Senior Policy and Programs Advisor, Ontario Ministry of Education l Ontario Ministry of Colleges and Universities
Graduate Program in Public Policy, Administration & Law, Master of Public Policy, Administration and Law (MPPAL) 2021

Tell prospective students a bit about the work you do.

As a Senior Policy and Programs Advisor, my role is to provide my best advice to senior executives and elected officials regarding emerging and contentious issues. This involves preparing various briefing documents, including information notes, House Notes, options papers, briefing decks, speaking notes, replies to correspondence, as well as Cabinet or Treasury Board submissions.

My work requires a lot of research and collaboration across various branches within the Learning Ministries (e.g., Communications, Corporate Coordination, Legal Services) and cross-ministry fact-checking (e.g., with the Ministry of Francophone Affairs) with the end goal of supporting the priorities of the government of the day.

Tell prospective students a bit about how your studies at York helped you to get where you are today.

The MPPAL program has helped me deepen my understanding of public policy and allowed me to quickly apply new insights to my work at the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Colleges and Universities. For example, only a few months into the program, I was able to use what I had learned in Canadian Constitutional Law to present a compelling summary of an important Supreme Court decision that received high praise from the Legal Services Branch.

Likewise, the Program Evaluation and Public Policy Analysis course has provided me with a new outlook on policy research and evaluation design and a greater familiarity with the evaluation tools used in the Ontario Public Service (OPS).

I have also been using the greater awareness of equity and diversity issues that I gained from the Equity, Policy, Law and Planning course to identify and address inequity and systemic racism issues on a daily basis. And as a bonus, the MPPAL program has allowed me to broaden my professional network across the OPS and beyond.