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Pricing Carbon: Lessons from Canada
Event Summary
In June 2016, the government of the Canadian province of Alberta approved a more ambitious carbon tax, an unprecedented move for a top oil and gas producer in North America. Please join us as we welcome the Consulate General of Canada in New York and recount Alberta‘s transformation from climate laggard to climate leader.
View the Presentations
Alberta’s Climate Leadership Plan
Gitane De Silva
Carbon Pricing and the Canadian Oil Sands
Jon Mitchell
Pricing Carbon with Taxes as an Alternative to Regulation
James R. Hines Jr.
Gitane De Silva
Alberta’s Senior Representative to the United StatesGitane De Silva is Alberta’s Senior Representative to the United States. Prior to her current appointment, she served as Deputy Minister of Alberta International and Intergovernmental Relations. Before joining the Alberta Civil Service, Ms. De Silva was Consul General of Canada in Chicago.
Jon Mitchell
Vice-President, Environment and Sustainability, Cenovus EnergyJon Mitchell is Vice-President, Environment and Sustainability, at Cenovus Energy. Jon is responsible for leading a team that provides strategic advice, guidance, and support to Cenovus on key environment and sustainability issues.
James Hines
Professor, University of MichiganJames Hines is a professor of law and economics at the University of Michigan and an editorial advisor to the Kleinman Center. His research is focused on various aspects of taxation.
Mark Alan Hughes
Director EmeritusMark Alan Hughes is director emeritus of the Kleinman Center. During his time as faculty director, he led the Center and wrote on topics ranging from deep decarbonization to the future of Philadelphia’s energy landscape.
Gitane De Silva is Alberta’s Senior Representative to the United States. Prior to her current appointment, she served as Deputy Minister of Alberta International and Intergovernmental Relations. Before joining the Alberta Civil Service, Ms. De Silva was Consul General of Canada in Chicago.
As Canada’s representative in Illinois, Wisconsin and Missouri, she worked to advance Canada’s political and economic interests, including trade and investment promotion. Ms. De Silva served for 12 years in Canada’s Foreign Service and, prior to her appointment as Consul General, held several roles at Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada (now Global Affairs Canada), including Director, Canada-U.S. Advocacy and Mission Liaison, and director, U.S. Transboundary Affairs. She also served as Counsellor (Environment & Fisheries) at the Canadian Embassy in Washington, D.C. and in the Canada-U.S. Secretariat at the Privy Council Office.
Ms. De Silva also served as Deputy Head of Agency at Status of Women Canada and Director General, APEC Women and the Economy Summit, where she worked on women’s economic empowerment and women in leadership. She holds a B.A. (International Relations) from the University of British Columbia.
Jon Mitchell is Vice-President, Environment and Sustainability, at Cenovus Energy. Jon is responsible for leading a team that provides strategic advice, guidance, and support to Cenovus on key environment and sustainability issues. His team works with the leadership of the company to integrate sustainability issues into the strategic planning process and identify areas where Cenovus has an opportunity to develop an innovative program or new approach to an issue that will help improve performance and advance a progressive approach to resource development.
As part of his current portfolio, Jon also leads Cenovus’s environment subject matter experts, involving work on climate change, air emissions, water, land, and biodiversity strategies. He is also responsible for stewarding Cenovus’s environment, social and governance disclosure, along with leading the company’s engagement activities with sustainability thought leaders and socially responsible investment organizations.
Jon joined Cenovus’s predecessor company in 2004 and has worked in the fields of sustainable development; environment, health and safety management systems; stakeholder engagement; land use planning; species at risk; and greenhouse gas management for nearly 20 years. Jon holds a degree in science from the University of Guelph, and a Masters degree from the University of Calgary.
James R. Hines Jr. is the L. Hart Wright Collegiate Professor of Law and codirector of the Law and Economics Program at Michigan Law. He is also the Richard A. Musgrave Collegiate Professor of Economics in U-M’s Department of Economics and serves as the research director of the Office of Tax Policy Research in U-M’s Stephen M. Ross School of Business.
Professor Hines’s research is focused on various aspects of taxation. He taught at Princeton and Harvard universities prior to joining the Michigan faculty in 1997, and has held visiting appointments at Columbia University; the London School of Economics; the University of California, Berkeley; and Harvard Law School. He is a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, research director of the International Tax Policy Forum, former co-editor of the American Economic Association’s Journal of Economic Perspectives, and once, long ago, served as an economist in the U.S. Department of Commerce.
He holds a BA and MA from Yale University and a Ph.D. from Harvard, all in economics.
