Understanding and Addressing Canada’s Affordability Challenges

Claude Lavoie is a former Director General of Economic and Fiscal Policy at Finance Canada, where he provided economic analysis and advice to the Minister of Finance. Previously, he headed the Canadian forecasting and modelling group at the Bank of Canada, advising the Governor on monetary policy. He has represented Canada at the OECD and published extensively on economic policy. He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in economics from Laval University.

Shaimaa Yassin is Senior Research Director at the Institute for Research on Public Policy (IRPP), where she leads the Toward a More Equitable Canada research program and the Affordability Action Council. A labour economist, her research focuses on affordability, access to basic needs, labour markets, income and economic participation. She has more than 15 years of research and policy experience and holds a PhD in economics from Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne.

Armine Yalnizyan is the Atkinson Fellow on the Future of Workers. She is also the Vice President of the Canadian Association for Business Economics. Among other roles, she is a co-founder of the Care Economy Project and a former senior economic policy advisor to the federal Deputy Minister of Employment and Social Development Canada. Her work focuses on economic inequality, labour markets, worker bargaining power, demographic change and the care economy. She was awarded the 2023 Galbraith Prize in Economics.