DATE: September 10, 2026
EVENT: Growing Democracy Up

Peter MacLeod, co-author of Democracy’s Second Act: Why Politics Needs the Public 

Peter MacLeod (he/him) is the founder and principal of MASS LBP, and one of Canada’s leading experts in public engagement and deliberative democracy. MASS has completed more than 200 major policy projects for governments and public agencies across Canada while popularizing the use of Civic Lotteries and Citizens’ Assemblies, and earning international recognition for its work.

Peter frequently writes and speaks about the citizen’s experience of the state, the importance of public imagination, and the future of responsible government.

A graduate of the University of Toronto and Queen’s, he travelled across Canada visiting almost one hundred constituency offices as part of his studies at the London School of Economics. He is a former researcher at the British think tank Demos, and a lecturer at Denmark’s Kaospilots. While leading MASS, he has chaired more than three dozen Citizens’ Assemblies and Reference Panels, including the Canadian Citizens’ Assemblies on Democratic Expression (2020-2022). In 2024, he was invited to deliver the annual Meisel Lecture at Queen’s. He is past chair of Toronto’s Wellesley Institute for Urban Health and a former director of the YMCA of Greater Toronto. He currently serves on the board of the Environics Institute and is a mentor with the  Pierre Elliot Trudeau Foundation. He is the co-author, with Richard Johnson, of Democracy’s Second Act: Why Politics Needs the Public (UTP Aevo, 2026).