He received his PhD from the University of British Columbia. He is the author of Rules of the Game: An Introduction to Canadian Politics (2015), and Talking Past Each Other: Quebec and the Federal Dialogue in Canada, 1867-2017 (2018). He is a past president of the BC Political Studies Association, and has twice served on the board of the Canadian Political Science Association. He is a frequent commentator on BC and Canadian politics in the local and national media.