Available Instructors

Here is a listing of Advocacy School's currently available Instructors

  • David McKie

    Training Offered: 
    Research Tools in Support of Advocacy

    David McKie is an award-winning journalist with the CBC News Investigative Unit. He is a specialist in computer-assisted reporting and teaches investigative journalism at Carleton University’s School of Journalism and Algonguin College He is a co-author of Digging Deeper: A Canadian reporter’s Research Guide and Computer-Assisted Reporting: A Comprehensive Primer. He offers professional training at the Canadian Association of Journalists and guest lectures at the journalism schools at the University of Kings College and the University of British Columbia.

    Organization: CBC Radio News

  • James Mitchell

    James Mitchell is a founding partner of the policy-consulting firm Sussex Circle. After several years as a university lecturer, Mr. Mitchell began his government career in 1978 in the Department of Foreign Affairs before moving to the Privy Council Office in 1983. He later served as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Board and, from 1991 to 1994, as Assistant Secretary to the Cabinet (Machinery of Government).  In the latter capacity he was responsible for providing advice to successive Secretaries to the Cabinet and Prime Ministers on matters related to the organization of government, the reform and renewal of the Public Service, and a host of other issues related to the workings of Westminster government in Canada.

    As a consultant, Mr. Mitchell has provided policy and organizational advice in virtually every area of federal responsibility.  He is well known as an author and lecturer on public administration and public policy. Some of his speeches and articles can be found on the Sussex Circle website www.sussexcircle.com under the heading ‘Ideas’.

    A native of British Columbia, Mr. Mitchell holds a PhD in philosophy from the University of Colorado.  He is married (Margaret Mitchell) and has two grown children – one a professor of classics at Dalhousie and the other an RCMP officer.

    Organization: Sussex Circle

  • Sean Moore

    Training Offered: 
    How the System Works and How to Work the System - A Primer
    Lobbying by Non-Profits and Charities
    Making the Case: Advocacy Skills for Families
    Strategic Inquiry
    Strategic Meetings
    The “Rules” of Lobbying

    Sean Moore is Founder and Principal of Advocacy School and one of Canada’s most experienced practitioners, writers and teachers on public-policy advocacy. He has more than 30 years experience in public-policy and advocacy related to local, provincial/state and federal government affairs in Canada and the United States. He is a former Partner and Public-Policy Advisor withe national law firm Gowling Lafleur Henderson LLP, a former president of what was then then Canada's largest government relations consulting firm and a vice-president of a Washington, DC-based public-policy research and consulting company.

    Today, he advises corporations, NGOs and associations on their compliance with federal and provincial "rules"  of lobbying and advocacy. He also designs and conducts professional-development training in advocacy for industry and professional associations and NGOs. He has taught graduate courses on public-policy advocacy at Carleton University’s  Graduate School of Public Policy and Administration and the University of Ottawa’s Telfer School of Management Executive MBA program. He has been a faculty member of the Maytree Foundation’s Public-Policy Training Institute and is an advocacy mentor to grantees and fellows of a number of Canadian foundations including the Social Innovation Generation (SiG) initiative, a collaboration of the J.W. McConnell Family Foundation of Montreal, the MaRS Discovery District of Toronto, the University of Waterloo and the PLAN Institute of Vancouver.  (For additional biographical information go to www.seanmoore.ca )

    Sean is also the recipient of the 2013 Bissett Distinguished Alumni Award from Carleton University's School of Public Policy & Administration (SPPA).

    Organization: Advocacy School / Sean Moore Advisory Services Inc.

  • Elizabeth H. Mulholland

    Training Offered: 
    No Strategy, No Impact
    Who Does What in Government?

    Elizabeth Mulholland’s sessions are not currently available. Elizabeth has been appointed CEO of SEDI Social and Enterprise Development Innovations.

    Congratulations, Elizabeth!

    Elizabeth Mulholland is an independent public policy consultant specializing in social development, R&D policy in relation to economic development and sport for development. Prior to launching her consulting practice, Ms. Mulholland served as the Senior Advisor on Social Development in the Office of the Prime Minister, providing strategic direction on national social and health policy issues. In addition to her experience at the federal level, Ms. Mulholland directed United Ways of Ontario’s government relations program for four years and served as a senior policy advisor to the Task Force on the Future of the Greater Toronto Area.

    Organization: Mulholland Consulting

  • J. Phillip Nicholson

    Training Offered: 
    Constructing Winning Policy Proposals to Government

    A graduate of Carleton (BA Hons Geography), Oxford (MA Economics and Politics) and M.I.T. (MCP City Planning), Mr. Nicholson has served as a public policy advisor to some 250 organizations in the public, private, voluntary and academic sectors over the past 25 years. Considered an expert in Cabinet decision-making and executive governance, he has worked for every major department and agency of the federal government, including all of the central agencies: Privy Council Office, Treasury Board Secretariat, Department of Finance and Justice Canada.

    His extensive work in policy development and program design includes principal authorship of more than one hundred major Cabinet and Treasury submissions spanning the social, economic, environmental, health, Aboriginal and general governance policy domains.

    In addition to substantial work in policy research and analysis, he has planned and facilitated some 300 consultation sessions, ranging from half-day in-house workshops to extensive multi-party stakeholder engagement processes addressing complex national issues. He has lectured on public issues management at universities in Canada, the United States, England and Japan.

    Organization: J. Phillip Nicholson Policy and Management Consultants Inc.