Seized By Uncertainty Wins the 2024 Donner Prize

TORONTO, May 15, 2025 – The winner of the 2024 Donner Prize was announced this evening by
Gregory Belton, Chair of the Donner Canadian Foundation, during a gala dinner in Toronto.

Kevin Quigley, Kaitlynne Lowe, Sarah Moore and Brianna Wolfe were awarded the $60,000
Donner Prize for Seized By Uncertainty: The Markets, Media and Special Interests that Shaped Canada’s Response to COVID-19, published by McGill-Queen’s University Press.

In Seized By Uncertainty, Quigley and his colleagues from the MacEachen Institute for Public
Policy and Governance at Dalhousie University, explore how cultural, institutional and political
factors influenced the Canadian government’s response to the pandemic, which they conclude
was woefully inadequate.

The Donner Prize Jury praised the book for “telling a compelling story and providing important
policy direction. It offers a portrayal of policymaking and implementation in crisis mode, and
delivers a clear message that institutional inertia may prevent us from learning the right lessons
from the pandemic.”

The other nominated titles, each of which will receive $7,500, are:

Fiscal Choices: Canada After the Pandemic; Michael M. Atkinson and Haizhen Mou (University
of Toronto Press)

And Sometimes They Kill You: Confronting the Epidemic of Intimate Partner Violence; Pamela Cross (Between The Lines)

Constraining the Court: Judicial Power and Policy Implementation in the Charter Era; James B. Kelly (UBC Press)

Hard Lessons in Corporate Governance; Bryce C. Tingle (Cambridge University Press)

The winner of the Donner Prize was selected by the six member Jury: André Beaulieu (Jury
Chair), Neil Desai, Antonia Maioni, Maureen O’Neil and Frederic Wien.

Jury Chair Beaulieu commented “The mandate of the Donner Prize is to spotlight the best public policy thinking, writing and research by Canadians. We also want to bring the policy-makers into the conversation by highlighting the books that we hope will assist them in their decision-making on the vast array of challenges we face as Canadians. We firmly believe that Seized By Uncertainty can help our governments and institutions prepare for the next crisis.”

The Donner Prize, established in 1998, annually rewards excellence and innovation in Canadian
public policy thinking, writing and research. In bestowing this award, the Donner Canadian
Foundation seeks to broaden policy debates, increase general awareness of the importance of
policy decision-making and make an original and meaningful contribution to policy discourse.