Catching Ottawa’s Attention

Successfully influencing the political process seems like such an unlikely event that those who accomplish it often consider writing about their work before fading into the background. The forms vary from a short essay to a longer story about what happened, to an explanation of how the political system itself can permit outsiders to make change.

It is the latter approach that Amanda Sussman has taken in The Art of the Possible: A Handbook for Political Activism. Sussman has had considerable experience in Ottawa, working on human rights and immigration issues for Bill Graham and Elinor Caplan when they were Cabinet ministers in the Chrétien/Martin governments, as well as for public advocacy groups such as Amnesty International, Plan Canada (her present post) and Human Rights Watch.

She states right off that her goals are limited, “to help make interactions between citizens and their government more effective so that we can produce the best policy...