This lecture highlights the importance of lowering structural unemployment as a key dimension of government approaches to inequality. Some programs, such as Employment Insurance, are conditional on individuals being without work. On the other hand, other initiatives, such as the Working Income Tax Benefit (recently re-named the Canada Worker Benefit), are conditional on individuals having [...]

Douglas Sanderson (Amo Binashii) is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of Toronto. He began his university studies at Simon Fraser, and was the managing editor of the inaugural edition of the Indigenous Law Journal in 2002, while a student in the JD program at U of T. He went on to complete his LL.M at Columbia University. While at Columbia, Douglas was both a Canada-US Fulbright Scholar and a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar. Back at the U of T, he received the Students Law Society Partnership Award in 2009-2010.
Douglas is a member of the Opaskwayak Cree Nation, and he has been deeply engaged in Aboriginal issues from a policy perspective. From 2004-2007 he was a Senior Advisor to the Government of Ontario, first in the Office of the Minister Responsible for Aboriginal Affairs, and later, to the Attorney General.
Douglas’s research areas include Aboriginal and legal theory, as well as private law (primarily property law) and public and private legal theory. His work uses the lens of material culture and property theory to examine the nature of historic injustice to Indigenous peoples and possible avenues for redress. Moving beyond the framework of common law property rights and constitutional land/treaty rights, his scholarship focuses on Aboriginal institutions, post-colonial reconciliation and rebuilding community.

Tammy Schirle is a Professor of Economics at Wilfrid Laurier University. She is an Associate Editor for Canadian Public Policy/Analyse de Politiques, a board member for the Canadian Labour Economics Forum (CLEF), a C.D. Howe Research Fellow, and a member of the C.D. Howe’s Pension Policy Council and Human Capital Policy Council. Her research interests include the economics of the elderly, income inequality, social policy, and the economics of gender. She has published articles in several academic journals, including the Journal of Labor Economics, Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Public Policy, Social Science and Medicine, and the Review of Income and Wealth. Current research projects focus on the relationship between income and mortality, healthy aging and work, retirement income policies, and women’s transitions in the labour market.

Bill Scarth – the series organizer – is Professor Emeritus in the Economics Department at McMaster University. He has received both the President’s Award for Excellence in Instruction and several McMaster Students Union Teaching Awards including the MSU’s highest honour – their Lifetime Achievement Award for Teaching. In addition to publishing many articles in academic journals (in the areas of macroeconomics, labour economics, international trade and public finance), Bill has authored four textbooks (22 editions in all), and he has been a Research Economist at the C.D. Howe Institute – contributing to policy debates – for over 20 years. Some of his recent work concerns how globalization affects the ability of governments to provide support for those living on low incomes, and to deal with the tensions between young and old that have emerged with increased concern about the environment and our aging population.

Katherine Cuff is a Professor in the Economics Department at McMaster University and the Canadian Research Chair in Public Economic Theory. Katherine’s research interests include optimal taxation, fiscal federalism, and redistribution policies. Katherine was one of the inaugural recipients of the McMaster University Scholar title, honouring junior faculty who have distinguished themselves as international scholars. She is the Managing Editor of the Canadian Journal of Economics and has also served as both an Editor of FinanzArchiv/Public Finance Analysis and an Associate Editor of Canadian Public Policy/Analyse de Politiques.

Mike Veall is a Professor of Economics at McMaster University. He received his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and has taught at the University of Western Ontario, the University of Mannheim, Australian National University and Queen’s University. He has been a von Humboldt fellow at the University of Munich and an honorary professor at the University of York. He was a co-winner of the Purvis Prize for a work of excellence relating to Canadian economic policy and President of the Canadian Economics Association in 2011-12. Currently he is Director of the Productivity Partnership, Principal Investigator of the Canadian Research Data Centre Network and Editor of the journal Canadian Public Policy/Analyse de Politiques.

Chris Ragan is the inaugural Director of McGill University’s Max Bell School of Public Policy and is an Associate Professor in McGill’s Department of Economics. He is the Chair of Canada’s Ecofiscal Commission, which launched in November 2014 with a 5-year horizon to identify policy options to improve environmental and economic performance in Canada. He is also a member of the federal finance minister’s Advisory Council on Economic Growth, which began in early 2016. Chris is a Research Fellow at the C.D. Howe Institute, and from 2010-13 he held the Institute’s David Dodge Chair in Monetary Policy (and for many years was a member of its Monetary Policy Council). In 2009-10, Chris was the Clifford Clark Visiting Economist at Finance Canada; and in 2004-05 he served as Special Advisor to the Governor of the Bank of Canada.
Chris’s published research focuses mostly on the conduct of macroeconomic policy. His 2004 book, co-edited with William Watson, is called Is the Debt War Over? In 2007 he published A Canadian Priorities Agenda, co-edited with Jeremy Leonard and France St-Hilaire from the Institute for Research on Public Policy. The Ecofiscal Commission’s The Way Forward (2015) was awarded the Doug Purvis Memorial Prize for that year’s best work in Canadian economic policy. Finally, Chris is an enthusiastic teacher and public communicator. In 2007 Ragan was awarded the Noel Fieldhouse teaching prize at McGill. He is the author of Economics (formerly co-authored with Richard Lipsey), which after fifteen editions is still the most widely used introductory economics textbook in Canada. Ragan also writes frequent columns for newspapers, most often in The Globe and Mail (see his McGill website for downloads https://mcgill.ca/economics/christopher-t-s-ragan). He teaches in several MBA and Executive MBA programs, including at McGill, EDHEC in France, and in special courses offered by McKinsey & Company. He gives dozens of public speeches every year.

Bill Scarth – the series organizer – is Professor Emeritus in the Economics Department at McMaster University. He has received both the President’s Award for Excellence in Instruction and several McMaster Students Union Teaching Awards including the MSU’s highest honour – their Lifetime Achievement Award for Teaching. In addition to publishing many articles in academic journals (in the areas of macroeconomics, labour economics, international trade and public finance), Bill has authored four textbooks (22 editions in all), and he has been a Research Economist at the C.D. Howe Institute – contributing to policy debates – for over 20 years. Some of his recent work concerns how globalization affects the ability of governments to provide support for those living on low incomes, and to deal with the tensions between young and old that have emerged with increased concern about the environment and our aging population.