Mary Pat MacKinnon
Dialogue Convener

marypat@canadasworld.ca

Mary Pat MacKinnon is a Senior Fellow, University of Ottawa, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs and consultant working in the field of public and stakeholder engagement- research, policy and practice. During her 5 year tenure as former Director, Civic Engagement at Canadian Policy Research Networks, Mary Pat led national citizens’ dialogue projects on a variety of challenging public issues - from issue framing and dialogue design, through to implementation, analysis, reporting on results, outreach and follow up. She developed and directed a multi-year program of research and practice (youth civic and political participation, institutionalizing and assessing public involvement, democratic renewal and citizen engagement), provided advice and support for initiatives such as the Ontario Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform and the IDRC-funded Brazil Youth Dialogue project. She has given numerous workshops, panel presentations and talks and written on topics related to civic engagement in the past few years. Current work includes coordinating a regional citizens’ dialogue for Canada’s World, a project of the SFU Wosk Centre for Dialogue, undertaking research on public engagement in Canada, and serving on the Canadian Education Association’s national research advisory committee.  Research and practice interests include engaging citizens in public policy, assessing the impact of civic engagement on public policy, deliberative democracy and democratic renewal, civic literacy, stakeholder engagement, and co-operative and international development.

As former Director, Policy, Credit Union Central of Canada/ Canadian Co-operative Association, she led a successful initiative to modernize federal co-operative legislation, contributed to the creation of a new national co-operative development program and completed a number of co-operative policy international assignments for the CCA. Previous work highlights include: leading an innovative child poverty research project for the Social Planning Council of Ottawa which featured a study on child poverty in Ottawa-Carleton (The Other Side of Fat City). Earlier work with the Pepin Robarts Task Force on National Unity (Atlantic Canada study) left her with an abiding interest in national unity and federalism. Her volunteer commitments have included: Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, the Child Poverty Action Group, the Ontario Social Assistance Reform Coalition, the Ontario Low Income Tax Relief Working Group of the Ontario Fair Tax Commission, and serving on a number of community-based social advocacy and education organizations. 

Mary Pat has a Masters of Public Administration and an Honours BA (First Class) in History and Political Studies from Queens University.