Eugene Lang

Eugene Lang is Vice President, Bluesky Strategy Group and co-founder of Canada 2020: Canada’s Progressive Centre.

Lang has fifteen years of experience at senior levels in large public and private sector organizations, most recently as Director, Government Affairs, Bell Canada. Prior to joining Bell, Lang served twelve years in the federal government in senior advisory roles, including; Chief of Staff to two Ministers of National Defence, Chief of Staff to the Secretary of State (Finance), Senior Economist, Finance Canada, Senior Policy Advisor (Economic) to the Deputy Prime Minister of Canada and Policy Advisor to the Solicitor General of Canada. In 2006-07, he was a Visiting Fellow at the Munk Centre for International Studies, University of Toronto.

An award winning and best selling author, Lang has co-written two books on Canadian public policy and published well over two-dozen articles and essays. A frequent contributor to the Globe and Mail, The Toronto Star and The Ottawa Citizen, Lang’s writings have also appeared in The National Post, The Montreal Gazette, The Leader Post, Policy Options, e-Merge, Maclean’s, The Walrus, and The Hill Times.

In 2008 his book The Unexpected War: Canada in Kandahar (co-authored with Janice Stein) won the Writer’s Trust Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for a book of outstanding literary merit that enlarges understanding of contemporary Canadian political and social issues. The Unexpected War was also short-listed for the 2008 Donner Prize for the best book on Canadian public policy, was named one of the Globe and Mail’s top 100 books of the year, and was made into a documentary film for Global Television News. He has recently been commissioned by the Frederich Ebert Siftung to contribute to their cross national study entitled, The Current State and Prospects of Social Democratic Parties.

Lang has appeared widely as a commentator, including on CBC radio and television, Radio Canada, Radio Canada International, CPAC and CTV, and he has been frequently cited in Canadian and foreign newspapers, including the International Herald Tribune, Bloomberg, and the London Daily Mail. He has given lectures at Queen’s University, The University of Ottawa, Royal Military College, Glendon College, York University and the Royal Canadian Military Institute. Lang was educated at the University of Western Ontario (B.A., M.A.), Queen’s University (M.P.A.) and the London School of Economics (M.Sc.), where he studied as a Chevening Scholar.

Married to Camielle Edwards Lang, Eugene and his wife live in Ottawa with their daughter Leah and son Joshua.