In the past decade, the Institute on Governance has built a strong relationship with the Ontario public and non-profit sectors through its work on various public interest issues.
The IOG’s Toronto office offers a full range of advisory, research, learning and facilitation services to support the governance needs of Ontario ministries, boards, agencies and commissions, as well as non-profit and private sector organizations. The Toronto Office offers a gateway to the IOG’s extensive experience across Canada and around the globe. The IOG’s Indigenous Governance and Health and Innovation practices also operate out of the Toronto Office.
The IOG conducts projects in the health, social services, child welfare, municipal affairs, consumer affairs and university sectors on a wide range of governance issues from board governance, outcomes measurement to structural/machinery of government changes, from Windsor to Toronto, to Eastern and Northern Ontario. The IOG holds Vendor of Record status in relevant OPS areas.
We also work with local governments and Indigenous governments across the Province, as well as Local Health Integration Networks and various government boards and agencies such as Cancer Care Ontario. We have worked with the Ontario Provincial Police, universities and municipalities, and extensively with the not-for-profit sector. The IOG also has a number of private sector clients with interests in public interest issues. The IOG’s Ontario practice is informed by its Ontario Strategy Council.
The Toronto Office offers a full roster of open enrolment learning programs, as well as customized in-house programs for ministry, board and agency leaders and staff, as well as federal regional offices and the non-profit sector.
The IOG’s experienced instructors and facilitators deliver such programs as How the OPS Policy Development Process Works (for ABCs), How the Ontario Government Works, Leading Transformation, Science Policy Boot Camp, Boot Camp for HR Professionals, Boot Camp for Communications Specialists, Aboriginal Governance and others.
Our upcoming courses are:
Registration is also now being accepted for the IOG’s Executive Learning Program (ELP) for fall 2013 which will be delivered in Toronto for the first time.
In fall 2011, the Ontario Ministry of Government Services, Cabinet Office and the IOG launched action research on improved governance and hosted Governance in times of fiscal restraint. Over eighty Ontario Public Service executives and managers of policy development, oversight and coordination of agencies and crown corporations, along with federal PGEx partners met to discuss the implications of the changing public sector context on government organizations.
Participants were engaged to learn how the IOG Governance Continuum could assist in mapping institutional autonomy, as well as on the importance and sophistication of the relationships necessary among institutions to ensure overall results.
Tom Gash, Director of Public Services at the UK’s Institute for Government and author of Read before Burning, gave a keynote speech that stimulated discussion on outcome-based, third-party delivered, social services and related impacts on governance and results. Also during the forum, Michelle DiEmanuele, CEO, Credit Valley Hospital and Ray Hession, Chairperson, eHealth Ontario accompanied IOG President Maryantonett Flumian in a panel on Leading Through Times of Change.
The IOG convenes special events such as the recent standing room only Fleck Lecture delivered by Peter Wallace, Secretary of the Cabinet and Head of the Ontario Public Service on the future of the public service.
Eddy Nason is Senior Researcher at the IOG’s Toronto office. His work focuses primarily on the Health and Innovation sector of the Institute’s work, with major interests in health and health system innovation, health R&D, and health services delivery – particularly to vulnerable populations. Eddy’s governance experience is based on a broad definition of governance, one that investigates approaches to improving the effectiveness and efficiency of organizations through consolidated evidence.
Eddy has extensive experience of quantitative and qualitative research methods across a variety of public policy research questions. His work on health policy includes applying these approaches to addressing collaborative care models (in a variety of clinical and location settings); mental health service delivery issues; impact evaluation of research funding; return on investment analyses; approaches to improving the innovation cycle; and systems for funding health research. He also works on projects outside the Health and Innovation file, providing research and advice for education ministries, working on issues around diversity in the workplace, and developing performance frameworks for policy research.
Prior to joining the Institute, Eddy was senior researcher and Acting Associate Director of the Health and Health Care research group at the Canadian Policy Research Networks. He has also worked in Canada for the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences and in the UK for RAND Europe, the European operating arm of the RAND Corporation. In his previous work Eddy has provided policy research on health system choices of patients, approaches to reducing anti-social behaviour in the UK, the evidence base for classifying illegal drugs, and policy legacies from the London 2012 Olympics. He has also advised government and not-for-profit health research funders in England, Ireland, the Netherlands, Australia and Canada on health R&D policy; provided evaluation frameworks and tailored evaluation tools for independent living interventions for disabled people. He is currently a member of the Canadian Evaluation Society and advises CIHR on impact assessment and evaluation, and the Institute of Health Services and Policy Research as part of their impact and evaluation sub-committee. Eddy has an MPhil from the University of Cambridge (UK) and a BSc from the University of Edinburgh.
As the Head of the Institute’s Indigenous Governance Knowledge Area, Marcia Nickerson is responsible for the development of the Institute’s vision and strategic direction for Indigenous Governance, project and partnership development, and the fostering of initiatives to promote public discussion on Indigenous governance issues.
Before joining the IOG, Marcia headed the Aboriginal Practice Group of a consulting and research organization in Toronto for 10 years. Prior to that, while with the Federal Government, Marcia provided strategic policy advice to the Associate Deputy Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development, acted as a self-government negotiator achieving a Comprehensive Agreement in Principle that led to one of Canada’s first modern self-government agreements, and worked in the area of Aboriginal Education.
Marcia Nickerson is a leader in the field of Indigenous governance. She provides high-level advisory services to government, business, Indigenous organizations and other public sector clients. Marcia brings a very broad perspective and inter-disciplinary expertise to Indigenous issues, having worked in all regions of the country and with many different stakeholders, including many departments of the federal and provincial governments, national and regional Indigenous groups and organizations, and First Nation communities.
Marcia possesses experience and expertise in the areas of negotiations, policy development, strategic planning, program and policy redesign and evaluation, facilitation, senior management council, and the creation of partnership arrangements. Marcia has also led dozens of engagement projects with federal, provincial and Indigenous stakeholders as well as large syndicated research projects. Finally, Marcia has authored several papers on diverse topics such as the impacts of technology on Indigenous communities, the socio-economic impacts of Indigenous cultural industries, as well as on Indigenous governance issues such as citizenship.
Marcia has been the Chair of the imagineNATIVE Film & Media Arts Festival for the past 3 years. Marcia holds a Masters of English, with a concentration in Critical Theory from Carleton University.
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