mel-cappeMel Cappe is Professor in the School of Public Policy and Governance, University of Toronto. From 2006-2011 he was President of the Institute for Research on Public Policy. Prior to that for four years he was High Commissioner for Canada to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Before that he served as Clerk of the Privy Council, Secretary to the Cabinet and Head of the Public Service. Earlier in his career he held senior economic and policy positions in the Departments of Finance and Industry. He was Deputy Secretary to the Treasury Board, Deputy Minister of the Environment, Deputy Minister of Human Resources Development, Deputy Minister of Labour and Chairman of the Employment Insurance Commission. He is a Commissioner on Canada’ Ecofiscal Commission. He sits on several non-profit Boards. He has graduate degrees in Economics from the Universities of Western Ontario and Toronto and honourary doctorates from both. He is an Officer of the Order of Canada and recipient of the Queen’s Diamond and Golden Jubilee Medals.


glen-hodgson1-hiresGlen Hodgson brings nearly 35 years of experience and a specialization in macro-economics, international trade and finance, and fiscal and tax policy to his position as the first Senior Fellow at The Conference Board of Canada, effective September 2016.

In his new role, Mr. Hodgson will support the Conference Board’s mandate to advance Canadian competitiveness and prosperity. He will identify and develop new initiatives for research and engagement, undertake research, and provide public commentary as an author and speaker. Topics of interest include Canada and globalization, low-carbon economic growth, sustainable fiscal policy, tax system design and administration, and the creative economy.

Mr. Hodgson was the Conference Board of Canada’s Senior Vice-President and Chief Economist for the past twelve years, where he responsible for overseeing macro-economic forecasting and custom economic research, and was the Board’s leading media spokesman. He played a leading role in several high-profile research initiatives at the Conference Board — on productivity and competitiveness, international trade and investment, health economics, tax policy, and the Quebec economy. He has published two books and over 300 reports, briefings and articles, as well as delivering many speeches and presentations each year to clients.

Glen is a member of Canada’s Ecofiscal Commission, which undertakes research on using price signals to encourage positive activities (like economic growth and job creation) and discourage negative ones (like greenhouse gas emissions or road congestion).

He joined the Conference Board in September 2004, after 10 years at Export Development Canada (EDC). He also spent a decade with the federal Department of Finance, and served at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington D.C. during the 1980s as Advisor to the Executive Director for Canada, Ireland and the Caribbean.


127606Kevin McGurgan took up his appointment as HM Consul General and Director-General for UK Trade and Investment in Toronto in August 2014.

Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1971, Kevin joined the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) in 1990. He comes to Canada after four years as Consul-General in Florida, based in Miami. During that period he was responsible for business development between the UK and Florida and oversaw the expansion of the Consulate’s staff and role across Florida and the Caribbean.

Kevin’s diplomatic career has seen him serve short tours in Russia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Syria (1993-4); as a press officer in the UK’s Permanent Representation to the European Union (1994-5); as a political and consular officer in Bosnia (1996-7) and from 2003-2005 as Head of the Political and Economic team in Sweden with a specific focus on European policy issues and counter-terrorism. Between 2005 and 2008 he was Deputy Head of the Iraq Policy Unit in the Foreign Office before being seconded to the Home Office to work on organised crime, counter terrorism and migration issues. In London he has also worked on Afghanistan, the Balkans and arms export policy.

This is his first posting to Canada but not his first time working with Canadians. As Deputy Head of the NATO Provincial Reconstruction Team in Helmand province from 2008 – 2009, he worked closely with Canadian colleagues in neighboring Kandahar. While from 1997 – 2000, he worked closely with Ambassador Fowler and the Canadian delegation at the United Nations in New York on multilateral sanctions regimes, negotiating and implementing sanctions regimes in the Middle East, Asia and diamond and arms embargoes in Africa (Sierra Leone and Angola).

Kevin is accompanied by his wife Vicki (also from Scotland), and his two sons, Alexander and Michael. He is a reasonable runner who completed his first marathon earlier this year.


armine-yalnizyaArmine Yalnizyan joined the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives as senior economist in 2008, after a long association dating back to 1993. Every Wednesday and Friday Armine brings a fresh take on business news on CBC Radio’s #1 morning show, Metro Morning, reaching a million listeners in the Greater Toronto Area, and more online. Armine also appears weekly on the Big Picture panel, a popular feature of Canada’s premier business-news program, CBC-TV’s The Exchange (formerly with Amanda Lang).

Armine obtained her M.A. in Industrial Relations from University of Toronto and has a bilingual B.A. in economics from Glendon College, York University, including a year’s study in economics at Université de Bordeaux, France. She proudly received the Atkinson Foundation’s inaugural Award for Economic Justice.

She is Vice-President of the Canadian Association for Business Economics and serves on the boards of the Canadian Institutes for Health Research’s Institute of Population and Public Health and the Public Interest Advocacy Centre.

 


Moderator

 
miloud-chennoufiMiloud Chennoufi teaches international relations at the Canadian Forces College (Toronto) where he chairs the Department of Security and International Affairs. He has a diploma (Baccalaureate) in Economic Sciences from the Université d’Alger and a Master of Business Administration, with a major in Theory of Organizations, from the École des hautes études commerciales of Montreal (HEC Montréal) and a PhD from the Université de Montréal. From 2000 to 2006, he taught Management and Sociology of Organizations at HEC Montréal and Political Thinking at the Université de Montréal. In the 1990s, he was a political and economic journalist in Algeria. His areas of interest include the theory of international relations, political theory, and the geopolitics of the Middle-East. Dr. Chennoufi published his first book in 2003 titled Grandes puissances et islamisme, which gathers, in addition to its namesake study, some articles on International Security and Economic Development, as well as political essays. In 2013, he co-edited a volume on strategic studies, Les études stratégiques au XIXe siècle.