Jim Stanford

Jim Stanford is Economist and Director of the Centre for Future Work. He divides his time between Sydney, Australia and Vancouver, Canada.

Jim is one of Canada’s best-known economic commentators. He served for over 20 years as Economist and Director of Policy with Unifor, Canada’s largest private-sector trade union (formerly the Canadian Auto Workers). He is quoted frequently in the print and broadcast media, and writes a regular column for the Toronto Star. He is also the Harold Innis Industry Professor in Economics at McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada, and an Honorary Professor in the Department of Political Economy at the University of Sydney. Jim has also served for many years as a Research Associate and volunteer with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

Jim received his Ph.D. in Economics from the New School for Social Research in New York.  He also holds an M.Phil. from Cambridge University, and a B.A. (Hons.) from the University of Calgary.

Jim is the author of Economics for Everyone: A Short Guide to the Economics of Capitalism (second edition published by Pluto Books in 2015), which has been published in six languages.  Stanford has written, edited or co-edited six other books, and dozens of articles and reports in both peer-reviewed and popular outlets.

He has provided research and advice through numerous federal and provincial government panels and inquiries on economic policy, innovation, jobs, and social policy. Jim is recognized for his ability to communicate economic concepts in an accessible and humorous manner.

Marliss Taylor

Marliss Taylor is the Manager of Streetworks and Director of Health Services at Boyle Street Community Services in Edmonton. She is a Registered Nurse who has been in nationally and internationally. She has worked in Harm Reduction for the past 27 years. She was the first to initiate the use of community-based naloxone in Canada in 2005. She was a member of the Alberta Health Services Board of Directors from 2015-2019, and was a member of the Minister’s Opioid Emergency Response and is the Chair of the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition. 

Crystal Lameman

Crystal Lameman is a nêhiyaw mother of two and a proud member of the ᐊᒥᐢᑯᓵᑲᐦᐃᑲᐣ ᓀᐦᐃᔭᐃᐧ ᐯᔭᑰᐢᑳᐣ ᐅᐢᑌᓯᒫᐅᐧᔭᓯᐁᐧᐃᐧᐣ ᓂᑯᑖᐧᓯᐠ amiskosâkahikan nêhiyaw peyakôskân, ostêsimâwoyasiwêwin nikotwâsik Beaver Lake Cree Nation, Treaty Six, where she currently works as the government relations advisor and treaty coordinator. She is a researcher; policy analyst; and passionate Indigenous rights, Treaty, and environment defender, with a graduate degree in educational policy studies. She is currently pursuing a graduate degree in counselling psychology. Crystal’s work is centred on the advancement of Indigenous economic, energy, and food sovereignty, and the realization of holistic wellness through her nêhiyaw ways of knowing and meaningful land-based practices.

Mark Anielski

Mark Anielski is a well-being economist and has operated his family-owned economic consultancy since 1995. He consults several First Nations across Canada on building new economies of well-being. His mastery is measuring happiness, well-being, and economic progress. He has lectured and taught well-being economics at Harvard, the Bainbridge Graduate Institute, the University of Texas in El Paso, the Harbin Institute of Technology, Shanghai Normal University, William Jewell College, the University of Alberta, and the School of Business in Innsbruck, Austria. He has served as an economic advisor to China in their efforts to adopt new measures of well-being and happiness. He is the author of the award-winning The Economics of Happiness and An Economy of Well-being: Building Genuine Wealth and Happiness (2018).  He lives in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada with his family.

Bob Ascah

Robert L. (Bob)  Ascah studied commerce and public administration at Carleton University and political science at the University of Alberta. He joined Alberta Federal and Intergovernmental Affairs in 1984 moving to Alberta Treasury in 1986.  From 1996-2009 Ascah worked at ATB Financial. In 1999, Ascah's Politics and Public Debt was published.  From 2009-2013 he was Director of the Institute for Public Economics. He is the editor and contributor to the A Sales Tax for Alberta: Why and How. His articles have appeared in Alberta Views, The Conversation, Calgary Herald, Canadian Accountant, and The Globe and Mail. His blog is Abpolecon.ca.

Thomas Marois

Thomas Marois is a Reader in Development Studies, SOAS University of London and incoming Professor in Political Science, McMaster University, Hamilton. Thomas is a leading scholar of public banks and author of the book Public Banks: Decarbonisation, Definancialisation, and Democratisation (2021, Cambridge University Press). Thomas is a research associate with the Municipal Services Project and he has various advisory roles with the Finance in Common Summit, Council of Europe Development Bank, Public Banking Institute, Public Bank New York, and Public Bank San Francisco and UNCTAD Geneva.

Niall Harney

Niall is a Senior Researcher at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives - Manitoba, where he holds the Errol Black Chair in Labour Issues. Niall's research covers topics in the areas of labour studies and political economy, including alternative budgeting, living wages, income inequality, and fiscal policy. Niall holds degrees from the University of Manitoba and McGill University.

Jared Blustein

Jared Blustein is passionate about creating equitable and just societies. After completing a graduate degree in Vancouver in 2017, investigating contemporary economic issues and potential solutions, he cofounded The Allium Restaurant and Bodega Worker Cooperative (The Allium). Jared believes that by empowering workers and making them the directors of produced profits, we actively create more resilient and localized economies, and more ethical societies. Moreover, the non-hierarchical and consensus-based model of many worker co-ops directly help to co-humanize and empower those involved, and develop community cohesion with dynamic ripple effects. In the spirit of allyship, Jared is continually working to help other workers establish their own cooperatives. In addition to co-operating The Allium, Jared is also a manager at the Arusha Centre Society, a non-profit organization that works on a variety of social, economic and environmental issues in Calgary.

Gwendolyn Blue

Gwendolyn Blue is an Associate Professor in Geography with appointments in the Faculty of Science Natural Science interdisciplinary program. Before joining the Department of Geography in 2011, she was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication and Culture at the University of Calgary, and an instructor at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and Elon University. Formally trained in the field of Cultural Studies, she conducts research in three interconnected areas: 1) public controversies involving science and technology; 2) public engagement with science and technology; and 3) political, cultural and ethical dimensions of scientific and technological innovations. Her research draws on post-structuralist traditions in science and technology studies (STS) and political ecology, and has examined the politics surrounding BSE (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy), local food, climate change, wildlife management and more recently, genomic applications for environmental issues. She is currently a collaborator on a SSHRC funded project examining Alberta and British Columbia’s climate policies and a Genome Canada funded project exploring the social and policy dimensions of genomic applications for climate change adaptation in forestry (GE3LS).

Amanda Janoo

Amanda Janoo is the Economics & Policy Lead for the Wellbeing Economy Alliance (WEALL), which is a global collaboration of organizations, governments, movements and changemakers committed to designing economies that work in service of people and planet. Amanda is an economic policy expert with over a decade of experience working with governments and international development institutions around the world. Her work aims to build just and sustainable economies through wellbeing-oriented and participatory policy design processes.

Prior to joining WEAll, Amanda worked for the United Nations and the African Development Bank as an industrial policy and economic systems change expert. As a Fulbright researcher, she explored the relationship between international trade and cooperative enterprise resilience. She graduated from Cambridge University with an MPhil in Development Studies and heralds from the green mountain state of Vermont, in the USA.

Derek Walker

Previously CEO of Cwmpas, the UK’s largest co-operative development agency, he worked to support people and communities to create jobs and strengthen communities, and changed the organisation’s focus to development that meets the needs of current generations without compromising the needs of future generations.

He has also worked as Head of External Affairs at the Big Lottery Fund (Wales), as Head of Policy and Campaigns at the Wales TUC and was the first employee of Stonewall Cymru.

The previous Commissioner was Sophie Howe who took up post in 2016 and finished her term in January 2023. During her time as Commissioner, Sophie led high profile interventions around transport planning, education reform and climate change challenging the Government and others to demonstrate how they are taking account of future generations.

Described by the Big Issue Magazine as one of the UK’s leading Changemakers, Sophie's interventions helped secured fundamental changes to land use planning policy, major transport schemes and Government policy on housing - ensuring that decisions taken today are fit for the future. Sophie also represented Wales at the UN, the OECD and on a number of International Forums including Chairing the Network of Institutions for Future Generations.

Ben Geselbracht

Ben Geselbracht is a Nanaimo city councillor and Regional District director. He is currently the 2nd Vice President of the Association of Vancouver Island Coastal Communities. Ben is working with his colleagues to apply the doughnut economics framework to the city of Nanaimo’s programs and planning to guide developing a thriving city that respects the health of the whole planet and well-being of all people. Ben has worked hard in getting the Nanaimo region to adopt an ambitious target of diverting 90% of its waste from landfill by 2030 to support creating the circular economy of the future. He has since been stewarding implementation of the plan to achieve this as chair of the Nanaimo Regional Solid Waste committee. Ben believes strongly that we must address head on the challenge of climate change and that in order to do this successfully, issues of social inequity must be addressed.

Lindsay Tedds

Dr. Lindsay M. Tedds is an Associate Professor in the Department of Economics, University of Calgary.  Her primary research fields are in tax policy, public economics, and public policy design and implementation. Her transdisciplinary approach to research harnesses the strengths of economics, law, public administration, and intersectionality in the study of public policy problems. She has served on several expert panels, is the co-author and editor of a number of books, and has published a number of book chapters, technical reports, interactive guides, and papers in peer-reviewed journals.

Stan Houston

Dr. Houston graduated MD from the University of Saskatchewan and obtained qualifications in Family Medicine, Tropical Medicine, Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases. He worked in primary care in a northern Saskatchewan indigenous community and in rural Lesotho and taught for four years at the University of Zimbabwe. He participated in TB control projects in Ecuador and South Sudan for over 10 years.  He was director of the Northern Alberta HIV Program and active for many years in the development of Harm Reduction services and refugee health in Edmonton. He is a former Parkland board member.

David Swann

David Swann is a Canadian medical doctor and politician. He was the leader of the Alberta Liberal Party and Leader of the Opposition in the Alberta Legislature from December 2008 until resigning as party leader in September 2011. He returned as interim leader of the Alberta Liberal Party on February 1, 2015, following the resignation of Raj Sherman and led the party through the 2015 provincial election.