Adam Giambrone

Toronto City Councillor, Ward 18, Davenport

Adam Giambrone is a Toronto City Councillor representing Ward 18, Davenport. A lifelong resident of Davenport, Adam was first elected to public office in 2003, after years of community activism and local involvement. At 29 years old, he is a politician, archaeologist, and the youngest member of Toronto City Council.

Adam’s greatest passion is his constituency work. A progressive councillor with a strong belief in open and accessible government, Adam began his first term by fulfilling his campaign promise to open a constituency office in Ward 18. Located at 1232 College St., the office provides easy access to city services in many languages, including French, Portuguese, Italian, Arabic, Vietnamese, Mandarin, and Cantonese. He has conducted dozens of consultations on issues like improved transit and the city budget to ensure that members of the community have an opportunity to speak with their City Councillor. His work in Davenport has ensured hundreds of thousands of dollars in new infrastructure, including traffic calming measures, new development in parks, and neighbourhood streetscaping.

Adam’s vision for the city extends beyond Ward 18. As a TTC Commissioner, and recently as Chair of the Toronto Transit Commission, Adam has ambitious goals for increasing TTC ridership and improving service. He served as Chair of the city’s Working Group, the Meeting Management Initiative, whose task was to design a more open and effective City Council. As Chair of the Toronto Cycling Committee, Adam has fought for new funding, and ensured that cycling stays on the city agenda. As Vice-Chair of the Public Works and Infrustructure Committee, Adam has helped to develop solutions to Toronto’s mounting garbage problem, and promote recycling and organic collection. He serves on a number of other committees and boards, including the e-City Committee, the Board of Exhibition Place, and Toronto French Committee.

In addition to his work as a City Councillor, Adam served as Federal President of the New Democratic Party of Canada from 2001 - 2006. He is a regular guest panelist on Canadian radio and television, speaking on issues that affect all levels of government, in both official languages.

Fluent in French and Arabic, Adam Giambrone completed his B.A. in Anthropology and African Studies from McGill University, and continued on to graduate studies at the University of Toronto. As a young community activist and leader, Adam was vice-president of his OPSEU local at the Royal Ontario Museum. His work as an archaeologist has taken him to Libya, Sudan, Tunisia, Yemen, Uganda, and Guatemala.

Judith L. MacBride-King
Principal, MacBride-King and Associates

With almost two decades of research and facilitation experience in human resources management, Judith MacBride-King is a recognized expert in the human resources and management fields.   Up until very recently she was the Director of Human Resources Management Research and Director of Research and Strategic Initiatives at The Conference Board of Canada.   In August 31, 2005, after a successful career at the Conference Board, she left the organization to pursue consulting, speaking/facilitation, and research opportunities. 

While at the Conference Board, Judith had responsibility for the organization’s executive networks, meetings and research programs in three areas relating to human resources – strategic human resources management, organizational learning and development, and building effective work environments.    

An accomplished researcher, Judith has authored several reports and articles (both published and unpublished) in the areas of organizational effectiveness, human resources and health and health care.  Judith is co-author of the landmark study, Building Tomorrow’s Public Service Today:  Challenges and Solutions in Recruitment and Retention, and she was the project manager and reviewer for What to Do Before the Well Runs Dry:  Managing Scarce Skills, a similar study carried out in the private sector.  For the past several years, she has been acknowledged for her ground breaking research in Who’s Who in Canada.

Under her leadership, the Conference Board undertook leading-edge research in the areas of employee engagement, talent management and leadership effectiveness.  Two core “outlook” products she launched just prior to leaving the Conference Board have recently come to fruition through the publication of the Board’s first biennial Human Resources Outlook report –  The Strategic Value of People:  Human Resource Trends and Metrics (July 2006), and its first biennial Diversity Outlook (November 2006).

Judith has made well over 150 keynote and sessional presentations on demographic, social and labour force changes and the implications of these changes for Canadian employers.  She has presented on and provided advice to leaders in both the private and public sectors on a broad array of organizational and public policy issues.  Her audiences have included CEOs, Members of Parliament, Deputy Ministers (federal and provincial levels of government), as well as executives, managers and staff in private and public sector organizations across the country. 

Through her pioneering research and her presentations at various conferences, meetings and executive retreats, Judith has been instrumental in raising awareness across the country of the importance within organizations and in the country of developing solid talent management practices. 

Some examples of her most recent research and consulting activities include the development of a Labour Market Development Strategy for a large employer in Nunavut, supporting the Government of Manitoba in a major survey of employers on recruiting and retaining employees, and several projects related to leveraging the talents of Canada’s increasingly diverse population.  She is currently assisting a large international firm based in London, England in the development of tools to enhance the recruitment and retention of diverse executive talent.

Judith is active in her community.  She is on the Board of Directors of the Vision Awards – an award celebrating HR excellence in her community, and she is a Member of the Steering Committee and Research Chair for the Community Foundation of Ottawa’s project Vital Signs – an initiative which measures Ottawa’s socio-economic performance.

Dr. Patrik Marier

Canada Research Chair in Public Policy

Dr. Marier's current research focuses on challenges to the welfare state, the impact of population ageing on public policy, and the elaboration and transformation of fiscal policies. He holds the Canada Research Chair in Comparative Public Policy, which focuses mainly on the policy challenges surrounding population ageing. He has also received both a SSHRC and a FQRSC grant to pursue his work on pension reform in other OECD countries such as Canada, Germany, and the USA. Dr. Marier is also working in a project analysing the role of labour unions in Mexican pension reforms with Dr. Mayer.

Areas of Expertise
Comparative public policy, Welfare State, Social Policy, Pension Policy, European Politics, EU Politics, Ageing.

Selected Publications
Book

• Marier, Patrik (forthcoming). Pension Reform: A Comparative Analysis. London: Routledge.

Peer Reviewed Journals

• Béland, Daniel and Patrik Marier (2006). The Politics of Protest Avoidance: Labor Mobilization and Social Policy Reform in France. Mobilization, 11(3): 297-311.
• Marier, Patrik (2005). Where did the Bureaucrats Go? Role and Influence of the Public Bureaucracy in the Swedish and French pension reform debate. Governance, 18(4): 521-544.
• Mayer, Jean F. and Patrik Marier. (2005) “Unions and Pension Reforms in Mexico: The Impact of Democratic Governance”, in Journal of Iberian and Latin American Studies, 11(2): 29-52. 
•  Hallerberg, Mark and Patrik Marier (2004). Executive Authority, the Personal Vote, and Budget Authority in Latin America and Caribbean Countries. American Journal of Political Science, 48(3): 571-587. 

Suzanne Millar (Session Moderator)
City of Toronto

Suzanne Millar is currently employed by the City Clerk’s Office with the City of Toronto.  She is a member of the Meeting Management Initiative, a major change project with the ambitious goal of ensuring the City's decision-making process is as open and transparent as possible.  After living abroad in Germany and Ireland and travelling the world, she decided to return to Canada to pursue a “real” career, much to her parents’ relief.   She went on to do a Master of Public Administration from the Queen’s School of Policy Studies and has been working for the City of Toronto ever since.  She is the Head of Fundraising and Treasurer on the Mind the Gap Planning Committee.

Inspector Sandy Thomas
Manager, Ontario Provincial Police Recruitment Section, Career Development Bureau

Inspector Sandy Thomas is the Manager of the Uniform Recruitment Section of the Ontario Provincial Police, having achieved the rank of Inspector in April 2006.

During her 23-year career with the Ontario Provincial Police, Inspector Thomas has held a number of challenging and diverse positions including:

• 10 years of front-line policing with the Perth Detachment
• Uniform Recruiter
• Manager, OPP Quality Assurance Unit
• Manager, Policy Section of the Operational Research and Development Bureau
• Executive Officer for the Deputy Commissioner of Strategic Services Command

Inspector Thomas received her Bachelor of Arts Degree from McMaster University, majoring in Political Science, and has obtained Certificates in General Police Studies and Advanced Police Studies from the University of Western Ontario and in Policing and the Law of Human Rights from Dalhousie University.  She is a strong advocate of continuous learning, having successfully completing several university and college management courses.

In 1997, Inspector Thomas was awarded the Ginette Hince Memorial Award for Recruitment Excellence and in 1998 she was awarded the OPP Eric Nystedt Memorial Award for fitness in the female category.

Inspector Thomas is the proud mom of eight-year old Jessica, who, in her opinion, has been the most rewarding, fulfilling, and challenging job she has undertaken yet.

Inspector Thomas is committed to ensuring the success of the OPP’s recruitment initiatives.  She welcomes the opportunity to discuss challenges faced by the OPP in attracting qualified applicants who are as diverse as the communities it serves and addressing the importance of modifying traditional recruitment approaches, changing demographics and an increasingly competitive workforce environment.