79.5 million people were displaced worldwide in 2019, and over half of all displaced persons were under eighteen.
As the number of children and teenagers seeking asylum continues to grow, the impact of displacement on a young person’s well-being and development over the long term requires further study. In Finding Safe Harbour Emily Pelley investigates the current response to refugee youth in Canada by highlighting how Halifax, Nova Scotia, as a mid-sized urban centre, has mobilized services and resources to support young people seeking refuge. Opening with a broad contextual introduction to the global crisis of displacement and the impact of violence and armed conflict on young people, Pelley focuses on the reciprocal adaptation that is required for the long-term integration of displaced youth into the receiving society.
A concise and illuminating study on refugee resettlement, Finding Safe Harbour concludes with an in-depth discussion of how cities can optimize resilience resources through meaningful engagement with refugee youth.
Free access to this e-book is available to readers, scholars, and students located in the Global South whose institutions lack the resources to purchase access to these books as well as to those in other regions who are part of non-profit or community organizations concerned with displacement and who lack alternate forms of access to the book or the resources needed to purchase these publications. Please see full access conditions below.
Abstract:
Legal precarity, mobility, and the criminalization of migrants complicate the study of forced migration and exile. Traditional methodologies can obscure both the agency of displaced people and hierarchies of power between researchers and research participants. This project critically assesses the ways in which knowledge is co-created and reproduced through narratives in spaces of displacement, advancing a creative, collective, and interdisciplinary approach.
Documenting Displacement explores the ethics and methods of research in diverse forced migration contexts and proposes new ways of thinking about and documenting displacement. Each chapter delves into specific ethical and methodological challenges, with particular attention to unequal power relations in the co-creation of knowledge, questions about representation and ownership, and the adaptation of methodological approaches to contexts of mobility. Contributors reflect honestly on what has worked and what has not, providing useful points of discussion for future research by both established and emerging researchers.
Innovative in its use of arts-based methods, Documenting Displacement invites researchers to explore new avenues guided not only by the procedural ethics imposed by academic institutions, but also by a relational ethics that more fully considers the position of the researcher and the interests of those who have been displaced.
Free access to this e-book is available to readers, scholars, and students located in the Global South whose institutions lack the resources to purchase access to these books as well as to those in other regions who are part of non-profit or community organizations concerned with displacement and who lack alternate forms of access to the book or the resources needed to purchase these publications. Please see full access conditions below.
Abstract:
Displacement in the twenty-first century is urbanized. The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), the world’s largest humanitarian organization and the main body charged with assisting displaced people globally, estimates that over 60 per cent of refugees now live in urban areas, a proportion that only increases in the case of internally displaced people and asylum seekers.
Though cities and local authorities have become essential participants in the protection of refugees, only three decades ago they were considered to sit firmly beyond UNHCR’s remit, with urban refugees typically characterized as aberrations. In The Urbanization of Forced Displacement Neil James Wilson Crawford examines the organization’s response to the growing number of refugees migrating to urban areas. Introducing a broader study of policy-making in international organizations, Crawford addresses how and why UNHCR changed its policy and practice in response to shifting trends in displacement. Citing over 400 primary UN documents, Crawford provides an in-depth study of the internal and external pressures faced by UNHCR - pressures from above, below, and within - that explain why it has radically transformed its position from the 1990s onward.
UNHCR and global refugee policies have come to play an increasingly important role in the governance of global displacement. The Urbanization of Forced Displacement sheds new light on how the organization works and how it conceives its role in global politics today.
Free access to this e-book is available to readers, scholars, and students located in the Global South whose institutions lack the resources to purchase access to these books as well as to those in other regions who are part of non-profit or community organizations concerned with displacement and who lack alternate forms of access to the book or the resources needed to purchase these publications. Please see full access conditions below.
Abstract:
Turkey now hosts the largest number of Syrian refugees in the world, more than 3.6 million of the 12.7 million displaced by the Syrian Civil War. Many of them are subject to an unpredictable temporary protection, forcing them to live under vulnerable and insecure conditions.
The Precarious Lives of Syrians examines the three dimensions of the architecture of precarity: Syrian migrants' legal status, the spaces in which they live and work, and their movements within and outside Turkey. The difficulties they face include restricted access to education and healthcare, struggles to secure employment, language barriers, identity-based discrimination, and unlawful deportations. Feyzi Baban, Suzan Ilcan, and Kim Rygiel show that Syrians confront their precarious conditions by engaging in cultural production and community-building activities, and by undertaking perilous journeys to Europe, allowing them to claim spaces and citizenship while asserting their rights to belong, to stay, and to escape. The authors draw on migration policies, legal and scholarly materials, and five years of extensive field research with local, national, and international humanitarian organizations, and with Syrians from all walks of life.
The Precarious Lives of Syrians offers a thoughtful and compelling analysis of migration precarity in our contemporary context.
Free access to this e-book is available to readers, scholars, and students located in the Global South whose institutions lack the resources to purchase access to these books as well as to those in other regions who are part of non-profit or community organizations concerned with displacement and who lack alternate forms of access to the book or the resources needed to purchase these publications. Please see full access conditions below.
Abstract:
As a leading country in global refugee resettlement, Canada operates a unique program that allows private groups and individuals to sponsor refugees. This innovative approach has received growing international attention, but there remains a need for a more expansive understanding of the sponsorship framework and its potential implications within Canada and across the world.
Strangers to Neighbours explains the origins and development of refugee sponsorship, paying particular attention to the unintended consequences and ethical dilemmas it produces for refugee policy. The contributors to this collection draw upon law, social science, and philosophy to bring a more robust and objective perspective on Canada's historical experience with sponsorship into wider conversations about the refugee crisis and resettlement. Together, they present recent cases that exemplify how the model has been applied and how it functions, while also analyzing the challenges that emerge in host-sponsor relations. This volume further examines how sponsorship has been implemented differently in countries such as the United States and Australia.
The first dedicated study of refugee sponsorship policy, Strangers to Neighbours assembles leading scholars from a range of disciplines to consider whether Canada's system is indeed a sustainable model for the world.
Free access to this e-book is available to readers, scholars, and students located in the Global South whose institutions lack the resources to purchase access to these books as well as to those in other regions who are part of non-profit or community organizations concerned with displacement and who lack alternate forms of access to the book or the resources needed to purchase these publications. Please see full access conditions below.
Abstract:
Since the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War in 2011, over 5.6 million people have fled Syria and another 6.6 million remain internally displaced. By January 2017, a total of 40,081 Syrians had sought refuge across Canada in the largest resettlement event the country has experienced since the Indochina refugee crisis.
Breaking new ground in an effort to understand and learn from the Syrian Refugee Resettlement Initiative that Canada launched in 2015, A National Project examines the experiences of refugees, receiving communities, and a range of stakeholders who were involved in their resettlement, including sponsors, service providers, and various local and municipal agencies. The contributors, who represent a wide spectrum of disciplines, include many of Canada's leading immigration scholars and others who worked directly with refugees. Considering the policy behind the program and the geographic and demographic factors affecting it, chapters document mobilization efforts, ethical concerns, integration challenges, and varying responses to resettling Syrian refugees from coast to coast. Articulating key lessons to be learned from Canada's program, this book provides promising strategies for future events of this kind.
Showcasing innovative practices and initiatives, A National Project captures a diverse range of experiences surrounding Syrian refugee resettlement in Canada.