All are welcome. Register for the online session here: uottawa.ca/research-innovati…

📅 Tuesday, November 10, 2026 🕛 12:00–1:30 p.m. (ET) 📍 Social Sciences Building (FSS), Room 4004, University of Ottawa, and online via Zoom 🗣️ English and French

The discussion will explore: 🔹 Digital policy decisions and implementation 🔹 Accountability 🔹 Collaboration across orders of government

Join the book’s experts and editors as they share insights and explore what AI and emerging technologies mean for how governments make decisions, work together, and deliver digital public services.

The book is edited by Eric Champagne, Silvana Gomes, Felix Knüpling, André Lecours, Jamie M. Thomas and Diana Chebenova.

On November 10, the Forum of Federations and the University of Ottawa’s Centre on Governance launch The Forum of Federations Handbook on Digitalization in Public Administration of Federal Countries, an open-access comparative study of nine federal and decentralized countries.

As AI and other frontier technologies advance, who decides, who is accountable, and how do governments coordinate?

For the Forum, understanding these pressures is part of a broader task: exploring how multilevel systems reconcile competing demands for autonomy and unity. Jamie Thomas represented the Forum alongside Daniel Béland, Kelly Gordon and André Lecours, with Jenn Wallner moderating.

The discussion examined two distinct political contexts and their implications for Canadian federalism. It explored what drives demands for constitutional change, how secessionist movements differ, and how provincial political choices become national questions.

That question brought the Forum of Federations to the University of Ottawa on September 25 for When Provincial Becomes National: The Alberta Referendum and Quebec’s Election.

IGFIN will become an annual exchange and a standing platform for peer learning, with a secretariat at the Forum. Success means institutions better able to influence decisions, and funding that follows community needs.

Two insights stood out: 🔹 Papua New Guinea’s fiscal commission starts with what a service should cost to deliver, not what was spent last year. 🔹 Anwar Shah showed that stabilization funds only cushion revenue shocks when backed by clear rules, transparency and oversight.

In Manila on 28–29 September, the Forum of Federations convened the first Intergovernmental Fiscal Institutions Network (IGFIN) gathering.

The scale is substantial: • Kenya: KSh 428 billion to 47 counties (FY 2026/27) • Pakistan: ~PKR 8.85 trillion to four provinces (FY 2026/27) • Philippines: ₱1.19 trillion to 43,000+ local governments (FY 2026)

A health clinic in a remote community can cost far more to run than one in a provincial centre. That is why intergovernmental fiscal institutions matter. Their advice shapes how public money is shared between levels of government.