A Proud Policy Wonk

When I introduce myself as a consultant focused on public policy, I can almost see some people mentally check out. BORING! That's fine. I love policy work. Because policy work is where solutions to complex problems live.

Homelessness.

Poverty.

Access to healthcare.

Accessibility.

These aren't problems solved by a single program or a good press release. They're shaped by rules, incentives, funding structures, and governance decisions — by policy.

Good policy is not simple. And solutions to complex problems are inherently complex. They require evidence, trade-offs, and patience. But most importantly, they require VISION.

And this is where I think public service is uniquely powerful. Elected officials work within election cycles — that's the nature of democracy. Public servants don't have that same constraint. They are non-partisan and support the government of the day, but they also have the ability, and I would argue the responsibility, to think beyond a four-year horizon.

I've worked on initiatives that had real vision behind them. Employment Ontario, for example, wasn't just administrative reform. The ambition was to make employment services available through one coherent structure so people didn't have to decode what department or level of government could help them find work.

I often think about something President Obama said when people felt his vision of affordable healthcare didn't go far enough:

"Sometimes your job is just to make stuff work... Sometimes the task of government is to make incremental improvements or try to steer the oceanliner two degrees north or south so that, years from now, suddenly we're in a different place than we were."

- Barack Obama

That stayed with me. At its best, public policy holds a long-term direction and moves it forward when conditions allow. Maybe not all at once. Maybe not perfectly. But deliberately.

The capacity for thoughtful, evidence-based policy still exists. It lives in people willing to sit with complexity. To protect long-term vision even when only one piece can move.

That's why I'm a proud policy wonk. Because when policy is at its best, it shapes systems in ways that last.