IPC Strategic Advisory Council 2021-25

Jane Bailey is a Full Professor at the University of Ottawa Faculty of Law (Common Law Section), where she teaches Technoprudence, Cyberfeminism and Contracts. She co-leads The eQuality Project, a 7-year SSHRC funded partnership initiative focused on young people’s experiences of privacy and equality in digitally networked environments.  Professor Bailey is also a Working Group Leader for the Autonomy Through Cyberjustice Technologies project, a 5-year SSHRC funded partnership initiative focused on the use of technology to improve access to justice. Her work explores the intersections between privacy and equality in areas such as technology-facilitated violence, education technologies, and access to justice. Included among her publications are the following co-edited collections: The Emerald International Handbook on Technology-facilitated Violence and Abuse, eGirls, eCitizens, and eAccess to Justice. In 2018 she was lead counsel for the Samuelson-Glushko Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic in its intervention before the Supreme Court of Canada in the Jarvis voyeurism case. Prior to joining uOttawa, she was a litigator at Torys LLP and before that served as law clerk to Mr. Justice John Sopinka of the Supreme Court of Canada.

Keith is a first-year student at McGill University, studying political science and religion. He is an active community member and student leader who is dedicated to promoting inclusion and well-being. Keith was previously the TCDSB Student Trustee and the President of the Ontario Student Trustees’ Association, where he worked alongside Ministers and school board administrators to implement a menstrual equity program and advocated for 2SLGBTQ+ inclusion in Catholic school boards. At McGill, Keith has been working to improve the lives of students in the fields of policy and student governance. He is currently the Deputy Director of McGill’s Policy Association, a Member at Large for a variety of SSMU Committees and the First-Year Representative for McGill’s Political Science Association. Keith began his involvement with our office through the IPC Privacy Day webcast as a student speaker, after which he was invited to join the IPC Strategic Advisory Council. Keith is very excited to continue his work with the IPC through the new Youth Advisory Council.

Vass Bednar (@VassB) is the Executive Director of McMaster University’s Master of Public Policy in Digital Society, where she is also an Adjunct Professor of Political Science. She is an interdisciplinary wonk focused on ensuring that we have the regulatory structures we need to embrace the future of work and new ways of living. As an enthusiastic and perpetual student of the policymaking process, she has held leadership roles at Delphia, Airbnb, Queen’s Park, the City of Toronto, and University of Toronto. Vass is recognized as a creative, data-driven thinker and was the Chair of the federal government’s Expert Panel on Youth Employment. A graduate of McMaster University’s Arts & Science Program, Vass holds her Master of Public Policy (MPP) from the University of Toronto and successfully completed Action Canada and Civic Action DiverseCity Fellowships. Passionate about public dialogue, she was also the co-host of “Detangled,” a weekly pop-culture and public policy radio show and podcast that ran from 2016-2018. She currently writes a newsletter about Canadian startups and public policy called “regs to riches” and was recently recognized as an outstanding alum with a McMaster “Arch” award. Vass engages with Canada’s policy community as a Public Policy Forum Fellow and a Senior Fellow at CIGI.

Dr. Bhatia is the Executive Lead, Population Health and Value-based Health Systems, at Ontario Health. Previously, he was the FM Hill Chair in Health Systems Solutions, the Chief Medical Innovation Officer of Women’s College Hospital (WCH), as well as the Division Head of Cardiology at WCH. A scientist at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (IC/ES) and an Associate Professor at the University of Toronto, he has been published in international peer reviewed journals like the New England Journal of Medicine and JAMA Internal Medicine. In 2013, he founded the Institute for Health System Solutions and Virtual Care (WIHV) and served as its Director until 2019. He has been a commentator on Bloomberg News, CTV News and the CBC, and has been asked to give over 100 presentations internationally, nationally and regionally over the past 6 years.

He is a recipient of the American College of Cardiology’s Young Investigator Award, the American Society of Echocardiography’s Arthur E. Weyman Young Investigator Award, and most recently the Goldie Award for Quality and Innovation and the Louise Lemieux Charles Emerging Leader award at the University of Toronto. He sits on the boards of the Heart and Stroke Foundation and DREAM Industrial REIT, a publicly traded company listed on the TSX.

Previously, he worked as a clinical and research fellow in cardiology at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard University. Dr. Bhatia received his medical degree and MBA at McGill University and his internal medicine and cardiology training in Toronto.

Nicole Bonnie has dedicated her professional life to creating sustainable change at the systemic level in child welfare. In 2019, she was named the first Black CEO in the history of the Ontario Children’s Aid Societies and in the province’s child welfare sector. She has championed prevention strategies through community development and addressing service disparities to marginalized identities. Currently, in her role as the CEO at the Ontario Association of Children’s Aid Societies, Nicole oversees provincial child welfare initiatives and remains committed to equity integration at all levels of provincial work, including CAS learning, policies, governance, service excellence, and research and data. Nicole continues to be a strong advocate and champion of marginalized children, youth, and families, and works to centre their voice and needs in government relations and legislative initiatives. She has made an extraordinary difference in the lives of children, youth, and families in the Ontario child welfare system.

Anthony is currently a Staff Officer with the Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association (OECTA) in the Professional Development Department. He serves as the Provincial Coordinator for OECTA’s Additional Qualifications Program. Much of his work to date has centered upon online course development and design. Approximately 2000 teachers log into OECTA’s virtual learning environment annually and it is his primary responsibility to make the online learning environment as rich and engaging as possible. He also conducts talks provincially and in the US about modern teaching techniques and has won national awards for innovation with technology in the classroom.

Anthony has sat across the table from the likes of Microsoft and Apple as his criticism of their technology’s application in the classroom revealed a power and profit imbalance at the cost of our youngest students’ development.

As of late Anthony has focused upon social media and its impact on socialization. As a father of four, he has witnessed first-hand, how social media attempts to lure both children and adults down a rabbit-hole of misinformation and despair. A strong advocate for the teaching profession, Anthony is a leader, a change-agent and one who strongly believes in publicly funded education.

John Daly is the County Clerk and Director of Statutory Services and Archives at the County of Simcoe. John has served the municipal sector for over 33 years with oversight and experience in various key services such as access and privacy, records and information management, elections, Information Technology, communications and enforcement.  John is an active member of the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMCTO), and a member of the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP).

Dr. Khaled El Emam is the Canada Research Chair (Tier 1) in Medical AI at the University of Ottawa, where he is a Professor in the School of Epidemiology and Public Health. He is also a Senior Scientist at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute and Director of the multi-disciplinary Electronic Health Information Laboratory, conducting research on privacy enhancing technologies to enable the sharing of health data for secondary purposes, including synthetic data generation and de-identification methods.

Khaled is a co-founder of Replica Analytics, a company that develops synthetic data generation technology, which was recently acquired by Aetion. As an entrepreneur, Khaled founded or co-founded six product and services companies involved with data management and data analytics, with some having successful exits. Prior to his academic roles, he was a Senior Research Officer at the National Research Council of Canada. He also served as the head of the Quantitative Methods Group at the Fraunhofer Institute in Kaiserslautern, Germany.

In 2003 and 2004, he was ranked as the top systems and software engineering scholar worldwide by the Journal of Systems and Software based on his research on measurement and quality evaluation and improvement. He held the Canada Research Chair in Electronic Health Information at the University of Ottawa from 2005 to 2015. Khaled has a PhD from the Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, King’s College, at the University of London, England.

John Elvidge is the City Clerk for the City of Toronto.  He leads a team responsible for the many duties assigned to municipal clerks including the decision-making processes of City Council and its committees and boards, protocol and international relations, public appointments, as well as administrative supports to the Mayor, Councillors and the City’s four accountability officers. He is the chief electoral officer for North America’s fourth largest municipal election. He carries out the duties of head under MFIPPA with responsibilities for access to information, privacy, records & information management and the Toronto Archives. He also serves as Division Registrar for Toronto under the Vital Statistics and Marriage Acts.

A 30+ year veteran of the City of Toronto and the former Metro Toronto, his previous municipal posts include corporate policy, intergovernmental relations, ethics & integrity, machinery of government and cultural affairs.

John’s professional interests include strengthening and modernizing the machinery of local government. He continues to serve as a champion and advisor on openness in city government including open meetings, fair, open and accessible elections, privacy by design and routine disclosure.

John is currently a member of the Executive Committee of the Governor General’s Canadian Leadership Conference, and the Ethics Advisory Committee of the Association of Municipal Managers, Clerks and Treasurers of Ontario (AMCTO), where he also serves as a mentor and occasional instructor.

Robert (Bob) Fay is the Managing Director of digital economy research at the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) that assesses and provides policy recommendations for the complex global governance issues arising from digital technologies. He brings to this position extensive experience in macro- and micro-economic research and policy analysis. Prior to joining CIGI, Bob held several senior roles at the Bank of Canada (BoC), including Senior Director overseeing work to assess developments and implications arising from the digitization of the Canadian economy and Deputy Managing Director of the International Economics Department where he assessed global economic and financial developments and their implications for Canada. He has also led the BoC’s Canadian short-term forecasting team and set up and led its first research division related to structural analysis, focusing on labour markets, productivity, and exchange rate analysis. Bob was also Special Assistant to BoC Governor Mark Carney, serving as the Governor’s Chief of Staff. Prior to joining the BoC, Bob was an economist at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and worked on a range of economic and labour market issues.

Rebecca Finlay is the CEO at Partnership on AI overseeing the organization’s mission and strategy. In this role, Rebecca ensures that the PAI Team and our global community of Partners work together so that developments in AI advance positive outcomes for people and society.

Most recently, Rebecca was Vice-President, Engagement and Public Policy, at the Canadian Institute for the Advancement of Research (CIFAR). In this role, Rebecca founded the Institute’s global knowledge mobilization practice, bringing together experts in industry, civil society, and government to accelerate the societal impact of CIFAR’s research programs. In 2017, she was responsible for the launch of CIFAR’s AI & Society program to support international working groups on the questions AI poses for all aspects of policy and society. In 2019, she launched CIFAR Solution Networks to support multi-year, international teams in the development of responsible approaches to real-world applications of AI. She led the Institute’s partnerships with governments and public sector organizations, diversifying the organization’s funding sources internationally.

Prior to joining CIFAR, Rebecca held leadership roles in research and civil society organizations including as Group Director, Public Affairs and Cancer Control for the Canadian Cancer Society and National Cancer Institute of Canada. She began her career in the private sector. building strategic partnerships, including as First Vice President, Financial Institution and Partnership Marketing for Bank One International. In 2019, she was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). She has served on hospital, foundation, and non-profit boards of directors and She holds degrees from the University of Cambridge and McGill University. She is an active volunteer and lives with her family in Toronto, Canada.

Charles joined Futurpreneur Canada in January of 2020 as Chief Experience Officer, leading entrepreneurship, mentorship and marketing programs as well as the organization’s digital transformation initiatives. He co-founded and is Past-Chair of the Board for Code for Canada, the country’s leading civic-tech organization, and is on the Advisory Board of We Count, a research project out of the Inclusive Design Research Centre at OCAD focused on creating an inclusive data ecosystem. Charles was recently Vice-Chair of the Digital Strategy Advisory Committee for Waterfront Toronto and for five years was the Global Director of Marketing and Communications at global architecture, engineering, planning, and technology firm IBI Group. He has led transformational digital change through building teams and delivering on strategic initiatives in global roles with MaRS Discovery District, Thomson Reuters, and Critical Mass.

Keith Jansa is the Executive Director of the CIO Strategy Council. He works with Canada’s most forward-thinking technology executives to collectively accelerate the pace of digital transformation and advance Canada’s position in the global digital economy. In his previous role as Vice President of Standards and Innovation at the Council, Keith provided executive leadership in the design and successful accreditation of the Council’s standards-setting process to drive the creation of national standards to advance Canada’s digital economy. Keith is Chair of Innovate Cities, an appointed member of Ontario’s Health Data Council, and chair of its Strategic Working Group on Data Stewardship. Keith holds a Bachelor in Health Sciences honours degree from the University of Ottawa. He is married to his university sweetheart, Kayla Jansa, and loves chasing after his three children.

Matthew Johnson is the Director of Education for MediaSmarts, Canada’s center for digital and media literacy. He is the author of many of MediaSmarts’ lessons, parent materials, and interactive resources and a lead on MediaSmarts’ research projects. Matthew is the architect of MediaSmarts’ Use, Understand, Create: Digital Literacy Framework for Canadian K-12 Schools and the Media Literacy 101 and Digital Literacy 101 professional development programs. He has contributed blogs and articles to websites and magazines around the world as well as presenting MediaSmarts’ research materials on topics such as copyright, cyberbullying, body image, and online hate to parliamentary committees, academic conferences, and governments and organizations around the world. As a member of the Canadian Pediatric Society’s Digital Health Task Force, he participated in the drafting of the CPS recommendations for children’s screen time.

Dubi Kanengisser is a Senior Advisor, Strategic Analysis and Governance, to the Toronto Police Services Board. In his role, Dubi supports the Board’s governance and oversight functions by ensuring the board has access to the best and most relevant information and analysis, and by conducting ongoing evaluation of the board’s and the service’s achievement of adequacy standards and other board priorities.

Dubi has a PhD in Political Science from the University of Toronto. With a background in research and evaluation, he previously worked with the provincial government supporting evidence-based decision making at the Ministry of Health and at Cabinet Office, and in the non-governmental sector with a leading human rights organization.’

Dr McKenzie is the CEO of Wellesley Institute; a full Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto, Director of Health Equity at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH); and, a practicing psychiatrist.

His expertise is the social causes of illness and the development of effective, equitable social policy and health systems.

As a policy advisor, administrator, clinician, educator and academic with over 260 peer reviewed papers, 6 books, He has worked across a broad spectrum to improve mental health, population health and health services for three decades. His work with colleagues at CAMH, University of Toronto and Wellesley Institute has influenced local and national social and health policy and his academic research and collaborations have changed teaching, clinical practice and policy in psychiatry. This work has been recognized by numerous awards including; African Canadian Achievement Award for Science, Dominican of Distinction Award, Fred Fallis Award for Excellence in Online Education, CAMH 150 Difference Makers in Mental Health, Harry Jerome Award and Champion of Human Services Award, Ontario Municipal Social Services Association.

Dr McKenzie has worked as an adviser to health ministers in the UK and Canada and to housing, education and social services ministers in Canada. He is a member of Canada’s National Advisory Council on Poverty and was Co-Chair of Canada’s Expert Advisory Panel on Covid-19 and Mental Health, and Co-Chair of Canada’s Expert Task Force on Substance Use.

Provincially, he sits on the Ontario Health Data Council, he has completed positions as a Commissioner of Human Rights and as a member of the Mental Health and Addictions Advisory Council to the Minister of Health Ontario.

Dr McKenzie is a previous President and Chair of the Board of CMHA Toronto and Member of the Executive and of the Council of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, UK.

In addition, he has been a columnist for the Guardian and the Times-online, presented “All in the Mind” for BBC Radio 4 and writes op-eds for the Toronto Star.

Dr. Brenda McPhail is the Director of the Privacy, Technology and Surveillance Program at the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. As a researcher at a national, non-profit legal advocacy organization, her work supports litigation, advocacy and public education relating to the ways in which privacy rights are at risk in contemporary society. She has appeared as an expert witness before Parliamentary and Senate committees regarding privacy law reform, national security, and biometric data, and leads CCLA’s litigation in key court cases that raise privacy issues, such as R.v. Marakah, regarding reasonable expectations of privacy in text messaging and CCLA v. Waterfront Toronto et al. defending Charter rights in a smart city project. Recent grant-funded research includes work on data trusts as a governance framework for data with public good characteristics, workplace surveillance applications, facial recognition technology, media governance and AI, and virtual health care data privacy. Brenda received her Ph.D. from the University of Toronto Faculty of Information.

Micheal Miller, Executive Director of the Association of Native Child and Family Service Agencies of Ontario, is an Oji-Cree from Mattagami First Nation North Eastern Ontario. His 25 year career has focused on the social development of indigenous communities. He has served as the Executive Director at Aboriginal Legal Services prior to joining ALS he has served as the Housing Director for the Cochrane District Social Services Administrative Board and played a critical role in opening Living Space a homeless shelter in Timmins. He also served as the Executive Director at Kunuwanimano Child and Family Services and led the agency to become a mandated Children’s Aid Society. He has also spent the early part of his career in the Employment and Training field. He holds a Masters in Business Administration.

Alison Paprica is Professor (Adjunct) and a Senior Fellow at the University of Toronto’s Institute for Health Policy, Management and Evaluation. She currently works for Health Data Research Network Canada and ICES. She is also a Senior Fellow at Massey College and a member of the International Advisory Board for Health Data Research UK.

Alison’s previous roles include inaugural Vice President, Health Strategy and Partnerships at the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence; Director, Strategic Partnerships at ICES; and Director of the Planning, Research & Analysis Branch at the Ontario Ministry of Health where she was responsible for up to $60 million annual applied health research investment and in-house knowledge translation activities to bring research findings into policy and practice. Prior to working in the public sector, she held scientist and R&D management positions at three different international pharmaceutical companies.

Alison holds an Honours Combined BSc in biochemistry and chemistry (McMaster), a PhD in organic chemistry (Western University).

John Roberts is the Chief Privacy Officer and Archivist of Ontario at the Ministry of Government and Consumer Services. He has been active in addressing privacy and recordkeeping issues in data and digital initiatives throughout the Ontario public sector, especially in respect of data integration. From May 2020 to April 2022 as acting CISO, he also had oversight of the province’s Cybersecurity Strategy, while as Archivist of Ontario he promotes access to the Archives of Ontario’s collections.

John has over thirty years of experience in operational, policy, and senior leadership roles delivering government information management and digital government initiatives. Prior to joining the Ontario Public Service in 2015, he worked in the New Zealand government. His extensive knowledge of information management and privacy protection has contributed to his numerous achievements in policy, strategy, legislation, and modernisation of public sector information management.

John has also held leadership roles in a number of professional associations, has been active in international initiatives, and has frequently published and presented internationally. He holds an MA from Victoria University of Wellington, and a Masters in Information Management and Systems from Monash University in Australia.

The current Chief of Surgery at Oakville Trafalgar Memorial Hospital and a practising general surgeon for over 24 years, he brings a depth of experience in healthcare. A graduate of the Queen’s University School of Medicine, he completed general surgery training at the University of Ottawa and is currently an Assistant Clinical Professor (Adjunct) in the Department of Surgery at McMaster University. He serves on the province of Ontario’s Innovation Sub-Committee, Council on Improving Healthcare and Ending Hallway Medicine and has a depth of knowledge in virtual care. He founded the Oakville Virtual Care Program and has worked with the OMA, OTN and the Ministry of Health in Ontario to advance the healthcare system. Dr. Rozario is on the physician advisory board of the Medical Post, and is an accomplished author whose diverse writings can be found at www.duncanrozario.com.

As the current Chief Medical Officer of Sigma Healthtech Inc., he brings a depth of knowledge in both patient care and experience, as well as an understanding of modern software systems. He believes that we all have a right to greater quality healthcare on our terms so that we may live life to its highest potential.

Dr. Saulnier is an Assistant Professor at Queen’s University. She is a criminologist committed to the evidence-based policing movement. She advocates for academic-police research partnerships as critical to advancing the quality and sophistication of Canadian policing. Dr. Saulnier specializes in experimental field studies with a focus on assessing the effects of technologies in policing (such as body-worn cameras, unpiloted aerial vehicles, and automated license plate readers, and associated practices such as the use of artificial intelligence) but places particular emphasis on community-police relations as an outcome, and how the acquisition of technologies affect community-police relations.

Dr. Saulnier maintains that data collection and management technologies can be useful to police in service to their communities, but that these technologies and the data they gather must be used in fair, accountable, and transparent ways with clear and standardized regulatory frameworks. She has held formal research partnerships with over 20 Canadian police services and actively engages with relevant partner agencies and associations such as the Information and Privacy Commissioner of Ontario and the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police. Her research is published in peer-reviewed venues such as Criminology & Public Policy, Canadian Public Policy, Policing: An International Journal of Strategies and Management, and Law and Human Behavior among others, as well as in practitioner magazines such as Blue Line.

Dr. Teresa Scassa is the Canada Research Chair in Information Law and Policy at the University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law. She is a member of the Canadian Advisory Council on Artificial Intelligence and a senior fellow with CIGI’s International Law Research Program. She is the author, co-author or co-editor of numerous books including Digital Commerce in Canada, Law and the Sharing Economy, Canadian Trademark Law, Canadian Intellectual Property Law, and Interdisciplinary Approaches to Intellectual Property Law. Her research interests include: privacy law, data governance, intellectual property law, law and technology, law and artificial intelligence, and smart cities.

Colin Stairs is the first Chief Information Officer of the Toronto Police Service (TPS) where he is working to align the information management and information technology capabilities and initiatives to The Way Forward, the TPS strategy to transform and modernize the Service. Colin is focused on achieving benefits of technology-driven transformation by building capacity to deliver on service-oriented design and digital technologies.

Colin was previously a CIO and Digital Transformation Officer in Healthcare, serving in that function at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), Lakeridge Health, and Medcan Health Management.  Prior to his career as a CIO, Colin was an independent management consultant in healthcare and public sector, with particular focus on quantitative analytics and operationalizing strategy.  He has developed entrepreneurial and negotiation skills through two startups — in software and in management consulting.  Colin was Dean’s list at the Richard Ivey School of Business MBA and has a mechanical engineering degree from Queen’s University.

Christopher Williams currently works as a Senior Policy Analyst with the Ontario Human Rights Commission, where he specializes in policing issues. Previously, he worked as a Senior Research Advisor with the Anti-Racism Directorate where, among other things, he functioned as the staff lead for the creation of Ontario’s first Anti-Black Racism Strategy. In his capacity as an educator, he has taught at York University, Brock University and the University of Western Ontario. His published work has been featured in academic journals such as Race & Class, Canadian Ethnic Studies, Housing Studies and the African Geographical Review, and his books include Boomerang Ethics: How Racism Affects Us All (with Joseph Mensah) and Crisis in Canada’s Policing (with John Sewell). In 2015 he was the recipient of the Honourable Lincoln Alexander ’53 Award granted by the Black Law Students’ Association at Osgoode Hall Law School.