In this episode we explore the outcomes of the federal 2025 budget.  We explore what has been announced what it means for communities, and how these decisions will shape the next five years. We’ll explore the tension between ambitious investments and rising deficits, and dig into the long-term implications for Canadians.

We'll ask our leading economists whether there will be enough generational investments to offset the costs of rising deficits.  They'll also delve into the local impacts on the city of Ottawa/Gatineau from the announced public sector reductions.

They'll go beyond the headlines to give some much needed context and talk about how the question of whether the budget delivers has a lot to do with where the money is spent.

About our guests:

Richard Forbes has been a Principal Economist on the Conference Board’s economic forecasting team since 2016. Richard plays a key role in overseeing the Conference Board’s Industry Lens and Territorial Outlook products and contributes analysis on a wide range of sectors in the Canadian economy.

Meghan Eibner is a Lead Economist for The Conference Board of Canada. Within the Economic Forecasting unit, Meghan focuses provincial, US, and International economic outlooks.

Meghan has 15 years of experience working as an economist in the private, public, non-profit, and academic sectors. She spent much of her career in Toronto conducting economic analysis on multi-billion dollar transportation projects for the Government of Ontario. Now located in St. John’s NL, Meghan worked as a policy analyst for Memorial University before joining the CBoC.

In this episode we dive into a major shift in the world of economics: the rise of high-frequency data. From job postings and air traffic stats to real-time payments and mobility trends, economists are increasingly turning to non-traditional data sources to make sense of a rapidly evolving economy.

Unlike traditional economic indicators that are released annually or quarterly, high-frequency data is collected and updated daily or even hourly. It offers a near real-time snapshot of economic activity, allowing analysts to detect shifts in employment, consumer behavior, and business sentiment as they happen. 

This kind of data has become indispensable in a world where economic conditions can change overnight, when waiting weeks for official statistics is no longer an option.

We explore why economics is shifting towards this kind of data, hear from Vicinity Jobs founder Strac Ivanov on how data is reshaping our understanding of labour markets and skills needs and discuss the future of data in economics.

About our guests:

Strac Ivanov, Founder of Vicinity Jobs and now Director, Data Analytics and Engineering at the Conference Board of Canada

Strac Ivanov is the Director of Data Analytics and Engineering at The Conference Board of Canada. In this role, he leads the technical team responsible for developing and operating the Vicinity Jobs real-time labour market information platform.

Strac founded Vicinity Jobs in 2006. Under his leadership, the company grew into Canada’s pioneering leader in real-time labour market data collection and analysis. It was then acquired by The Conference Board of Canada in 2025.

With a master’s thesis on natural language processing algorithms and more than two decades of experience in internet services and big data analytics, Strac offers both deep technical expertise and extensive industry knowledge.

Tony Bonen, Executive Director, Economic Research

Tony Bonen is the Executive Director of Economic Research at The Conference Board of Canada. In this role Tony provides strategic leadership to a dynamic team producing insightful custom analyses for CBoC’s partners. He collaborates across disciplines and Focus Areas to ensure CBOC’s economic research is meaningful for leaders across Canada.

Tony brings significant experience managing research and providing guidance on a wide range of economic issues. Prior to joining CBoC, he served as the Executive Director at the Labour Market Information Council (LMIC), building on his previous work as LMIC’s founding Director of Research, Data and Analytics. While in the risk department at the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), Tony led the development of housing price and macroeconomic forecasts used in stress testing. He analyzed the economic impacts of climate change and the US pension and retirement system at the Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis, and the economic policy and geopolitical analysis affecting member countries while at the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. 

Learn more:

Access our high-frequency labour market insights. Track job postings, skill trends, wages and more to make informed workforce planning and policy decisions. 

https://www.conferenceboard.ca/services/data/#labour-market-insights

Deficits, debts, tariffs, trade, taxes, Trump .... Sorting through the fiscal picture for the country, while never easy, has become much more complicated in 2025.  Joining us for this episode are Cory Renner, Associate Director, Economic Forecasting and Richard Forbes, Principal Economist to talk to us about Canada’s fiscal outlook. Where government spending is and where it’s going. 

We discuss the pressure to meet our promises in areas like defence and infrastructure while recognizing the pressures that come with aging populations and growing debt loads.

About our guests:

Cory Renner

Cory Renner is the Associate Director of Economic Forecasting at The Conference Board of Canada. He oversees the forecast and modelling across the Conference Board’s economic products and assists in identifying and creating new economic products for CBoC’s clients. Cory, an experienced modeller, has worked on large-scale sub-national models and simulated a broad array of economic scenarios, ranging from global demand shocks to forecasting the economic impact of climate plans, and regularly contributes to podcasts, webinars and media engagements.

Cory has assumed progressively more senior roles at The Conference Board of Canada during his seven years with the organization. He has made significant contributions to custom projects, particularly in modelling, addressing a wide range of issues from healthcare to global trade and climate change. Prior to his tenure at the Conference Board, Cory worked at Oxford Economics, where he supervised their provincial model and managed many custom contracts in Canada. 

Richard Forbes

Richard Forbes is a Principal Economist, Economic Forecasting at The Conference Board of Canada. Richard Forbes has been an economist on the Conference Board's economic forecasting team since 2016. Richard currently oversees the Conference Board's National Outlook and is responsible for the Board’s government and fiscal forecasts across the national and provincial economies.

Richard holds a Bachelor of Arts Honours degree in economics from The University of Western Ontario, as well as a master's degree in economics from McMaster University.

Some argue that market concentration in their sectors is inevitable. They say Canada’s small population, vast geography, and global competition create natural monopolies—and that protecting their dominance is necessary to build globally competitive companies.

But is that true?

In this episode, the co-authors of the book The Big Fix: How Companies Capture Markets and Harm Canadians, Denise Hearn and Vass Bednar join me to talk about the realities of competition in Canada and the steps we need to take to inject more competition into the economy. They dug into Canada’s competitive landscape and what they found may surprise you.  There are the commonly known challenges: we have three major telecommunications companies, five grocers, a few big banks, two major airlines and a train company.  But beyond these common stats, they found a competitive and corporate landscape that is reducing competition well beyond these big sectors. Concentration in half of Canadian Industries has increased by 40 per cent since 1998.

In this episode, we learn about how competition has eroded and ways in which we can begin to inject more competition into the Canadian economy.

About our guests:

Vass Bednar

Vass Bednar is the executive director of McMaster University’s Master of Public Policy program. Her work focuses on the intersections between policy and the innovation ecosystem. She is a senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation and writes the popular newsletter “regs to riches.” Vass is a contributing columnist at The Globe and Mail and the host of their podcast, Lately. She is the co-author of The Big Fix: How Companies Capture Markets and Harm Canadians with Denise Hearn. 

Denise Hearn

Denise Hearn is an author, applied researcher, and advisor who collaborates with governments, financial institutions, companies, and nonprofits on economic and climate policy and organizational strategy. She is currently a Resident Senior Fellow at the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment, at Columbia University.

Denise is co-author of The Big Fix: How Companies Capture Markets and Harm Canadians and The Myth of Capitalism: Monopolies and the Death of Competition (named one of the Financial Times’ Best Books of 2024). 

Denise’s writing has been translated into 10 languages, and featured in publications such as: The Financial Times, Bloomberg, The Globe and Mail, Stanford Social Innovation Review, and The Washington Post.

Growth is a central concept in economics.  Economies must continue to grow to generate more capital, improve labour productivity and create higher standards of living for populations. But, in 2024, the experiment in growing through a dramatic increase in our immigration levels has called into question whether too much, too fast is actually decreasing our standard of living.  At what point does rapid population growth shift from fueling prosperity to eroding the quality of life for those already living here?

In this episode, we examine how a lack of planning for growth is holding Canada back.  We also hear how neither the post-pandemic experiment in drastically increasing immigration numbers or the more recent equally drastic reductions in immigration will serve our country and its economy.  Along the way, we discuss whether Canada can effectively grow to a population of 100 million without sacrificing the life and lifestyles of all Canadians.

Our guests

• Pedro Antunes, Chief Economist from the Conference Board of Canada 
• Lisa Lalande, Chief Executive Officer of the Century Initiative.

Pedro Antunes is the Chief Economist and primary spokesperson at The Conference Board of Canada. He provides insights and general direction for the Board’s economic products, including reports and economic indicators that relate to Canada and its regions and sectors. Pedro provides media interviews in English and French as well as expert testimony before parliamentary and senate committees. He is widely sought for speaking engagements and presentations to industry leaders and decision-makers on a broad range of issues and topics that impact Canadians.

Lisa Lalande is the CEO of Century Initiative, leading efforts to secure Canada’s long-term prosperity through responsible population growth. She has shaped national conversations on immigration, housing, and childcare, and spearheaded the National Scorecard on Growth and Prosperity. Lisa previously led transformative projects at the Munk School’s Mowat Centre’s Not-for-Profit Research Hub and held leadership roles at Habitat for Humanity Canada, advancing affordable housing across the country and around the world. Her work has driven policy change, empowered decision-makers, and earned numerous accolades, including the King’s Coronation Medal for her contributions to community service and social impact.
 
Additional links:

• The Century Initiative: [https://www.centuryinitiative.ca/scorecard/home]; 
•  The Century Initiative: Growing Smarter—The case for a national smart growth strategy
• The Conference Board of Canada: Shift in Immigration Policy Goes Too Far

As we experience the hottest summer on record, reaching our Net Zero goals has become one of the most urgent challenges of our time. Canada's target is to achieve a net-zero economy—either emitting no greenhouse gases or offsetting any emissions—by 2050, with critical milestones set for 2030.

In this episode, we examine Canada’s progress toward these goals and explore how the economics of this transition will impact Canadians in various ways.

Our guests:

• Tony Bonen, Executive Director, Economic Research, The Conference Board of Canada
• John McNally, Senior Advisor, Climate and Socio-Economic Policy Research, Scotiabank Economics 

Additional links:

• Economic Impacts From Cap and Trade on Oil and Gas (CBoC)
• Economics: In-depth commentary and analysis (Scotiabank Canada)

The last four years have brought many changes to the ways in which we live, work and shop. These new habits are reshaping cities and the road to the new normal is proving very bumpy for cities across the country.  In this episode, our guests explore how cities are reinventing themselves and talk about the critical role cities and the people and businesses that comprise them form the backbone of our economy.

About our guests:

Mary W. Rowe, President and CEO, Canadian Urban Institute

Mary W. Rowe is one of Canada's leading advocates for place-based policy leadership, with a particular interest in how cities and communities across Canada and the United States foster their own economic, social, and environmental resilience. During her leadership at the Canadian Urban Institute, she has built new partnerships and platforms for city builders from the public, private and community sectors to learn and adapt to challenges in collaborative ways that catalyze sustainable, creative change.

Pedro Antunes, Chief Economist, The Conference Board of Canada

Pedro Antunes is the Chief Economist and primary spokesperson at The Conference Board of Canada. He provides insights and general direction for the Board’s economic products, including reports and economic indicators that relate to Canada and its regions and sectors. Pedro provides media interviews in English and French as well as expert testimony before parliamentary and senate committees. He is widely sought for speaking engagements and presentations to industry leaders and decision-makers on a broad range of issues and topics that impact Canadians.

Other links:

Conference Board of Canada: Cracking the Productivity Code: Charting a New Path to Prosperity

The Canadian Urban Institute is a leading organization dedicated to advancing urban solutions. CUI collaborates with city builders, researchers, and community leaders to create thriving, equitable, and sustainable urban spaces across Canada. Learn more at canurb.org today.

Looking for more like this? Check out CityTalk Live, Canada’s premier live webinar exploring what’s working, what’s not and what’s next for our cities. Produced by the Canadian Urban Institute. [citytalkcanada.ca]

The April 2024 federal budget is like game seven of a Stanley Cup playoff run for economists.  It’s a critical time when decisions on spending and taxation are made that can help or hinder our economic direction.  

In this special episode we call on various members of The Conference Board of Canada’s economic forecasting unit to help make sense of the key announcements in the budget.  Join us to hear their take on the impacts of federal budget 2024.

Everyone from the Bank of Canada to leading economists from across the country are discussing what’s at the root of Canada’s productivity challenges.  

 To help us sort through the discussion, I’m joined this episode by the Conference Board of Canada’s Director of Economic Research Tony Bonen and the Founder and Executive Director of the Centre for the Study of Living Standards (CSLS) Andrew Sharpe.

We discuss how we should understand productivity and why it’s important for it to improve.  Near the end of the episode we hear about new research from the Conference Board of Canada linking skills to our productivity challenges.  We’ll hear that Tony thinks this is a promising new avenue—in part because there are many levers that the government can use to support skills development.

About our guests:

Tony Bonen is the Director of Economic Research at The Conference Board of Canada. In this role Tony provides strategic leadership to a dynamic team producing insightful custom analyses for the Board’s partners.

Tony brings significant experience managing research and providing guidance on a wide range of economic issues. Prior to joining the Board, he served as the Executive Director at the Labour Market Information Council (LMIC), building on his previous work as LMIC’s founding Director of Research, Data and Analytics. While in the risk department at the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), Tony led the development of housing price and macroeconomic forecasts used in stress testing. He analyzed the economic impacts of climate change and the US pension and retirement system at the Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis, and the economic policy and geopolitical analysis affecting member countries while at the NATO Parliamentary Assembly.

Andrew Sharpe is founder and Executive Director of the Ottawa-based Centre for the Study of Living Standards (CSLS). Established in 1995, CSLS is a national, independent, non-profit research organization. Its main objectives are to study trends and determinants of productivity, living standards and economic well-being and to develop policy recommendations to improve the lives of Canadians. He has held a variety of earlier positions, including Head of Research at the Canadian Labour Market and Productivity Centre and Chief, Business Sector Analysis at the Department of Finance. He holds a M.A. and Ph.D in economics from McGill University, a maitrise in urban geography from the Université de Paris-Sorbonne, and a B.A. from the University of Toronto. He is also founder and Editor of the International Productivity Monitor and Executive Director of the International Association for Research on Income and Wealth, an international research association dedicated to the advancement of knowledge relating to income and wealth.

In this episode, we delve into the minds of CEOs, exploring their concerns and insights as revealed in the 25th edition of the C-Suite survey conducted by The Conference Board. Our guests, Dana Peterson, Chief Economist, The Conference Board and Pedro Antunes, Chief Economist, The Conference Board of Canada provide a comprehensive analysis of the survey results, shedding light on the external and internal risks preoccupying global, US, and Canadian business leaders.

About our guests:

Pedro Antunes is the Chief Economist and primary spokesperson at The Conference Board of Canada. He provides insights and general direction for the Board’s economic products, including reports and economic indicators that relate to Canada and its regions and sectors. Pedro provides media interviews in English and French as well as expert testimony before parliamentary and senate committees. He is widely sought for speaking engagements and presentations to industry leaders and decision-makers on a broad range of issues and topics that impact Canadians.

Dana M Peterson is the Chief Economist and Leader of the Economy, Strategy & Finance Center at The Conference Board. Prior to this, she served as a North America Economist and later as a Global Economist at Citi, the world’s largest investment bank. Her wealth of experience extends to the public sector, having also worked at the Federal Reserve Board in Washington, D.C.

Additional resources:
C-Suite Outlook 2024: Leading for Tomorrow
https://www.conference-board.org/publications/C-Suite-Outlook-2024-leading-for-tomorrow

https://www.conferenceboard.ca/focus-areas/canadian-economics/