Michael Adams

Mr. Adams is the President of the Environics Institute – a group of research and communications consulting companies, which he co-founded in 1970, now employing over 200 professionals in offices located in seven cities in Canada and the United States.

In addition to numerous articles, seminars, frequent commentary in the broadcast media and presentations at conferences and annual meetings in North America, Europe and Asia, he is also the author of four Canadian best sellers: Sex in the Snow: Canadian Social Values at the End of the Millennium (1997), Better Happy Than Rich? Canadians, Money and the Meaning of Life (2000), Fire and Ice: The United States, Canada and the Myth of Converging Values (2003), and American Backlash: The Untold Story of Social Change in the United States (2005). All four books were published by Penguin.

Fire and Ice won the prestigious 2003-2004 Donner Prize for the best book on Canadian public policy and was selected in the fall of 2005 by the Literary Review of Canada as one of the "100 most important books ever published in the country." His most recent book – Unlikely Utopia: The Surprising Triumph of Canadian Pluralism, published in November 2007 – focuses on the promise and challenge of Canadian multiculturalism.

In 2006, he founded the Environics Institute to sponsor survey research that will contribute to the discussion of important public policy issues. To date, Environics has sponsored a survey of Canadian Muslims, a survey of the people of Afghanistan on issues related to the NATO mission in that country, a survey of Canadian’s engagement with the world, and an academic study of the impact of published polls on voting behaviour. Environics is currently undertaking a major research project on urban aboriginal life in Canada.

He holds an Honours BA in political science from Queen's University (1969) and an MA in sociology from the University of Toronto (1970). In 2005, he was included in Marketing Magazine's "Powerlist" as one of the "100 most influential people in Canadian communications." In 2008, he was appointed to the Ontario Premier’s Climate Change Advisory Panel. This spring, he will receive an honorary Doctor of Letters from Ryerson University in Toronto.

Outside the field of research consulting, he has a variety of other interests including a partnership (spanning almost two decades) in the Robert Craig Winery in Napa Valley, California – rated by The Wine Spectator as one of the top 25 wineries in California.

In 2006, he also inaugurated the Michael Adams Creative Writing Scholarship at his former high school, North Albion Collegiate (Rexdale, Ontario). First year tuition at an Ontario college or university is awarded to the graduating student judged to have written the best personal essay.