Challenges and Opportunities for Canada's Standard of Living

Productivity, innovation adoption and standard of living are intrinsically linked. Due to lagging productivity for almost 50 years, Canada’s standard of living has dramatically declined — a trend felt by individuals, communities and businesses across the country.

The second lecture of The Canadian Standard of Living, Productivity and Innovation series will be delivered by Anil Arora, CIGI board member and former chief statistician of Statistics Canada. He will examine factors affecting the country's standard of living, highlighting both barriers to progress and pathways for advancing long-term prosperity.

This hybrid event will offer practical insights, networking opportunities and actionable ideas for improving Canada's productivity and prosperity. Attendees will benefit from Anil’s expert perspective during the one-hour lecture, followed by discussion from a special guest and closing remarks from Savvas Chamberlain.

In-person attendees are invited to arrive at 5:00 p.m. for networking and refreshments. The lecture will begin promptly at 5:45 p.m. for online and in-person attendees.

The Canadian Standard of Living, Productivity and Innovation lecture series, sponsored by Savvas Chamberlain and presented by the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), brings together CEOs, financiers, manufacturers, policy makers and influencers, empowering them to champion the adoption of innovation — a critical step in reversing Canada’s productivity decline.

Each lecture will feature a keynote presentation from a distinguished global or Canadian speaker, followed by a forward-looking discussion focused on practical pathways for change, highlighting how individual, institutional and policy choices can shape Canada’s long-term economic performance and prosperity.

Anil Arora

Anil Arora is a CIGI board member, adjunct lecturer at Harvard Kennedy School and former chief statistician of Statistics Canada. As chief statistician, he led the modernization of Statistic Canada’s digital governance, technical and data infrastructure. He also co-authored and helped steer the Government of Canada’s data strategy.

Anil has dedicated his professional career to partnering with the business sector, academia and all orders of government. Anil has advised CEOs, prime ministers, cabinet ministers, premiers and deputy ministers, and led business missions internationally. With significant experience in the private and public sectors, as well as in leading influential international fora, he has helped shape the data and digital landscape domestically and globally.

Anil has led large and complex organizations with multi-billion-dollar budgets and tens of thousands of employees, earning numerous accolades, including being named Outstanding Innovator (2023), and one of the Top 25 Immigrants in Canada (2022). He holds a B.Sc. from the University of Alberta and is a graduate of both the Certificate Program in Public Sector Leadership and Governance from the University of Ottawa and the Advanced Leadership Program at the Canada School of Public Service.

Savvas Chamberlain

Savvas Chamberlain, C.M., FRSC, is a renowned physicist, inventor, entrepreneur and philanthropist whose work helped shape Canada’s digital imaging industry. A distinguished professor emeritus at the University of Waterloo, he pioneered advances in MOSFET (metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor) and CCD (charge-coupled device) technology and invented key silicon image sensors that established Canada’s leadership in digital imaging. He founded and led DALSA Corporation and is founder and CEO of EXEL Research Inc. He is a member of the Order of Canada and a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.

Denise Hearn

Denise Hearn is the director of strategic initiatives at the Long Now Foundation, an organization dedicated to inspiring long-term thinking to preserve possibilities for the future.

She is also an author, applied researcher, and advisor on economic policy and planetary-aligned governance. She is currently a fellow at the Berggruen Institute researching nature-related data governance. Her advisory work with governments, financial institutions, companies, and nonprofits has focused on economic policy, market regulation, and organizational strategy.

Denise is co-author of The Big Fix: How Companies Capture Markets and Harm Canadians (2024) commissioned by McGill University, and of The Myth of Capitalism: Monopolies and the Death of Competition – named one of the Financial Times’ Best Books of 2018. Denise’s work has been endorsed by Nobel prize-winning economists, former governors of central banks, and has been translated into 12 languages. Her work has been featured in The Financial Times, Bloomberg, The Globe and Mail, Stanford Social Innovation Review, The Washington Post, and many others.

She has spoken at venues globally including, The Oxford Union, Goethe Institute, Hong Kong Foreign Correspondent’s Club, International Women’s Forum, and leading global financial institutions, among others.

Denise has an MBA from the Oxford Saïd Business School and a BA in international studies from Baylor University.

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