The conservative argument for evidence-based research

Peter McCaffrey is a research fellow at the Manning Foundation for Democratic Education in Calgary. He told an audience at the Manning Networking Conference why evidence-based policy matters, and why city councils ought to pay more attention to solid research when they’re voting in their chambers. Scientists and scholars who decry Stephen Harper’s approach to evidence-based decision-making might be surprised to hear a conservative in Alberta talk about the value of objective research—but McCaffrey insists it’s the only way to rationally build cities. Maclean’s reporter Nick Taylor-Vaisey sat down with McCaffrey at our pop-up studio at the Shaw Centre.