Thursday, October 10, 2024

Who We Are

Welcome to the Macdonald-Laurier Institute (MLI), Canada’s only truly national public policy think tank based in Ottawa.

MLI is rigorously independent and non-partisan, as symbolized by its name. Sir John A. Macdonald and Sir Wilfrid Laurier were two outstanding and long-serving prime ministers who represent the best of Canada’s distinguished political tradition. A Tory and a Grit, an English-speaker and a French-speaker, each of them championed the values that led to the creation of Canada and its emergence as one of the world’s leading democracies and a place where people may live in peace and freedom under the rule of law.

Our ideas drive the national conversation:

  • MLI is the most cited think-tank in Canada’s parliament and our experts are routinely called upon to testify at parliamentary committee.
  • Our columns and op-eds appear in the national and international media on average once a day. 

Canada’s adversaries fear the MLI spotlight which is why we have been blacklisted by both the Kremlin and Beijing.

Our goal is to be an indispensable source of reasoned and timely thought leadership for policymakers, opinion leaders, and Canadians at-large. We want to help make Canada the best governed country in the world. 

Rt. Hon. Paul Martin
"The institute works in a persistent and constructive way to present new and insightful ideas about how to achieve Canada's potential and to produce a better and more just country. Canada is better for the forward-thinking, research based perspectives that MLI brings to our most critical issues."
Rt. Hon. Stephen Harper
"I commend Brian Crowley and the team at MLI for your laudable work as one of the leading policy think tanks in our nation’s capital. The Institute has distinguished itself as a thoughtful, empirically based and non-partisan contributor to our national public discourse."
Hon. Jody Wilson-Raybould
"MLI has been active in the field of indigenous public policy, building a fine tradition of working with indigenous organizations, promoting indigenous thinkers and encouraging innovative, indigenous-led solutions to the challenges of 21st century Canada."
Hon. Pierre Poilievre
"The Macdonald-Laurier Institute has produced countless works of scholarship that solve today's problems with the wisdom of our political ancestors. If we listen to the Institutes advice, we can fulfill Laurier's dream of a country where freedom is its nationality."
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Our work includes:

Initiating and conducting research identifying current and emerging economic and public policy issues facing Canadians, including, but not limited to, research into defence and security, foreign policy, immigration, economic and fiscal policy, Canada-US relations, regulatory policy, regional development, social policy and aboriginal affairs;

Investigating and analysing the full range of options for public and private sector responses to the issues identified and to act as a catalyst for informed debate on those options;

Communicating the conclusions of our work to a national audience in a clear, non-partisan way;

Sponsoring or organizing conferences, meetings, seminars, lectures, training programs and publications using all media of communication (including without restriction, the electronic media), for the purposes of achieving these objects;

To read MLI’s Statement And Resolution Regarding The Independence Of The Institute’s Research Effort, click here.

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