The Canadian Standard of Living, Productivity and Innovation: Challenges and Opportunities for Canada's Standard of Living

Wednesday, May 13, 2026 5:00 PM - 7:30 PM EDT (UTC–04:00)
Public Event: Signature Lecture
May
13
Productivity-lecture2-eventbrite (1)

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.

About the lecture series:

The Canadian Standard of Living, Productivity and Innovation lecture series, sponsored by Savvas Chamberlain and presented by 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.

Event Speakers

Anil Arora is a CIGI board member, adjunct lecturer at Harvard Kennedy School and former chief statistician of Statistics Canada where 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 dedicated his professional career to partnering with the business sector, academia and all orders of government.

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 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 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.