Dr. Kim Richard Nossal 34th Vimy Award Laureate 2026

Since 1992, the Vimy Award has honoured Canadians who have strengthened our nation’s defence, security, and democratic values. Named for the bravery shown at Vimy Ridge in 1917, it has traditionally recognized military leaders, diplomats, and public servants.

In naming Dr. Kim Richard Nossal the 34th Vimy Award laureate, the Selection Committee honours a lifetime devoted to making Canadian defence and foreign policy understood by the very citizens in whose name it is made.

For five decades, first at McMaster and then at Queen’s, Dr. Nossal has been the scholar to whom students, officers, diplomats, and public servants turn to understand how Canada decides. His body of work is remarkable: novel, rigorous, and wise, written in a voice so distinctive that readers can hear him on every page. Politics of Canadian Foreign Policy, now in its fourth edition, has long been the defining textbook in the field. Charlie Foxtrot explained with rare clarity why Canada struggles to equip its Armed Forces. And Canada Alone, published just before the present strain in the Canada-US relationship, asked how this country should navigate a less reliable American order. Events have since caught up with his argument. These books form part of a prolific scholarly record that includes 12 authored or co-authored books, 13 edited volumes, 68 journal articles, and 98 book chapters.

Dr. Nossal’s scholarship alone would be worthy of the Vimy Award, yet his contribution reaches well beyond that. As Director of the Queen’s Centre for International and Defence Policy, he has championed the Kingston Conference on International Security and the Visiting Defence Fellowship, forums where soldiers, officials, and academics debate with one another rather than argue past one another. As chair of the Security and Defence Forum’s academic selection committee, he has helped sustain a national network of defence expertise.

Perhaps most importantly, his influence can be seen in the generations of students he has taught, many of whom now serve in government, in uniform, and across Canada’s universities. For those students, Dr. Nossal has been not only a teacher, but a mentor whose guidance and commitment have shaped lives and careers. He has passed on what he knows subtly and generously, as is his nature, and has given his students something rarer still: a sense of belonging in the academic community. One former doctoral student recalled his “capacity to bolster [my] scholarly confidence”. It is fitting, then, that an undergraduate teaching award now bears his name.

A Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, an honorary graduate of the Royal Military College, and this year’s recipient of the Mildred A. Schwartz Lifetime Achievement Award, Dr. Nossal has long held the esteem of his peers. The Vimy Award now adds the gratitude of the defence community he has served faithfully. It is with great pride that we celebrate him as the 34th Vimy Award laureate.