Each year, in partnership with the Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor, and Mayor of Toronto Olivia Chow, the Broadbent Institute has the honour of awarding the Jack Layton Progress Prize and Charles Taylor Prize for Excellence in Policy Research at the annual Progress Summit.
This year’s shortlist of Layton and Taylor Prize nominees represented an inspiring field of policy thinkers who have had a demonstrable impact on policy making, and activists who are organizing and achieving social change in Canada.
The Jack Layton Progress Prize
The Layton Prize is awarded annually to a Canadian individual or organization who has run a particularly noteworthy political or issue campaign, reflecting the ideals Jack Layton exemplified, including justice, sustainability and democracy.
The recipients of this year’s Layton Prize are AccessBC co-founders Devon Black and Teale Phelps Bondaroff.
As far as grassroots advocacy campaigns go, few success stories have seen the level of accomplishment reached by AccessBC. Launched by Teale Phelps Bondaroff and Devon Black in 2017, AccessBC set out to achieve free prescription contraception in British Columbia, a mandate that was achieved in April 2023.
Researcher, community organizer, and municipal councillor Dr. Teale Phelps Bondaroff served as the Chair of AccessBC since its inception, a role which has included managing day-to-day communications and administration, training new volunteers and coordinating a growing team, speaking to the press, researching and writing briefing papers, organizing meetings with MLAs, fundraising, and more. Lawyer and community organizer Devon Black has given critical communications support, drafting press releases and managing press relations, authoring messaging guides and other training materials, and mentoring new team members. As the campaign gained momentum, she also stepped into the role of National Liaison, where she helped support other nascent campaigns across the country.
The two campaigned tirelessly, enlisting the support of upwards of 80 volunteers over the years, until free prescription contraception was rolled out by the BC government in April 2023. In the first 7 months alone, nearly 200,000 BC residents were able to access prescription contraception, at no cost. Devon and Teale have also helped set up and support campaigns in Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick, and they are working to help set up campaigns in Alberta and Quebec.
Charles Taylor Prize for Excellence in Policy Research
The Taylor Prize is awarded annually to a researcher whose work has made an important contribution to policy debates relevant to building a more socially-just Canada.
The recipient of this year’s Taylor Prize is Sheila Block.
This award celebrates Sheila’s contributions as a longtime economist at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, where her work applied an intersectional approach to labour markets, public finance, and inequality. For more than three decades, Sheila equipped progressive movements with the policy analysis and ideas needed to improve the lives of Canadians. She spent her career championing ordinary Canadians, centring people in her transformative economic work.
A generous and prolific public intellectual, Sheila continues to share her economic expertise through her writing, speaking engagements, and advising. Throughout her career Sheila also worked as both a political advisor and a public servant in the Ontario government before cementing her role as an economist in the labour movement. Sheila has an Honours B.A. in Economics from the University of British Columbia and a MA in Economics from the University of Toronto.
Ellen Meiksins Wood Lecture and Award
Established by the Broadbent Institute in 2017 in honour of a distinguished author and academic, the Ellen Meiksins Wood Lecture is given annually by the recipient of the Award who is an academic, labour activist or writer recognized for outstanding contributions in political theory, social or economic thought, history, human rights, and sociology. It acknowledges Ellen’s legacy of work on the history of political thought and her deep commitment to democracy.
Awardees are chosen for work that is emblematic of Ellen’s two-fold belief that democracy is always fought for and secured from below, not conferred from above; and, that the egalitarian values of democracy are in ongoing conflict with the unequal outcomes of capitalism.
The recipient of this year’s Wood Award is Dr. Isabella Weber — for critical research on economic shocks and inflation that equip Canadian progressives with policy alternatives that push back against anti-democratic policy decisions, and help to empower workers.
The Broadbent Institute’s 2024 Ellen Meiksins Wood Lecture, delivered by the recipient of the Prize, will take place at a keynote event at Toronto Metropolitan University on Thursday, May 30th at 7pm EDT.
Tickets are available now!
The awards were announced at the 2024 Progress Summit, on April 12th in Ottawa.