Hugh Segal
Distinguished Fellow, Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy
Biography
Elected in December of 2013, Hugh Segal served as the fifth Master of Massey College at the University of Toronto, where he is also a member of the Graduate Education Council and the Academic Board. He is an Adjunct Professor and Distinguished Fellow at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, and Co-Chair of the International Democracy-10 Forum, grouping governments and leading think tanks of the ten major liberal democracies in the world.
As former Chief of Staff to the Prime Minister, and Associate Cabinet Secretary (federal-provincial affairs) in Ontario, he was part of the negotiating teams for both the Charlottetown Accord in 1991, and the Repatriation of the Constitution and Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982-83. He has also served as President of the Institute for Research on Public Policy in Montreal. In the Canadian Senate – where he served as an Ontario Conservative until being elected to his post at Massey – Hugh chaired the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade, and the Special Committee on Anti-Terrorism. In 2003, he was made a member of the Order of Canada. He also served as a member of the nine person Commonwealth Eminent Persons Group which proposed reforms around democracy, rule of law, human rights, gender equity, judicial independence and modernization to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Perth in 2011. Subsequently he was Canada’s Special Envoy to the Commonwealth on these issues.
A graduate of the University of Ottawa in history, he holds honorary doctorates from RMC and his Alma Mater. Hugh is an Honorary Chair of the Navy League of Canada, Chair of the NATO Association of Canada, honorary Commander of the Fort Henry Guard, Honorary Naval Captain in the Royal Canadian Navy, and member of the Editorial Board of the Canadian Naval Review. In November of 2015 he was awarded the 25th annual Vimy Award by the Conference of Defence Associations for services to the defence of Canada and democracy.
He has written seven books on public policy, of which the most recent, Two Freedoms: Canada’s Global Agenda was published by Dundurn Press in April of 2016. In June of 2016 he was appointed a Special Advisor to the Province of Ontario on a Basic Income Pilot.