Pedro Antunes, Harvey Bischof and Jon Erlichman

The Conference Board of Canada’s Chief Economist, Pedro Antunes, and the President of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation, OSSTF, Harvey Bischof in conversation with Jon Erlichman, Senior Anchor, BNN Bloomberg will launch and discuss a new economic report on education entitled The Economic Case for Investing in Education at this Empire Club of Canada event.

In 2019, Ontario’s education sector has been experiencing significant transformation. And that’s why this new re port analyzing the impact that investment in education has on Ontario’s economy, is so important and timely.

The report to be released June 19, will be authored by the Conference board of Canada and has been commissioned by OSSTF. All attendees will receive a copy.

Pedro Antunes, Chief Economist, The Conference Board of Canada

Pedro Antunes manages a team of talented economists in producing medium and long term economic forecasts along with economic indicators and reports. He delivers presentations on these forecasts to clients and the public and is often cited in the media.

Pedro joined The Conference Board of Canada as an economist in 1991, after working with the Canadian Forecasting Group at the Bank of Canada. He has moved progressively into more senior positions. Prior to his current role, Pedro was Deputy Chief Economist of our National and Provincial forecast team, and was responsible for custom research work and economic analysis.

In addition to the regular forecast publications, Pedro has been researching the impact of demographic change on the fiscal sustainability of health care, productivity, and long term economic growth. He has contributed to several international projects, helping decision makers in Tunisia, Morocco, Jordan and Ukraine develop appropriate forecasting and policy analysis tools.

Harvey Bischof, President, Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation

Harvey Bischof is an English teacher from Durham and is the President of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation, OSSTF, FEESO.

Harvey grew up in Pickering, Ontario where he attended elementary and high school. He earned a Bachelor of Arts, Honours, degree from Trent University, and a Masters of Arts and Bachelor of Education degree at Queen’s University. He returned to the Durham area to teach English at Henry Street High School and then at Exeter High School.

Harvey served as the local OSSTF District 13 Durham Chief Negotiator and President before his election to the Provincial Executive in 2007 as an Executive Officer. In 2011, Harvey was elected as a provincial Vice President, and then as President in 2017.

Harvey believes strongly in evidence informed practice in education and evidence based decision making in public policy. He is a vocal advocate for a strong publicly funded education system with inclusive, full service schools that offer robust and accessible supports for all students. An accomplished labour negotiator, he is also a coalition builder who has forged strong alliances within the labour movement at the provincial, national and international levels. Harvey is often sought out by the media as an articulate and authoritative voice on education issues in Ontario.

Jon Erlichman, Senior Anchor, BNN Bloomberg and Correspondent, Anchor, CTV National News

Jon Erlichman anchors BNN Bloomberg’s morning program, The Open, which airs between 8:30 to 11 a.m. ET on weekdays. Erlichman is also a correspondent and fill in anchor for CTV National News, as well as a fill in anchor for Bloomberg’s global program Bloomberg Markets and a contributor to CTV’s Your Morning.

Additionally, he hosts Sidelines on BNN Bloomberg and CTV. Erlichman can also be heard on iHeartRadio’s BNN Bloomberg Radio and Montreal’s No. 1 morning show, The Andrew Carter Morning Show, as well as Newstalk’s 1010 Moore in the Morning.

Erlichman has a background as a scoop oriented reporter, an accomplished interviewer of top global CEOs and a digital innovator. He rejoined BNN in March 2016. He previously spent nearly a decade with the channel, including helping with its launch in 1999, when it was known as ROBTV.

Since his return, he has helped to break multiple stories for BNN Bloomberg and CTV. In February 2017, Erlichman was first to report exclusive details of the planned meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and leading women executives at the White House. He also authored an in depth piece on the fast growing artificial intelligence industry, called Better than humans: Vanguards of the AI arms race.

On BNN Bloomberg’s Sidelines, which also airs on CTV, Erlichman has interviewed athletes such as Connor McDavid, Tony Parker, Danica Patrick and Georges St Pierre, along with entertainers such as Robert DeNiro, Ice Cube, Dan Aykroyd and Charli XCX.

Erlichman previously served as a correspondent for ABC News in Los Angeles. Beginning in September 2014, he covered high profile stories for the network, such as the cyber attack at Sony Pictures, Harrison Ford’s plane crash, and the Ebola crisis in Dallas.

Erlichman also spent more than six years working for Bloomberg Television. He joined the U.S. network in June 2008, as a New York based anchor and reporter, covering the financial markets. During the financial crisis, he routinely reported from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Erlichman also helped spearhead Bloomberg Television’s coverage of General Motors’ bankruptcy, the Bernie Madoff fraud case, and the SEC’s case against Goldman Sachs. He interviewed leading investors, such as David Einhorn, Tom Barrack, Tom Marsico Alec Gores, Michael Burry and Barry Rosenstein and provided daily commentary on Bloomberg Radio. Stories Jon broke included Mark Cuban’s planned sale of Landmark Cinemas and Lions Gate’s attempts to reduce Carl Icahn’s stake in the company.

In November 2011, Erlichman relocated to San Francisco to help lead Bloomberg Television’s Silicon Valley coverage and join the the daily program, Bloomberg Technology. In that role, he interviewed many media and tech leaders, including Barry Diller, Jimmy Iovine, Daniel Ek, Brian Roberts, Tim Westergren, John Donahoe, Ev Williams, Dennis Crowley, Jonah Peretti, Pixar co founder Ed Catmull and Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman. He reported live from the launch of numerous Apple product events, Facebook headquarters on the day of the company’s initial public offering and from Twitter headquarters during its IPO. In coordination with Bloomberg News, Jon broke stories like Twitter’s internal goal of reaching $1 billion in revenue, Zynga’s planned secondary offering, Motorola’s planned edge to edge phone, Siri co founder Adam Cheyer’s departure from Apple. In 2013, Erlichman helped create Bloomberg’s first West Coast technology conference, the Next Big Thing Summit.

Erlichman relocated to Los Angeles in July 2013 to further establish Bloomberg Television’s West Coast presence. In that role, he routinely broke news and interviewed top entertainment industry players, including Brian Grazer, Jerry Bruckheimer, Michael Eisner, Ron Howard, David Zaslav, Jon Favreau, Vince Gilligan, Bob Odenkirk, Frozen Directors Jennifer Lee and Chris Buck, Fox’s Jim Gianopulos, will.i.am, Kobe Brant, Robert Rodriguez, Maleficent Producer Joe Roth, Jim Dolan, Irving Azoff, Mike Medavoy, Ryan Kavanaugh, Haim Saban, and BlackBerry CEO John Chen. Erlichman reported extensively on the future of film and television and hosted Bloomberg’s Business of Entertainment events, featuring guests like Disney’s Alan Horn and Netflix’s Ted Sarandos. The events were sponsored by Bloomberg and the Tribeca Film Festival. He also appeared daily on the Bloomberg Radio show Taking Stock.

Along with breaking news on Microsoft’s hiring of Satya Nadella as CEO, he was first to report on AMC’s interest in acquiring BBC America, Time Warner’s interest in Fullscreen, CBS’s interest in CNN, Twitter’s hiring of a head of commerce, Xbox Studios slate of original shows, Buzzfeed’s expected 2014 sales of $120 million, Vice Media’s consideration of an IPO, Roku’s consideration of an IPO, Guggenheim’s investment in House of Cards creator Media Rights Capital, Jeff Gaspin and Jon Klein’s launch of the digital platform TAPP, and the launch of the New Form digital studio by Ron Howard, Brian Grazer and Discovery Communications.

Erlichman has also written columns and articles for Fortune Magazine and The Wrap, and worked as a tech correspondent for the U.S. cable channel HLN, Headline News.

Beyond his traditional news experience, Erlichman is passionate about digital media. He served as a news advisor to Disney-owned Maker Studios, helping to launch news partnerships with ABC News. In August 2015, Erlichman helped launch Parachute TV, the first live streaming TV channel on Twitter’s Periscope app. Parachute won Digital Entertainment World’s 2016 startup award, after reaching more than one million live viewers and launching more than 50 shows a week, with more than 100 top Periscope creators. Erlichman, who has more than 100,000 followers across all social media platforms, was profiled by AdWeek in its September 2015 cover story Meet The Newest Live streaming Stars Every Brand Should Know About. Business Insider also named him one of the 100 Tech People You Have To Follow On Twitter.

Erlichman frequently serves as a moderator and MC at events such as the Top 40 Under 40, CEO of The Year, Tribeca Film Festival, The Wrap’s TheGrill conference, and NATPE Miami gatherings.

Erlichman majored in Economics at Huron College at the University of Western Ontario, graduating summa cum laude. He was the gold medalist for his outstanding academic performance.

Erlichman is based in Toronto, where he lives with his two daughters and his wife, actor and entrepreneur, Caroline Lesley.