Post-Budget Breakfast 2024

Hear insights from:

The Honourable Jenna Sudds, Minister of Families, Children and Social Development
 

The Honourable Jenna Sudds was first elected as the Member of Parliament for Kanata-Carleton in 2021. She has previously served as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Women and Gender Equality and Youth.

Minister Sudds has worked as an economist, a municipal councillor, and a community advocate.

From 2018 to 2021, Minister Sudds served on the Ottawa City Council. During this time, she chaired the City's Community and Protective Services Committee and held the role of Deputy Mayor starting in 2020. She also sat on the boards of Hydro Ottawa and Invest Ottawa. As city councillor, she worked to protect green spaces, improve local infrastructure and transit, and support the community's economic recovery during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Before entering politics, Minister Sudds was the Executive Director of the CIO Strategy Council, a national technology forum, and the President and Executive Director of the Kanata North Business Association. She also worked as a senior economist for the Government of Canada for over 10 years, focusing her expertise on the taxation of multi-national corporations and tax avoidance.

Minister Sudds has been an active member of her community for many years, volunteering with the Kanata Food Cupboard and Ottawa Network for Education. She has received a Special Recognition Award from the Kanata Food Cupboard for her leadership and service to those in need in the community. She received a 40 under 40 Award from the Ottawa Business Journal and the Ottawa Chamber of Commerce in 2015, and was named one of Development Counsellors International's Top 40 under 40 working in economic development in 2017.

Minister Sudds holds a Bachelor in Economics from Brock University and a Master of Arts in Economics from Carleton University. She is a long-time resident of Ottawa, where she lives with her husband and their three daughters.

Kelly Rhodenizer, Vice President, Commercial & Multi-Family Development, Regional Group

As VP of Commercial & Multi-Family Development, Kelly is responsible for every aspect of developing Regional Group’s pipeline assets. Working closely with Regional’s internal teams, she manages the entire process from planning through construction, leasing, and liaising with project stakeholders.

Prior to joining Regional, Kelly was the Senior Development Manager at Colonnade BridgePort, where she managed development assets ranging from 2,000 sqft retail PAD, to 25-storey mixed-use projects. Kelly has been working within the greater Ottawa area since 2005 as a Land Use Planner and Developer.

She is a BOMA representative on the Ottawa City Hall Development Review Subcommittee, and a founding member of Women in Land Development (WILD). She is a graduate of Western University – with a Bachelor of Science degree in Geography.

Heather Scoffield is senior vice-president of strategy at the Business Council of Canada, focused on collaborating with business leaders and policymakers to find practical solutions to the economic challenges of our time: climate, competitiveness and the constantly changing workforce.

Previously, Heather was the Ottawa bureau chief and economics columnist at the Toronto Star where her writing focused on political economy and its effect on people. She was also the Ottawa bureau chief for The Canadian Press, leading an award-winning team of 15 journalists focused on politics, public policy and the nation's capital.

Over the course of her 30-year career in journalism, she covered monetary and fiscal policy, economics, trade policy, social policy, aboriginal affairs, environment and energy, and several different political parties. Before joining CP in 2009, she spent 12 years at the Globe and Mail. She and her team won several National Newspaper Awards for their work, among other recognitions. Heather has a Master's degree in journalism from the University of Western Ontario and a BA in international relations from York University. She lives in Gatineau, QC. 

Stephen Tapp, Chief Economist, Canadian Chamber of Commerce

Stephen Tapp is the Chief Economist at the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. In this role, he is a key member of the Chamber's executive leadership team, responsible for the operations of the Business Data Lab as well as economic analysis and research. His focus is on developing the Chamber's data and analytics capabilities to provide real-time, forward-looking insights for Canadian businesses of all sizes, in all sectors and regions of the country.

Stephen brings over 20 years of diverse experiences at many of Canada's top economic organizations including at: Export Development Canada as the Deputy Chief Economist, the Bank of Canada, Parliamentary Budget Office, Finance Canada, two think tanks as well as academia.
 

He is a recognized thought leader on economic issues in Canada. Stephen's research was awarded the Purvis prize for Canadian economic policy and has been published in academic journals, such as the Canadian Journal of Economics and Canadian Public Policy. He has a Ph.D. and M.A. in Economics from Queens University and an Honors B.A from Western. During his undergrad, he studied in the Netherlands and was the owner-operator of a student painting company.

Founder, Lead Researcher & Executive Chair. Generation Squeeze

Dr. Paul Kershaw is an award-winning tenured professor at the University of British Columbia, public speaker, regular media contributor and Founder of Generation Squeeze.

Paul received the UBC President’s Award for Public Education through the Media in 2023, and the 2016 award for Academic of the Year from the Confederation of University Faculty Associations of BC.  He has been honoured twice by the Canadian Political Science Association with national prizes for his gender and politics research. Paul and the Gen Squeeze team received BC Housing Central's Affordable Housing Champion award in 2017, and the Government of Canada 2018 award for excellence in moving 'Knowledge to Action' on housing. 

Paul’s work has contributed directly to historic investments in $10 a day child care across Canada, the first ever tax on empty homes in North America, eliminating limitless rent increases in Ontario for units built before 2019, changes to municipal zoning, approval of dozens of new rental housing developments facing NIMBY’ism, a shift in BC to reduce income taxes by taxing unhealthy home prices more, and the first-ever reporting of age trends in federal public finance. Paul and Gen Squeeze also successfully led the Intergenerational Climate Coalition to intervene in Saskatchewan, Ontario and Supreme Courts to defend the constitutionality of pricing pollution on the grounds it is needed to promote population health and intergenerational equity.

Paul is a policy professor in the UBC School of Population and Public Health, and Director of the UBC Masters of Public Health program.

Christian von Donat, Vice-President, Government Relations and Strategy, Impact Public Affairs                                                                                                                                        

Christian has extensive experience working in the public sector across Canada, with a proven track record of delivering results. He is a well-travelled strategist, having led Federal, Provincial, Municipal, and internal campaigns both politically and on behalf of his clients. He regularly leads strategic development, policy development, liaises with national and local media, builds successful advocacy campaigns, and furthers stakeholder relationships.

Christian worked for several years at both Queen’s Park in Toronto and at Parliament in Ottawa. In this time, he specialized in strategy and communications, public policy development, navigating the legislative process, and stakeholder engagement. He has built key relationships for clients with both senior political stakeholders and relevant media, as well as led policy development for the federal and provincial governments.

Christian's experience has given him the opportunity to engage and develop relationships with every provincial government across Canada, with a specific focus on Alberta, the Prairies, Ontario and Atlantic Canada.

Christian graduated from Western University with a Bachelor of Arts with combined Honours in Political Science and German Language and Literature. He holds an MBA from Cornell University as well as an MBA from Queens University.

Contact:  Christian@impactcanada.com