Frances Abele
Broadbent Institute Research Fellow
Frances Abele is Distinguished Research Professor and Chancellor’s Professor Emerita in the School of Public Policy and Administration at Carleton University. Current research interests include Indigenous-state relations, federal policy, northern political economy, and community development, education and training. She is co-director with Satsan (Herb George) of the Rebuilding First Nations Governance project. Dr. Abele was Deputy Director of Research for the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. Raised in Alberta, she has lived in Yellowknife, Toronto, rural Quebec and Ottawa.
David Adler
Co-General Coordinator, Progressive International
David Adler is a political economist and Co-General Coordinator of the Progressive International; a political organization unites, organizes, and mobilizes progressive forces around the world. He was previously on the foreign policy advisory team for US Senator Bernie Sanders and directed policy for Yanis Varoufakis and the Democracy in Europe Movement (DiEM25).
Andrés Arauz
General Secretary, Citizen Revolution Movement (Ecuador)
Andrés Arauz is currently the General Secretary of the Citizen Revolution Movement in Ecuador, and previously served as general director of banking at Ecuador’s Central Bank and was Minister of Knowledge and Human Talent from 2015 – 2017. Arauz was a former Ecuadorian presidential candidate in the 2021 run-off election and the vice presidential candidate in the 2023 Ecuador run-off election. He is a senior research fellow with the Center for Economic and Policy Research.
Olivia Chow
Mayor of Toronto
Olivia Chow has served the people of Toronto for over three decades. Born in Hong Kong in 1957, she immigrated to Toronto with her parents at the age of 13. An apartment in the St. James Town neighbourhood was the launchpad for her remarkable personal journey as a community organizer, activist, school board trustee, Metro Toronto Councillor, Member of Parliament, and now the first person of Asian descent to serve as Mayor of Toronto, and the first woman to serve as Mayor since the six municipalities of Metro Toronto were amalgamated.
Leah Gazan
Member of Parliament for Winnipeg Centre
Leah Gazan has been the NDP Member of Parliament for Winnipeg Centre since 2019. She is currently the NDP Critic for Children, Families, and Social Development, as well as the Critic for Women and Gender Equality and Deputy Critic for Housing. Gazan is a member of Wood Mountain Lakota Nation, located in Saskatchewan, Treaty 4 territory. Prior to being elected to parliament, Gazan was a prominent leader during Idle No More, articulating the movement to the Winnipeg public. Gazan also co-founded the #WeCare campaign aimed at building public will to end violence against Indigenous women and girls.
Brandi Morin
Independent Journalist
Brandi Morin is an award-winning Cree/Iroquois/French multimedia journalist from Treaty 6 territory in Alberta. For the last 10 years Brandi has specialized in sharing Indigenous stories. In 2025, she reported for Ricochet from Ecuador about Canada’s involvement in mining and human rights violations against Indigenous Peoples. Her debut memoir Our Voice of Fire: A Memoir of a Warrior Rising, became a national bestseller within days of its August 2, 2022 release.
Amy Peng
Dean, Faculty of Arts, Toronto Metropolitan University
Dr. Amy Peng is the Dean of Arts at Toronto Metropolitan University. Prior to assuming this role, Amy was Associate Professor in the Department of Economics (since 2010), Interim Chair in the Department of History (2021), Interim Chair in the Department of Criminology (2019-2020) and Undergraduate Program Director for International Economics and Finance and the Economics and Management Science programs (2016-2019). Her dedication and effort have been recognized by receiving the Dean’s Teaching Award (2016) and the President’s Award for Teaching Excellence (2020).
Dr. Danyaal Raza
Broadbent Institute Research Fellow
Dr. Danyaal Raza is a family physician with Unity Health Toronto’s St. Michael’s Hospital, and an Assistant Professor with the University of Toronto. His writing, research and media commentary focus on health system reform, and the effects of commercial determinants on change. Dan is a past chair of Canadian Doctors for Medicare and was the founding physician lead of St. Michael’s Sumac Creek Health Centre in Toronto’s Regent Park. In addition to being a regular contributor to the Broadbent Institute as a Research Fellow and member of the editorial board of Perspectives Journal, his work can be found at danyaalraza.com.