Senior Fellows
Tom Adams
Senior Fellow
Tom Adams is an independent energy and environmental advisor. MORE...
He has held a variety of senior responsibilities including Executive Director of Energy Probe from 1996 until 2007, membership on the Ontario Independent Electricity Market Operator Board of Directors, and membership on the Ontario Centre for Excellence for Energy Board of Management. He has been a media commentator for over 20 years. His guest columns have appeared in most major Canadian newspapers. He has been a lecturer in energy studies at University of Toronto and has published several peer-reviewed papers in a range of fields. He has presented expert testimony before many regulatory tribunals in Canada on gas and electricity-related subjects. He has made presentations to Legislative Committees in Ontario and New Brunswick, academic, regulatory and trade conferences, the Atomic Energy Control Board, and the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. His profile appears in the Canadian Who’s Who.
Frank Atkins
Senior Fellow
Frank Atkins recently retired as Associate Professor of Economics from the University of Calgary. MORE...
Dr. Atkins spent two years at the Bank of Canada as an Economic Analyst. In 1981, he left the Bank of Canada to further his studies in economics at Queen’s University. Dr. Atkins then joined University of Calgary where he taught for more than 30 years. During his tenure, Dr. Atkins had the privilege of supervising the Master of Arts (Economics) thesis of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. As well as publishing many articles in leading economic journals, Dr. Atkins is a frequent commentator on macroeconomics and policy issues for the major national networks.Dr. Atkins then joined University of Calgary where he taught for more than 30 years. During his tenure, Dr. Atkins had the privilege of supervising the Master of Arts (Economics) thesis of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. As well as publishing many articles in leading economic journals, Dr. Atkins is a frequent commentator on macroeconomics and policy issues for the major national networks.
Mary-Jane Bennett
Senior Fellow
Mary-Jane Bennett is a Senior Fellow at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy. MORE...
Ms. Bennett is a lawyer and an established transportation consultant. She began her career with the Ontario Ministry of Justice and has since practiced law in Manitoba and British Columbia. In 1997, Bennett received an appointment by the Governor in-Council to the newly formed Canadian Transportation Agency where she was involved in a broad range of transportation issues, including grain freight issues. Mary-Jane Bennett served as a Board Member with the Canadian Transportation Agency from 1998 to 2007.
Wendell Cox
Senior Fellow
Wendell Cox is a Senior Fellow with the Frontier Centre for Public Policy with expertise in housing affordability and municipal policy. MORE...
In addition, Wendell is Principal of Demographia, an international consultancy based in St. Louis, Missouri specializing in regional and municipal housing policy and related planning issues. The leading global authority on housing affordability and municipal policy, Wendell is co-author of the annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Index, which receives more than 1.3 million unique downloads each year. A former member of the Los Angeles Transportation Commission and Amtrak Reform Council, Wendell has consulted extensively on urban planning and transportation issues. He is the author of Toward More Prosperous Cities, a framing essay on the fundamental objectives of cities.
David MacKinnon
Senior Fellow
David MacKinnon, a native of Prince Edward Island, was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree (honours economics) from Dalhousie University and an MBA from York University. MORE...
He was awarded a Centennial Fellowship by the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce and York University to study at York, Harvard and Oxford Universities as well as the European Institute of Business Studies. Mr. MacKinnon served as Director, Planning and Economics and Executive Director, Development Strategy in the Nova Scotia Department of Economic Development from 1976 to 1981. He later served in several senior capacities in the Ontario Public Service, the Bank of Montreal and as CEO of the Ontario Hospital Association from 1996 to 2003. Mr. MacKinnon is a Public Member of the Council of the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons and is the Chair of its Finance Committee and a member of its Executive, Complaints and Outreach committees. He serves on several Boards of Directors, including the West Park Health Centre. He recently finished my five year term on the Standards Council of Canada and was subsequently elected to the board of the Canadian Standards Association. He has advised the Ontario Chamber of Commerce and other Ontario organizations on fiscal federalism issues particularly on the impact of regional subsidies on recipient and source provinces.
Patrick Moore
Senior Fellow
Dr. Patrick Moore is a Senior Fellow with the Frontier Centre for Public Policy with expertise in energy, ecology and prosperity. MORE...
He has been a leader in the international environmental field for over 40 years. Dr. Moore is a Co-Founder of Greenpeace and served for nine years as President of Greenpeace Canada and seven years as a Director of Greenpeace International. Following his time with Greenpeace, Dr. Moore joined the Forest Alliance of BC where he worked for ten years to develop the Principles of Sustainable Forestry that have now been adopted by much of the industry. Today, Dr. Moore focuses on the promotion of sustainability and consensus building among competing concerns. In 2013 he published Confessions of a Greenpeace Dropout – The Making of a Sensible Environmentalist, which documents his 15 years with Greenpeace and outlines his vision for a sustainable future.
Roland Renner
Senior Fellow
Roland Renner, Telecom Policy and Regulation, has worked in telecommunications, broadcasting and Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS). MORE...
He has participated in the transition of telecommunications and broadcasting from monopoly to competitive policy and regulatory environments, and has been involved in numerous regulatory proceedings. He held management positions at Bell Canada and Telesat Canada. As a consultant he worked with PwC Consulting and Nordicity Group, he advised clients on new market opportunities in a changing regulatory climate. He has worked for both public and private sector clients in Canada, Germany, Bahamas, Trinidad & Tobago, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.
Michael C. Zwaagstra
Senior Fellow
Michael Zwaagstra has extensive teaching experience at a variety of grade levels and currently teaches high school social studies in a Manitoba public school. MORE...
He received his BEd, PBCE, and MEd (Educational Administration) from the University of Manitoba and his MA (Theological Studies) from Liberty University. As an educator, Michael is a strong proponent of raising academic standards, holding schools accountable for their results, and expanding the educational options available to parents. He conducts public policy research on education issues for the Frontier Centre for Public Policy and the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies. His columns promoting common sense education reform have been published in major daily newspapers, including the National Post and the Globe and Mail. He is a frequent guest on radio stations across the country and has spoken at many different conferences and events. His first book, What’s Wrong with Our Schools and How We Can Fix Them (co-authored with Rodney Clifton and John Long), was published in 2010.
Philip Carl Salzman
Senior Fellow
Philip Carl Salzman received his B.A from Antioch College, and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, and he is Professor of Anthropology at McGill University. MORE...
He founded the Commission on Nomadic Peoples of the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences, and its international journal, Nomadic Peoples, for which he received the IUAES Gold Award. In recent years, he has been a Senior Fellow at the University of St. Andrews, an Open Society International Scholar at the American University of Central Asia, an Erasmus Mundus International Fellow at the University of Catania, and a Visiting Professor at the University of Sydney, Australia. He has engaged in extensive ethnographic field research in Baluchistan (Iran), Gujarat and Rajasthan (India), and Sardinia (Italy) which has provided the foundation for many articles in academic journals, and for books such as The Anthropology of Real Life: Events in Human Experience (1999), Black Tents of Baluchistan (2000) (winner of the Premio PitrP–Salomone Marino Award), Understanding Culture: An Introduction of Anthropological Theory (2001), Pastoralists: Equality, Hierarchy, and the State (2004), Culture and Conflict in the Middle East (2008), Postcolonial Theory and the Arab-Israel Conflict (2008), and Thinking Anthropologically 3rd Ed, (2010). His latest book is Classic Comparative Anthropology: Studies from the Tradition (2012). In public affairs, he was a member of Middle East Strategy at Harvard (2008-2010), a member of the Board of Directors of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (2004-2012), and is currently a member of the Academic Council of the Canadian Institute for Jewish Studies, a Fellow of the Middle East Forum (2015-), and a member of the Board of Directors of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (2016-). He has published articles and reports in the Middle East Forum, Gatestone Institute, the Canadian Institute for Jewish Research, and the Macdonald Laurier Institute.
Gerry Bowler
Senior Fellow
Gerry Bowler grew up in Saskatoon and earned his first two academic degrees from the University of Saskatchewan. MORE...
He received his Ph.D. in History from King’s College, London with a dissertation on Protestant political theory of the Tudor period. He is an historian with eclectic interests. His writings range from academic texts on sixteenth-century Europe to the connection between Aristotle and professional wrestling. He is the only historian whose work is included in both The Encyclopedia of Popular Culture and The Encyclopedia of the Renaissance. He was the founder of The Centre for the Study of Christianity and Popular Culture at Calgary’s Canadian Nazarene College and taught for 25 years at the University of Manitoba. Bowler is the editor of Music from Within: A Biography of Sophie Eckhardt-Gramatté (University of Manitoba Press, 1985) and The World’s Greatest Christmas Stories (Theodosian Press, 2016); and the author of Europe in the Sixteenth Century, second edition, (Longman, 1989), The World Encyclopedia of Christmas (McClelland and Stewart, 2000), God and The Simpsons: The Spirituality of Springfield, (Dare: 2001), Santa Claus: A Biography (McClelland and Stewart, 2005), Christmas in the Crosshairs: Two Thousand Years of Denouncing and Defending the World’s Most Celebrated Holiday, (Oxford University Press: 2016) and The Kindly Curmudgeon (Theodosian Press, 2016).
