Breaking Point

DARRELL BRICKER is Global CEO, Ipsos Public Affairs. Prior to joining Ipsos in 1990, Dr. Bricker was Director of Research in the office of Canada’s Prime Minister. He was also a research consultant with firms in Ottawa and Toronto. Dr. Bricker holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from Carleton University, and a BA and MA from Wilfrid Laurier University. He has been awarded an Honorary Doctor of Laws Degree by Wilfrid Laurier University, which named him one of their top 100 graduates in the last 100 years. Darrell is also a Senior Research Fellow with the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto, and at the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) in Waterloo, Ontario.  Darrell has written several national bestselling books. Empty Planet: The Shock of Global Population Decline (with John Ibbitson) was a finalist for the Donner Prize. It has been published in multiple countries and translated into ten languages. His last book, Next (Harper Collins, March 2020) was nominated as Canada’s Business Book of the Year. His other books are: Searching for Certainty: Inside the New Canadian Mindset (with Ed Greenspon – Doubleday, 2002), What Canadians Think About Almost Everything (with John Wright – Doubleday, 2005), We Know What You’re Thinking (with John Wright – Harper Collins, 2009), Canuckology (with John Wright – Harper Collins, 2011), and The Big Shift (with John Ibbitson – Harper Collins, 2013). Darrell’s next book (with John Ibbitson) Breaking Point: The New Big Shifts Putting Canada at Risk will be published by Random House in October 2025. Dr. Bricker is a popular public speaker who regularly engages with audiences around the world. He’s written articles for publications as diverse as Canada’s Globe and Mail and France’s Le Monde. He has also appeared on television and radio with all of Canada’s major national networks, and around the world with news broadcast organizations such as CNN, the BBC and NPR. Darrell is also the 2021 recipient of the Radio Television Digital News Association’s Hutton Award of Excellence for commitment to the betterment of journalism in Canada.

JOHN IBBITSON is Writer at Large for the Globe and Mail, having also served as chief political writer, political affairs columnist and bureau chief in Washington and Ottawa. His previous political books include the national number-one bestselling The Big Shift (with Darrell Bricker), The Polite Revolution: Perfecting the Canadian Dream and Open and Shut: Why America Has Barack Obama and Canada Has Stephen Harper. A winner of the Governor General’s Award, Ibbitson has been shortlisted for the Donner Prize, the National Newspaper Award, the Trillium Award, and the City of Toronto Book Award. Stephen Harper was a finalist for the B.C. National Award for Canadian Non-fiction and won the 2015 Writer’s Trust of Canada Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing. He lives in Ottawa.