(Ottawa) – Ottawa Citizen – July 5, 2010
Creating a political management course at Carleton University couldn’t have come at a better time.
At this moment, the interim information commissioner is probing the actions of a Conservative staffer who is accused of trying to obstruct the release of information by the public service. The papers on federal real-estate assets were to be given to the Canadian Press but the staffer reportedly blocked the documents. The Harper government has called the incident “isolated” and “an error of judgment.”
Well, no one is happy about it, but at least Carleton officials are doing something about it. That’s the result of a generous, $15-million donation from Calgary’s Clayton Riddell of Paramount Resources Ltd. — the largest donation the school has ever received.
Riddell’s gift creates a program that proposes to develop the skills and, one hopes, judgement of staffers and political operatives.
Former Reform party leader Preston Manning is being credited with the idea, but it took Riddell’s generosity and some considerable initiative from Carleton president Roseann O’Reilly Runte to bring the program to fruition. Runte must have shown some superb political acumen to obtain the program for Carleton, which, though a logical place for it geographically, was presumably competing with Alberta universities.
The practice of politics has traditionally been divorced from its study. Pundits, academics and other theoreticians love to intellectualize politics, but in practice politics is often the realm of the amateur. Everyone in Ottawa has met political staffers who can be very senior but also very young, who despite high intelligence and energy are unfamiliar with parliamentary rules and customs, and are untutored on issues of transparency and, sometimes, ethics. These young staffers are well-meaning and driven but also hyper-partisan, and that, coupled with a lack of life experience, can interfere with their ability to be instruments of good governance. Of course, a university program will not necessarily lead to character improvement, but the operating assumption — a fair one, we believe — is that most young people who are attracted to politics and public service are already of sound character.
The arrival of this new academic program at Carleton is good news for the nation’s capital. Carleton and the University of Ottawa have become over the years elite factories producing graduates to serve in the city’s biggest industry — government. This new masters program will further bind town and gown, contributing to a stronger local economy.
Carleton and the U of Ottawa have formidable programs in public policy, political science, administration and journalism. It is entirely appropriate that universities in the capital city dominate in these fields.
While the synergy between our universities and government is secure, the challenge now is to create similar relationships with private industries. The University of Ottawa’s recent foray into photonics was a great leap forward in that quest.
In the globalized knowledge economy, cities are judged by the quality of higher education they provide and by the size of their educated class. Carleton University and the University of Ottawa need to continue building the kind of institutions that make both themselves and the community stronger.