The Frontier Centre for Public Policy, an independent Western Canadian think tank with offices in Manitoba , Saskatchewan and Alberta, has appointed policy commentator, author and political science lecturer Dr. Marco Navarro-Génie as its new research director stationed in Calgary, effective September 15, 2010.
“Marco has a reputation for bold thinking in general,” said Frontier President Peter Holle. “He can communicate complicated ideas in clear, user-friendly ways, which will help the Frontier Centre advance the policy dialogue in Alberta and Canada in general. Marco is fluent in Spanish, French and English which will assist the Centre in reaching new markets for innovative policy ideas.”
“The Frontier Centre has had a full time presence in Alberta since 2008 in accordance with the Centre’s original plan to develop a local presence in the three Prairie Provinces. “We have been expanding our footprint in Alberta for the last few years, and Marco’s appointment will further build and continue our work there. There is continued opportunity for improving public policy in Alberta across many areas, particularly healthcare, the oil sands development, and placing public services on a more transparent and results-oriented foundation,” Holle said.
The Frontier Centre for Public Policy (www.fcpp.org) was established in 1999 in Winnipeg to create an independent forum for results-focused public policy thinking, broaden the debate on important topics that affect Canadians and profile cutting-edge public policy thinking from around the world. It has ten staff, a budget of one million dollars, and operates a broad range of publishing and outreach activities across nine project areas including healthcare, education, the environment, aboriginals, rural policy, equalization, housing, cities and poverty. To guarantee its independence Frontier is one of a handful of registered charitable think tanks in Canada that neither seeks nor accepts grants from government.
Marco Navarro-Génie (BA [Hons.] Concordia University; MA, PhD [Political Science] University of Calgary) immigrated to Canada from his native Nicaragua and has lived in Alberta for 20 years. He has lectured ina wide range of topics in political science in the Department of Policy Studies at Mount Royal University in Calgary, at the University of Calgary, and at Concordia University in Montreal. He has also taught at St. Mary’s College, and at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT). His academic work focuses on radical revolutionary movements, and cultural and political identity in Latin America. His teaching and pioneering research have been recognized, respectively, by a Distinguished Faculty Teaching Award (1999) at Mount Royal University, and an Izaak Walton Killam Memorial Scholarship (2004-2006) held at the University of Calgary. He is a Fellow at the Latin American Research Centre at the University of Calgary, and is author of Augusto "César" Sandino: Messiah of Light and Truth. Dr. Navarro-Génie is a member of the Canada Council for the Americas,and a member of the Board of Directors for The International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development (Rights and Democracy). He is fluent in English, French, and Spanish. He regularly comments on Canadian and Alberta politics for various local, national, and international print and broadcast news outlets including CTV News and RDI.His commentaries have appeared in The Calgary Herald, The Globe and Mail, The National Post, The Montreal Gazette, and Le Devoir.
