ABOUT
MunicipalMatters
We believe that what goes on in cities and towns across the country matters--municipalities matter.
Most of what touches people directly happens at the municipal level, but outside the top three cities in, very little attention has been given to decision-makers, and much is changing at this level.
Are these changes welcome? What do mayor's, reeves, councillors and CAOs care about? What keeps them up at night? And, what can we do better?
We want to amplify voice of decision-makers and shed light on those, and more, questions.
Our Collaborators
Heather Bastedo, Ph.D.
Public Square Research
With a passion for civic engagement, Heather has more than ten years of hands-on experience in engagement and motivation research, as well as extensive expertise in both qualitative and quantitative research design and execution.
A former Skelton Clark Postdoctoral fellow at Queen’s University, Heather holds a PhD and MA in Political Science from the University of Toronto, where she earned a degree in political psychology and motivation, dedicating much of that time to research focused on political and youth engagement. Early in her academic career, she engaged youth in an innovative study using Facebook as a survey platform. From there, she moved on to focus groups, large-N studies, interviews, and ethnography.
Working as Senior Vice President of Angus Reid Global, she honed her understanding of state-of-the-art panel research and engagement methods and has delivered strategic advice on numerous public affairs projects. She now specializes in market segmentation, SWOT analysis, and Index development.
Heather is co-editor of Canadian Democracy from the Ground Up: Perceptions and Performance, a book that measures the health of Canadian democracy, and co-author of Representation in Action a book that studies Members of Parliament in their respective ridings. She has published work in the Canadian Journal of Political Science, Municipal World, and the Journal of Youth Studies, among others.
Allison Bystrom,
Research Associate,
Public Square Research
Kent Waugh, Managing Partner
The W Group & ClikHere.ca
Kent Waugh has served as a professional researcher and marketing strategist for over 35 years. In the past 10 years, Kent has focused all his energy assisting local government to build community engagement capacity through employing e-communications programs, community engagement research panels and centralized research support programs, as well as voice of the customer feedback programs to measure customer satisfaction.
Kent was an early pioneer in the development and use of community engagement research panels:
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Serving as President & CEO of onemillioneyes.com in 2000, Kent established one of the first global online research panels consisting of 100,000 panelists.
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Later in 2006, Kent was a key player in the development of the leading Canadian online research panel, the Angus Reid Forum, established by Angus Reid Strategies and Vision Critical.
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The Canadian Automobile Association awarded British Columbia Automobile Association’s the most innovative application of technology for its research panel, Inside Track. Kent led the panel’s deployment and day-to-day operations.
Kent is often invited to present on innovative research and engagement programs such as at the International Association for Public Participation (IAP2) North American conference, the Market Research & Intelligence Association national conference and numerous other local government association conferences.
Allison is coming up on ten years experience in the research industry. In this time she has been involved in every part of the research cycle from questionnaire design, building sample frames, scripting and data analysis. She has developed a specialty in data analysis, building cross-tabs and segmentations.
Allison has a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Calgary.