Peter Aucoin, a distinguished university professor whose teachings and research have helped shape government policies and inspire civil servants, has been accorded one of the highest honours in the Canadian public service.
Aucoin received the 2005 Vanier Medal from the Institute of Public Administration of Canada (IPAC). Luc Bernier, President of IPAC and Director of Research and Education and Professor at the Ecole nationale d芦administration publique, presented the award during IPAC芦s annual conference.
"Peter Aucoin is an outstanding teacher and one of Canada鈥歴 most respected political scientists," Bernier said. "His publications are regarded as authoritative texts on public administration, both in this country and around the world."
A native of Halifax, Aucoin, 62, has taught in the Department of Political Science at Daihousie University since 1970. He has been chair of that department and director of the school of public administration, and is today the Eric Dennis Memorial Professor of Government and Political Science/Professor of Public Administration at Dalhousie.
Aucoin is recognized both nationally and internationally as a leading theorist on the practice and reform of the public service, including the governance of the federal cabinet and of political parties. He has contributed knowledge to the governments of Canada, the United Kingdom and Cuba, as well as to provinces, municipalities, agencies, committees and courts. He was a research coordinator for the Royal Commission on the Economic Union and Development Prospects for Canada (the Macdonald Commission, 1983-85) and research director for the Royal Commission on Electoral Reform and Party Financing (the Lortie Commission, 1990-92).
A devoted scholar, Aucoin is the author or co-author of more than a dozen books and monographs, 60 articles and book chapters, and 30 conference papers. He won the Charles H. Levine Memorial Book Prize in 1995 for his book The New Public Management: Canada in comparative Perspective. He won the J. E. Hodgetts Award in both 1993 and 2003 for articles published in Canadian Public Administration.
The Vanier Medal was created in 1962 in honour of Canada芦s second Canadian Governor General, the Right Honourable Georges-P. Vanier.