Policy Priorities to Improve Canadian Living Standards

Stephen Tapp is the CEO and Chief Economist at CSLS. He previously served as Chief Economist and SVP of Research, Data and Analytics at the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, where he launched and managed the Business Data Lab. Stephen is the President of the Canadian Association for Business Economics and a member of the Canadian Statistics Advisory Council.

He has 25 years of diverse experience at many of Canada’s top economic organizations, including Export Development Canada as the Deputy Chief Economist, the Bank of Canada, Parliamentary Budget Office, Finance Canada, academia, as well as think tanks, such as the Institute for Research on Public Policy and the C.D. Howe Institute.

Stephen’s research was awarded the Purvis prize for Canadian economic policy and has been published in academic journals, including the Canadian Journal of Economics and Canadian Public Policy. He has a Ph.D. and M.A. in Economics from Queen’s University and an Honours B.A. in Economics with Distinction from Western University.

Alison Loat is a CIGI board member and a senior managing director at a Canadian public pension plan, where she leads the fund’s climate change program. Previously the senior managing director of Focusing Capital on the Long Term (FCLT) Global and a manager at McKinsey & Company, Alison co-founded the Samara Centre for Democracy. She is the co-author of the bestseller Tragedy in the Commons and has 20 years of board experience in public, private, and non-profit organizations. She received both the Queen’s Gold and Diamond Jubilee Medals for her service to Canada and holds degrees from Queen’s University and the Harvard Kennedy School.