Peter Hicks Email & Phone Number

Ottawa

Working either on contract, or employed at a senior executive level, on overlapping assignments with several departments of the Government of Canada: the Privy Council Office (Public Service Renewal), Human Resources and Skills Development Canada, the Treasury Board Secretariat, the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency, Statistics Canada and the Policy Research Initiative -- and also for the Federal/Provincial Labour Market Ministers as well as teaching a graduate course at Queens. I am currently working for Statistics Canada, helping them with strategic planning in the area of social statistics, and, under a separate contract, in assessing the implications for the statistical system of the changes that are taking place in the nature of work and skill requirements.In the last few years, I have devoted considerable time to writing and speaking about issues related to demography, pensions and to the future of social policy more generally. I am the author of the 2015 Policy Horizons Essay, "The Enabling Society" published by the Institute For Research on Public Policy. It sets out an optimistic view of the future of social policy in Canada based on an assessment of the combined effects of fundamental trends in public expectations, governance and technology. I have also written papers published by the C. D. Howe Institute describing the profound but poorly understood policy consequences of changing retirement patterns and, in 2017, a paper on better approaches to fighting poverty including an assessment of Guaranteed Minimum Income proposals.

Ottawa

When the federal department of Social Development Canada (SDC) was created in 2005, I was asked to rejoin the public service to act as its Assistant Deputy Minister responsible for policy. The most active file in this period related to child care. Later when SDC was folded in the department of Human Resources and Social Development, I was responsible for research, knowledge management and evaluation in the new department.

Ottawa

Assignments with the Social Research and Demonstration Corporation and the Policy Research Initiative

Paris

The OECD is an international organizations, headquartered in Paris, which acts as an independent policy think tank for the governments of most development countries. I was situated in their Labour and Social Affairs Directorate, but worked closely with colleagues in directorates with economic and financial market responsibilities in developing multi-faceted advice to national governments on ways of responding to the deep policy consequences of population aging. Four ground-breaking publications on this subject were published during this period.

Ottawa

In various Canadian federal government departments dealing with labour market and employment policies, income security, health and welfare, and post-secondary finance. Also in government central agencies, including the Privy Council Office and the Treasury Board Secretariat, I was an Assistant Deputy Minister during the last half of my career in government, working up to that level in the first half -- starting from a strong empirical-based early career at Statistics Canada. In those early days at Statistics Canada, I directed the massive overhaul of the Labour Force Survey in 1977 and established a new capacity for undertaking special surveys.

Master Of Arts (M.A.), Political Theory

Bachelor Of Arts (B.A.), Political Science And Economics