The Institute
The Institute is chaired by Alan Broadbent. Alan is Chairman and CEO of the Avana Capital Corporation, and Chairman of The Maytree Foundation. In support of its investment activities, Avana initiates and funds civic engagement projects to strengthen the public discourse on civil society, including: the Institute on Municipal Finance and Governance at the Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto; the Jane Jacobs Prize, which celebrates "unsung heroes" in the Toronto Region; and Ideas That Matter, an organization to convene discourse on progressive ideas concerning the public good. Alan is also Chairman of several related organizations, including the Caledon Institute of Social Policy (co-founded by Maytree in 1992), Tamarack - An Institute for Community Engagement (co-founded in 2001), and Diaspora Dialogues, which supports the creation and presentation of new writing that reflects the diversity of Toronto.
Alan is also Chairman of the Tides Canada Foundation; advisor to the Literary Review of Canada; Co-Chair of Happy Planet Foods; Member of the Governors' Council of the Toronto Public Library Foundation; Senior Fellow of Massey College, and Member of the Order of Canada and recipient of the Queen's Jubilee Medal. He is the author of the recently published book, Urban Nation.
The Director of the Institute is Dr. Enid Slack, one of Canada's foremost experts in municipal finance. Enid has been working in this field for over 30 years and is respected nationally and internationally for her research on property taxes and other aspects of municipal finance.
Dr. Enid Slack is an Adjunct Professor at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto. She chairs the Intergovernmental Committee for Economic and Labour Force Development in Toronto (ICE) and is a member of the Associations Advisory Committee of the Ontario Municipal Knowledge Network (OMKN), the Policy and Research Advisory Council of The Learning Partnership, and the Advisory Board of the International Property Tax Institute (IPTI).
Enid was appointed Special Advisor to the Greater Toronto Area Task Force in 1995, a member of the Who Does What Panel in Ontario in 1996, Co-Chair of the Learning Opportunities Grant Panel in 1997, Special Advisor to the Mayor's Task Force on Homelessness in 1998, a member of the City of Toronto's Business Reference Group on tax policy in 1999, a member of the Working Group of the Toronto City Summit Alliance in 2003, and a Commissioner on the Property Tax Policy Review Commission for the City of Vancouver in 2006-07. In 2009-10, she chaired the Municipal Port Property Taxation Fairness Commission in Metro Vancouver.
Enid has advised governments and the private sector in Canada and abroad on property taxes, intergovernmental transfers, the division of expenditures and revenues among levels of government, municipal boundary restructuring, and other local finance issues. Enid has co-authored or co-edited five books and has published numerous articles on urban public finance. Recent publications include International Handbook of Land and Property Taxation (co-edited with Richard Bird), UN Habitat Guide to Municipal Finance, and Finance and Governance of Capital Cities in Federal Systems (co-edited with Rupak Chattopadhyay). Enid received her B.A. in Economics from York University (Glendon College), and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Toronto.
Dr. Richard M. Bird is a Senior Fellow of the Institute. He is Professor Emeritus, Department of Economics, and Adjunct Professor and Co-Director of the International Tax Program at the Joseph L. Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto. He currently holds appointments as a Research Fellow at the C.D. Howe Institute, and Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Andrew Young School of Public Policy, Georgia State University. He has served with the Fiscal Affairs Department of the IMF, been a visiting professor in the United States, the Netherlands, Australia, and elsewhere and been a frequent consultant to the World Bank and other national and international organizations. He has published extensively, especially on the fiscal problems of developing and transitional countries.
Stella Kyriakakis is the Administrator at the Institute on Municipal Finance & Governance. Stella holds an Honours Bachelor of Arts, Fine Arts Specialist degree from the University of Toronto. Stella is also the administrator for the Centre for the Study of the United States and American Studies program, and the Latin American Studies program at the Munk School of Global Affairs. Stella has over 20 years experience as a senior administrator in film and the fine arts, including Manager of Operations of Graphic Pictures Inc. (documentary films); Executive Assistant to the Executive Producer, Ontario Region, National Film Board of Canada; Programs and Publications Coordinator at Gallery TPW/Toronto Photographers Workshop; Director of Art Metropole; and, Director of the Photon League of Holographers (artist-run centres). Currently, Stella is a freelance copy editor for various arts organizations such as YYZBooks, and the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery, Hart House.
The Institute engages graduate students and experts in municipal finance and governance to assist with its research.
Program Advisors
An independent research advisory group of experts in the fields of municipal finance and governance advises the Institute on research areas to be investigated, the extent of existing research, and how the research might be undertaken. The following people are part of the research advisory group:
Phillip Abrahams, Director, Social Housing, Shelter, Support and Housing Administration, City of Toronto
David Amborski, School of Urban and Regional Planning, Ryerson University
Richard Bird, Professor Emeritus and International Tax Program, Joseph L. Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto
Derek Burleton, Senior Economist, TD Bank Financial Group
George Fallis, Department of Economics, York University
Harry Kitchen, Professor, Economics Department, Trent University
Melvin L. McMillan, Professor, Economics Department, University of Alberta
François Vaillancourt, Professor, Economics Department ,Université de Montréal
Casey VanderPloeg, Canada West Foundation, Calgary
