Advocacy and Policy

Five Good Ideas to renew trust in democracy

Karim Bardeesy

Published on March 24, 2017

From all sides, we are hearing that our democracy is facing challenges. How should we respond? Karim Bardeesy talked about how a renewal of democratic activity across sectors can help institutions work better and be more responsive to the people they serve.

Five Good Ideas

Let’s listen to forgotten stakeholders (including our own), and let’s create new stakeholders
Let’s have more elected offices
Let’s reform our civics curriculum
Let’s build new civic media capacity
Let’s have fun

Five resources

Explore these two organizations: Civix and Samara
The Shattered Mirror: News, Democracy and Trust in the Digital Age, Public Policy Forum, February 2017
America’s New Opposition, Jedediah Purdy, The New Republic, February 1st, 2017
Edmund Burke, Speech to the Electors of Bristol, 1774
The Beaverton website and TV show

Karim Bardeesy

Distinguished Visiting Professor at Ryerson University; Former Deputy Principal Secretary, Office of the Premier

Karim Bardeesy is a public service leader who has worked at the intersection of public policy, politics, journalism and academia for the last 15 years. He has recently been appointed distinguished visiting professor at Ryerson University, where he will serve as a special advisor to the provost and vice-president, academic on areas related to education, health, economic development, innovation and community engagement. He was Deputy Principal Secretary for the Premier of Ontario, the Hon. Kathleen Wynne, from 2014 to 2016, and served as Executive Director of Policy for Premier Wynne and the Hon. Dalton McGuinty from 2011 to 2014. He has worked as a journalist, as an editorial writer at The Globe and Mail and as an editorial assistant at Slate magazine, and was a DiverseCity fellow with the Greater Toronto CivicAction Alliance. He has taught narrative and leadership at the University of Toronto’s School of Public Policy and Governance since 2009. He has a B.A. from McGill University, and an M.P.P. from Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, where he studied leadership pedagogy under Marshall Ganz. Prior to graduate studies, he was an Ontario Legislature Intern and worked as a political assistant for the Ontario Liberals at Queen’s Park, in opposition and in government.