Canada's Biggest Influence

The RIM co-founder's influence extends well beyond his telecommunications empire.

Who is Canada’s most influential person? It’s a tough question.

Being a political scientist, many might expect me to choose the prime minister, some top-ranking cabinet minister, or similar. No doubt, these are all influential people, but it isn’t so much the people, per se, who are influential, but the positions themselves. The prime ministership is an institution, and a very powerful one at that, but Harper’s influence derives from his occupation of the office at this moment. It is certainly no small task to acquire the office, so I do not want to sell Harper short. In any case, I believe the answer to the question lies in a different direction.

My nominee is Jim Balsillie, co-CEO of Research in Motion (RIM), the maker of the ubiquitous BlackBerry. As I look upon my own model sitting atop my desk with its tiny keyboard and warm, glowing light, I wonder how many folks around the world do the same on a daily basis. I actually have some sense of the answer – BlackBerry recently shipped its 100 millionth phone. Globally, this little device generated a lot of attention this past summer as India, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE contemplated national bans on service to the device because of security concerns. It seems that the BlackBerry offers its users too much security and privacy.

Balsillie’s influence extends to other realms, one of them very much on my own radar. Balsillie – as well as his RIM co-CEO Mike Lazaridis – is a tremendous supporter of intellectual communities. He has used nearly a hundred million of his personal funds to set up the Centre for International Governance Innovation in Waterloo and the new Balsillie School of International Affairs, which will have its own state-of-the-art campus by 2011. His contributions to ensuring that Canada is a site of in-depth research and discussion about global economics, environment, and resource management, governance, international public policy and law, and human security mean a lot to me, both as a political scientist and a citizen. No doubt they mean a lot to Waterloo as well, for thanks to Balsillie and Lazaridis, that city was named the world’s Top Intelligent Community in 2007 by the Intelligent Communities Forum.

Now if only the NHL would let Balsillie buy a team, particularly in Hamilton, which would be an awesome hockey town. A whole different sphere of influence, to be sure, but one very dear to the hearts and minds of the country.