The Macdonald-Laurier Institute has been honoured as one of the world's Top 20 new think tanks opened in the last 18 months in a study conducted by the University of Pennsylvania's International Relations Program.

"The 2010 Global Go To Think Tank Rankings marks the fourth edition of what has now become an annual report. The Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program at the International Relations Program, University of Pennsylvania has created a process for ranking think tanks around the world. It is the first comprehensive ranking of the world's top think tanks, based on a worldwide survey of close to 1500 scholars, policy makers, journalists and regional and subject area experts."

We are delighted to receive this type of recognition, especially since we opened our doors a mere 10 months ago. As followers of MLI will know, we had an extremely busy first year, as we published three True North papers, commenced a series on National Security and another on Canada's Founding Ideas (all of which can be found in our Library). We took a look at mortgage insurance and provided MLI Commentaries on a range of topics, including immigration, which earned us our first mention in The Economist. And all that was in addition to our best-selling book, The Canadian Century, which has been featured across North America since its May publication, as recently as in a December article in the Wall Street Journal.

MLI's best-selling book, The Canadian Century: Moving out of America's Shadow, remains under the watchful eye of the prestigious and widely-read Foreign Policy magazine's writers.  Joshua Keating cleverly made the connection between a recent McLatchy article and the lessons from Canadian Century. In a January blog posting titled Canadian century watch he wrote,

Over the summer, we featured a piece from Brian Lee Crowley, Jason Clemens, and Niels Veldhuis based on their book, The Canadian Century, arguing that the free market reforms Canada had instituted since it was described as "an honorary member of the Third World" by the Wall Street Journal in 1994 had put it on track to be a global economic leader in the 21st century. Reflecting on Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier's 1904 prediction that "the 20th century shall be filled by Canada," the authors mused that "perhaps Laurier was not wrong, just 100 years early."

A story from McClatchy today suggests that tough financial regulation may be as much a part of the Canadian economic success story as spending cuts and benefits reforms...