For over forty seasons, Canadian Club Toronto and the National Post have gathered expert panelists each New Year for a forecast luncheon on the economy, the markets and political issues that will affect Canadians in the year ahead. In a year where nothing has been predictable, Outlook 2021 looks for predictions we can make.
This year’s expert panel will be moderated by Bruce Sellery, Personal Finance Journalist and Past President of Canadian Club Toronto, and will feature:
Kevin Carmichael
National Business Columnist, Financial Post
Kevin Carmichael is the National Business Columnist at the Financial Post and a senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation.
For more than a decade, Kevin shifted between Ottawa and Washington, DC, writing about economics and politics for Bloomberg News and the Globe and Mail. In 2014, he moved to Mumbai, taking advantage of opportunity to get a different vantage point on global affairs. He returned to Canada in 2016 and is currently based in Montreal.
Kevin also has written for Canadian Business, Maclean’s, FiveThirtyEight, and NBC News. He has been described as one of Canada’s leading business journalists, contributing to several award-winning projects at the Globe and earning a nomination for a Canadian National Magazine in Canada in 2010. He won gold in commentary in SABEW Canada’s Best in Business competition in 2019 and an honourable mention in the same category in 2020.
Matt Gurney
Executive Producer-Comment, National Post
Matt Gurney is a print and broadcast journalist based in Toronto. Born in that city, he grew up in its suburbs, listening to its talk-radio and fuming about the TTC. A military historian by education, Matt’s first big break in media came at the National Post, where he began writing in 2007. He inexplicably rose through the ranks there, serving as editor of the Post’s Comment pages and a national columnist. One day he will get around to writing the blow-by-blow take down of “28 Weeks Later” he’s always intended to. He has hosted news-focused radio programs on CJAD, CFRB, Global News Radio Toronto and on SiriusXM’s Canada Talks channel, and has offered commentary on all the major Canadian television networks (and a few smaller ones). He credits all his success to hard work, good looks and judicious use of a time machine to prevent potential rivals from ever being born.
He and his wife live with their two children in Toronto. If Matt had time for hobbies, they would include reading and writing novels, consuming historical non-fiction, enjoying bad movies about the end of the world and obsessively playing the “Civilization” franchise of computer games. But since he doesn’t have that time, he’ll settle for a cold beer and 20 undisturbed minutes to watch some Netflix or maybe just stare out into space. He doesn’t play an instrument and sort of regrets that.
Juliette John
Portfolio Manager and Founder, Iris Asset Management
Juliette John is founder and portfolio manager of the Calgary-based equity investment firm, Iris Asset Management, which she founded in 2013.
Juliette entered the capital markets industry in 1993 on the trading desk at a domestic chartered bank. In 1994, she joined Franklin Templeton Investments, then Bissett & Associates, as an Equity Trader. Over the next sixteen years, Juliette had a successful career in security analysis and asset management. She was involved in the growth of the firm including the number and size of the portfolios under her management, which reached over $4 billion.
She and her team at Iris are primarily focused on fundamental research-driven equity mandates for institutional clients.
Juliette graduated from University of Calgary in 1992 with a Bachelor of Commerce degree and was awarded her Chartered Financial Analyst designation in 1998.
Amanda Lang
Anchor & Reporter, BNN Bloomberg
Amanda Lang rejoined BNN Bloomberg in January 2018, returning to the channel she helped create almost 19 years earlier. As New York correspondent, she was a key part of the team that launched BNN Bloomberg’s predecessor, ROBTV, in 1999.
Lang has been covering business news in North America for 20 years. She started her journalism career at The Globe and Mail and then the National Post, before moving into television with ROBTV and then CNN.
Lang returned to BNN Bloomberg/ROBTV in 2002 as anchor of the network’s flagship morning show before creating and hosting SQUEEZEPLAY, a nightly issues-driven debate show with Kevin O’Leary. In 2009, Lang left BNN Bloomberg to join the CBC as its senior business correspondent. Most recently she worked as an anchor for Bloomberg Television Canada.
Lang studied architecture at the University of Manitoba before becoming a journalist. Her best-selling book, The Power of Why, (HarperCollins, October 2012) explores the connection between curiosity and success. Her second book, The Beauty of Discomfort, was published in 2017.
Jean-François Perrault
Senior Vice-President and Chief Economist, Scotiabank
Jean-François Perrault joined Scotiabank on December 31, 2015 as Senior Vice-President and Chief Economist. He leads a team of Economists to support Scotiabank’s domestic and international business lines and clients from retail to capital markets, providing Scotiabank’s senior executives, business lines and customers with perspectives, insights and forecasts on economic, financial market and policy developments.
Prior to joining Scotiabank, Jean-François held prominent roles with the federal government, the Bank of Canada, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. His educational background includes Master’s and Bachelor’s Degrees in Economics from the University of Ottawa.
Bruce Sellery
Personal Finance Journalist and Past President, Canadian Club Toronto
Bruce Sellery is a personal finance expert and the author of the Globe & Mail bestseller, Moolala: Why smart people do dumb things with money (and what you can do about it).
He is the Money columnist for CBC Radio and the national lifestyle TV show Cityline, and hosts Moolala: Money Made Simple, a weekly radio show on SiriusXM. Bruce was the host of Million Dollar Neighbourhood on the Oprah Winfrey Network and spent a decade as an anchor and New York Bureau Chief for BNN Bloomberg.
Bruce is a graduate of the Smith School of Business at Queen’s University and sits on the school’s Advisory Board. He is also an alumnus of the Governor General’s Canadian Leadership Conference.
