Couchiching Institute on Public Affairs

The Couchiching Institute on Public Affairs (CIPA) is Canada's oldest organization devoted to studying and publicizing current issues affecting Canada and public policy. Founded in 1932, it holds an annual conference every August on the shores of Lake Couchiching and smaller events during the year, in Toronto and other major cities.

The mission of the CIPA is to increase the awareness and understanding of domestic and international issues amongst people in Canada, through open and inclusive discussion, without advocacy or partisanship.

Over the years, the issues examined at the Couchiching conference have reflected the changing concerns of Canadian society and the world. During the Great Depression, topics focused on social reform, the state of the economy and the growing threat of war in Europe. In the late 1940s and 1950s, participants discussed issues such as rebuilding the post-war world, the Cold War and the challenges of world peace. More recently, conference topics have turned to such issues as technology, the environment, the problem of illiteracy, the economic challenges facing today’s youth and globalization in various contexts.

Over the years CIPA has offered as speakers and attracted as participants current and future leaders in politics, education, science, the arts and the rest of civil society. In the past decade, speakers have included Tariq Ramadan, Will Kymlicka, Haroon Siddiqui, Kevin G. Lynch, Sheela Basrur, John Ralston Saul, Alan Borovoy, Major General Lewis Mackenzie Jennifer Stoddart, Gerri Sinclair, Karen Armstrong, Senator Mobina Jaffer, the Hon. Michael Wilson (politician), the Hon. Bill Graham, the Hon. Lloyd Axworthy, Ambassador Andres Rozental, Anne Golden, Barbara Hall, Roger Obonsawin, Sylvia Ostry, the Hon. Pierre Pettigrew, Moses Znaimer, Sir Michael Marmot, Dr. Fraser Mustard, Sir John Maddox, John Polanyi, Bartha Knoppers and Margaret Somerville.

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