BANFF FORUM // Crude, COVID, and Canada

Canada’s policymakers and economy are facing simultaneous threats from the COVID-19 pandemic, a collapse in energy prices, and a sharp rise in unemployment. This comes at a point when the Canadian housing market and household balance sheets were already stretched – event beyond the limits witnessed in the U.S. in the late-2000s.

Phillip Colmar from MRB Partners and Inder Arya from Richardson GMP will discuss the many challenges facing the domestic economy and public finances as the country attempts to mitigate the fallout and transition to a sustainable recovery path.

SPEAKER BIOS

Phillip Colmar is a founding partner at MRB Partners. He has extensive experience, both as a strategist and economist. Mr. Colmar focuses on global multi-asset investment strategy, trading opportunities, and financial market risks. His expertise is in identifying and developing macro and investment themes. Mr. Colmar speaks at conferences, seminars and client meetings.

Over his career, Mr. Colmar has covered all major global asset classes and has developed comprehensive frameworks, models, and indicators. Prior to forming MRB, he was the Head of both the Daily Insights and Global Fixed Income Strategy services at BCA Research Inc.

Mr. Colmar has an MSc. in Finance from Queen’s University, as well as a B.A. in Economics and a Bachelor of Business Administration (Finance) from Bishop’s University.

Inder Arya is a portfolio manager with over two decades industry experience. His focus is on managing the assets of high net worth families with an emphasis on understanding macro economic shifts.

Inder also has considerable experience launching start ups. Notably, he orchestrated seed financing and was the primary advisor for Canada's first online transparent bond trading platform. He was also co-founder of a pioneering wifi service that provided remote wifi hotspots for extreme locations around the world – including a private space ship launch in the Mojave desert and support for emergency responders.

He is a recurrent speaker at the John Molson School of Business on investment strategies, a frequent panelist Judge at the JMSB Van Berkom Small Cap Case Competition, and is the Founding Sponsor of the InStep Program at Concordia University.​

Inder is Vice Chair and Past Treasurer for the Banff Forum.