Interview with Shaye Ganam
On September 18, 2025 I spoke with Shaye Ganam of QR770AM Calgary about my Globe and Mail oped on the need for a national conversation about Canada’s future. Listen here.
Posts from the ‘Opeds’ Category
Sep 18
Column on UoG CPP blog on centralisation
I’ve written a short piece for the blog of the Centre for Public Policy at University of Glasgow, “The temptation and danger of centralisation.” It goes along with my comments in a plenary session at the EGPA conference in Glasgow on August 29, 2025.
Op-ed in G&M: A vision for Canada
My op-ed, “We’re missing a vision for Canada,” ran in the Globe and Mail on September 17. Read it here.
Article in The Walrus on the US presidency
My article “The Crisis That Made Trump Possible Didn’t Start with Trump” was published by The Walrus on June 17. Read it here.
Op-ed in Globe and Mail
My op-ed on the need for annual meetings of Canada’s first ministers and Indigenous leaders was published in the Globe and Mail on June 9. Read it here.
Essay in the Hill Times
My essay “Rudderless in the storm: The crisis of adaptability in Canadian government” was published in The Hill Times on February 15. Read it online here | Download as PDF here.
You can also read my follow-up interview with Kate Malloy here (Paywalled) | Download as PDF here
Bloomberg post on FDR’s ‘dictatorship plan’
This short piece was published by Bloomberg Opinion in March 2012 to mark the seventy-fifth anniversary of FDR’s proposals to renovate the executive branch and Supreme Court. Some critics called it the “dictatorship plan.” I covered some of this history in journal articles published a few years back.
FDR’s `Dictatorship Plan’
In February 1937, Franklin D. Roosevelt was beginning his fifth year as U.S. president. His first term had been grueling, as the administration improvised a response to the country’s unprecedented “national emergency.”
He had been assailed by critics for trampling on rights and creating an unmanageable sprawl of new federal agencies. But now, three months after an election that he took as vindication, the president’s mood lightened. He told friends that he had earned some political capital, and he was going to spend it.
Read moreOp-ed in Montreal Gazette and Vancouver Sun
My op-ed, “Threat to democracy? We can blame ourselves,” was published in the October 30, 2024 issue of The Montreal Gazette. It was also re-published in the November 1 issue of the Vancouver Sun. Download it here.
Op-ed in Ottawa Citizen
I’ve published an oped in the Ottawa Citizen, “Fixing the federal public service won’t happen without an independent review.” It’s drawn from my book, The Adaptable Country.
Politics & Rights Review publishes excerpt on realism
Politics & Rights Review has published an excerpt from my new book, The Adaptable Country. Read the excerpt here. Also available in French and Spanish.
Alasdair S. Roberts 
