President’s Welcome
Past President of the Canadian International Council (CIC).
Welcome to www.opencanada.org, the CIC’s digital communications platform. Building on the historic mandate of the CIC—and of its predecessor the Canadian Institute for International Affairs—to promote discussion and debate on international affairs, we have designed the site to become a hub for those discussions, and to amplify and augment citizen engagement with international affairs by bringing the discussions online. Our new site introduces a number of signature features that we hope you will develop the habit of visiting regularly.
The first feature you encounter on the site is The Think Tank. In this section, the CIC aggregates and analyzes work being done on international affairs in research institutes across the country, and internationally. The carefully curated content in The Think Tank will cover a wide range of topics and will operate in multi-media including print, audio, photo-essays, and videos.
Roundtable is the meeting place of our signature bloggers, a group of dynamic young thinkers on Canadian foreign policy who are located both in Canada and abroad. John Hancock will be participating from the WTO in Geneva; Roland Paris from the University of Ottawa; André Pratte from La Presse in Montreal; and Jennifer Welsh from Oxford University.
About thirty high profile Canadian figures are participating in our Rapid Response section. These eminent personalities, representing a variety of sectors—academia, policy, and corporate—will respond to a timely “question of the week” on international issues by posting short responses on the site. We expect this to be a lively feature!
Our Global Events Calendar is a resource for events and special dates around the world, and is toggled with the CIC Events Calendar of branch activities. The site will also allow us to share the many—over 150 last year—events produced by our network of 16 branches across the country.
Finally, Dispatch, the CIC editors blog, provides ongoing commentary on both the work being done by the CIC, and on international affairs overall by myself, acting as Editor-in-Chief, our Senior Editor, Dr. Taylor Owen, a current Banting Fellow, and Anouk Dey, M.Phil, a current Action Canada fellow.
The editorial and technology platforms for the site were developed and built in collaboration with The Mark, a producer of multimedia content and conversations that feature influencers worldwide.
We invite you to enter our site, enjoy, and participate. All sections on the site include interactive commenting and social sharing options, and we encourage you to get involved and use them. We are standing by, eager to transmit your views through the CIC networks.
