Milton Friesen, Cardus's Social Cities program director, has been in high demand recently. The research program is actively working with or in discussion with the cities of Red Deer, Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver, Mississauga, Cambridge, and Kitchener/Waterloo. Friesen was at Congress for the New Urbanism in Buffalo this month, speaking at a Zipcode Calling event. He also manned the Social Cities booth at the Federation of Canadian Municipalities annual conference May 30-June 2. And later this month, he will participate in discussions with the Thriving Cities Project at the University of Virginia. The Social Cities research program has published two white papers this year: Is Social Capital Measurement Still Relevant? and Renewing Canadian Public Policy: Can Subsidiarity Provide the Framework? Additionally, Friesen's work has been published on The Hedgehog Review's Common Place blog, at the Stanford Social Innovation Review, and in Comment magazine. In January, Friesen led a webinar with Neighbours Community of Practice on Social Capital as a part of their Thought Leaders circle, and has helped with planning and framing support for The Power of Networks conference in September of this year and Community: Programs and Policies June 23-26. Stay tuned for regular updates on the Social Cities research program's exciting work!

185 Young Street Hamilton, ON L8N 1V9 Tel: 905.528.8866 Fax: 905.528.9433 info@cardus.ca www.cardus.ca CARDUS WELCOMES PAUL BATES AND DAVID SIKKINK AS SENIOR FELLOWS HAMILTON, May 27, 2014—Ray Pennings, executive vice-president of Cardus, has announced the appointment of two significant leaders in education and business to the Hamilton-based think tank's Senior Fellows program. Paul K. Bates, of McMaster University in Hamilton, and David Sikkink, of the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, will join the Senior Fellows group effective immediately. "David and Paul are outstanding thought-leaders in their respective fields. Their addition adds immeasurably to the already highly impressive expertise and eclecticism of our Fellows," Pennings said. Cardus Senior Fellows comprise a network of recognized experts in a wide range of disciplines, bringing specialized expertise and capacity to Cardus research projects and events. Cardus provides an institutional framework within which they can write about and speak on key topics within their specialties. Paul Bates is Assistant Professor of Leadership at McMaster Divinity College, following two years as special advisor to the president at McMaster University. Prior to this he was dean of the DeGroote School of Business during the seven-year period when it tripled its number of doctoral candidates and doubled the enrolment in its MBA program. Prior to his academic career, he established himself as a major figure in the Bay Street business world, including presidencies of four major investment and brokerage firms. "Paul Bates brings business and academic experience to the table and has thought deeply regarding questions of vocation and leadership. Shaping a society in which labour is understood, valued, and appropriately rewarded is among our contemporary challenges; Paul's expertise will help inform Cardus in addressing this," Pennings said. At Notre Dame, David Sikkink is an associate professor in the sociology department and has been deeply engaged with the Cardus Education Survey. He now serves as the director of the Cardus Religious Schools Initiative. His Ph.D. dissertation at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill examined the shaping effect of religion and community on education, leading to a career interest in the relationship between faith and schooling. He has also published in scholarly journals articles on faith and political protest as well as on the American Christian Right. "Through our partnership with the University of Notre Dame and the education research projects we have completed together, Cardus has come to appreciate David's breadth of expertise regarding youth and religion in North America today," Pennings said. "We look forward to incorporating that expertise into our Senior Fellows symposiums to shape our strategies regarding renewing North America's social architecture." Cardus is a think-tank based in Hamilton, Ontario, which focuses on the renewal of social architecture in North America. For further information on the Cardus Senior Fellows Program and the Senior Fellows themselves, visit www.cardus.ca/fellows. To arrange an interview with David Sikkink, Paul K. Bates or other Senior Fellows, please contact Naomi Biesheuvel at nbiesheuvel@cardus.ca or call 905-528-8866 x31. -30-

Thank you to all those who entered our Comment magazine Social Cities photo contest! The excellence and variety in entries made it a tough job for our esteemed judges. The Comment team managed to select a group of finalists, and then we passed that batch along to the judging panel: Robin Rayne Nelson, Mark Volkers, Milton Friesen, Courtney Cheatham, and Alex Houghton. Congratulations to our first place winner, Kevin van der Leek of Surrey, BC. Second place goes to Mike Lane of Saanichton, BC, and Neil E. Das of St. Louis, MO, and John van Sloten of Calgary, AB, have tied for third place. Runners-up include Michael Burkhalter of Bellevue, WA, Sheona Beaumont of Bristol, UK, and Phil Reinders of Toronto, ON. To see which photos came in first, second, and third in full colour, check out the next issue of Comment, and if you'd like to access the full-sized versions of our winning entries, sign up for the iPad edition!

Cardus hosted Alexandre Havard, the Moscow-based leadership author turning heads across the world, in Ottawa earlier this month. Please enjoy some highlights from his discussion with Ray Pennings.

What makes your city vibrant, social, and thriving? Where do you see renewal happening in your neighbourhoods? Comment is looking for your original photo submissions on this theme, for the June 2014 issue of Comment highlighting the Cardus Social Cities program. Prizes The first prize winner will be awarded $250.00 (CDN)! Five runners-up will also receive signed copies of Discipleship in the Present Tense, by Comment editor James K.A. Smith. The best entries will win a spot in our iPad edition, and a few lucky winners will even get published in the print issue. Contest Details Deadline for entry: April 20, 2014. The contest is now closed. Winners will be notified and announced shortly! Maximum of five entries per person. All subsequent entries will be ignored. Emails must include (a) photo title, (b) your full name, and (c) your full mailing address. File formats accepted: JPG, PNG only. Photo dimensions: no limitation. Attachment must be 24 Mb in size or smaller. Grouping up to 5 entries in one email is preferred, but split out if total size will exceed 24 Mb. Submit only your own, original work. By submitting your work you grant Comment limited ability to reproduce your photo—with proper attribution—in our iPad and print editions of the June 2014 issue.

The Cardus Religious Schools Initiative released a report on occupational trajectories of religious school graduates, written by Dr. David Sikkink. What is the impact of attending a religious high school on jobs and careers taken up later in life? Do religious schools matter for educational and occupational career trajectories? In this report, we marshal evidence suggesting that religious school experiences shape the kind of majors their graduates take up and the jobs they attain. We explain school-work relationships with theories of educational and religious experiences of evangelical Protestant school graduates. Read the full report at the CRSI website.

Cardus president Michael Van Pelt will join Minister Jason Kenney as part of a delegation to Germany and the UK to learn about and share best practices on trades and skills development. The invitation follows on the heels of a conference held by Cardus in January in Toronto which brought together leaders in construction, resource development, labour, and government, to explore solutions to the economic and social concerns brought about by Canada's skilled labour shortage. Cardus's work on labour has focused on the broader social frameworks in which skilled trades are developed, and we welcome the opportunity to discuss these matters with industry partners in Germany and the UK. Read the official press release here.

The Canadian federal budget delivered by Finance Minister Flaherty this afternoon was his tenth, but is best understood as a stage setter for his eleventh. Officially, this budget outlines how the government proposes to raise and spend $276 billion between April 1st of this year and March 31st of next; in reality, it is about defining the terms on which the 2015 federal election campaign will be fought. This isn't to minimize the importance of the headline-grabbing initiatives like job-training infrastructure spending, taxes for smokers, or consumer protection. However, they take a back seat to the bottom line of a projected $6.4 billion surplus for 2015-16 and the "low taxes, more jobs" formula to which the government subscribes. This budget "cleans up" the final pieces of Canada's Economic Action Plan, the $63 billion stimulus package introduced after the 2008 economic collapse. New programs for apprentices and internships as well as a proposed Job Matching Service are intended to help more Canadians enter the workforce. Several consumer initiatives, including an attempt to force retailers to charge Canadians the same prices as they do Americans, reinforces the continuing appeal for middle-class support. The 419-page budget document contains hundreds of measures. Among the initiatives: A $500 million investment in specific sectors including automotive support, forestry and mining. There is also a $1.5 billion (over 10 years) commitment of new funding for post-secondary research. (Current funding is approximately $3 billion per year.) The intended focus of these initiatives is to encourage a closer working partnership between universities and business in order to strengthen Canada's research position. A renewed focus on the benefit costs for the civil service, with a proposed renewal of the government's disability and sick leave program and a change to government pension systems. Various measures designed to help families in specific situations. The Adoption Tax Credit will increase from $11,744 to $15,000; compassionate care Employment Insurance access for parents with critically ill children is enhanced; and a new program supporting workers who have to care for needy family members (e.g. parents) will be forthcoming. Legislation to address price discrimination across borders that will give new powers to the Competition Commission to prevent unwarranted price differentials on opposite sides of the border. The government's opposition critics will likely describe this as a "do little" budget, concerned that the fragile economy requires more significant present stimulus and is being threatened by the Conservative focus on returning to surplus as a campaign platform. On the other hand, a think-tank report released last week argues that the overall level of government spending (including the infrastructure stimulus) is evidence that the government's pragmatism has trumped its conservatism over its eight years of power. Budgets are complex balancing acts in which governments have to choose between competing priorities. This government remains focused on Canadians as income earners and consumers, with social infrastructure taking a back seat to physical infrastructure. Besides modest tinkering, this budget portrays a stay-the-course agenda which will put the pressure on the government in 2015 to deliver on its income-splitting promise made during the past campaign. The NDP and Liberals, then and since, have critiqued this initiative, arguing that focus on income inequality and middle class prosperity are more significant priorities. Cardus is not in the business of entering partisan debates. Different views regarding the responsibility and role of government divide the aisle of our Parliament. But most can agree that returning the government to a place where balanced budgets are again the norm is good policy and Canada is ahead of its competitors in achieving this. That the job market remains tenuous and that our workforce remains ill-equipped to take advantage of tomorrow's challenges remains a real issue. The extent to which government takes the lead in driving this agenda or facilitates other social institutions to prosper is a real issue for debate. Partisans will provide their own spin on the extent to which this budget is a step in the right direction or not. The small steps that are being taken in Budget 2014 are helpful but by no means adequate to address the broader challenge. However, they do help set the stage for a broader debate that will unfold in Campaign 2015.

Despite headline-grabbing initiatives, the bottom line of the Canadian federal budget delivered by Finance Minister Flaherty today comes down to a continued focus on Canadians as income earners and consumers, with social infrastructure taking a back seat to physical infrastructure. Read Ray Pennings' full report here. See more video clips: On Jobs On the Economic Action Plan On Social Infrastructure On Income Splitting