Adam Knelman Ostry
Chair, OECD Working Party on Urban Area

Speaker Bio:

Adam Knelman Ostry is currently responsible for policy issues relating to cities and communities at Infrastructure Canada. In 2003, the Government announced the creation of the Cities Secretariat within the Privy Council Office. Mr. Ostry was appointed its Deputy Head, responsible for policy, after having led the Privy Council Office’s Working Group on Canada’s Urban Communities, which focussed on developing horizontal, cross-cutting policy proposals to address issues of relevance to the Government of Canada in urban communities across the country. In July 2004, the Cities Secretariat was moved to the Office of Infrastructure to create Infrastructure Canada. In 2005, in addition to his policy responsibilities, Mr. Ostry was appointed one of the Department’s negotiators on the transfer of a portion of the Federal Excise Tax on gasoline, successfully concluding negotiations with the governments of the three Territories. The Minister signed these agreements in 2005.

Mr Ostry currently chairs the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) Working Party on Urban Issues, having been elected to that position in June 2007. In addition, he co-chairs the Canada-Ontario-Toronto Steering Committee overseeing the Territorial Review of Greater Toronto being conducted by the OECD, launched in July 2007.

Mr. Ostry is a career public servant with experience both in the federal and provincial orders of government. Prior to his work on urban issues, Mr. Ostry was President of the Ontario Media Development Corporation (1999-2002), Director general, Strategy and Plans, in the Intergovernmental Affairs Secretariat at the Privy Council Office (PCO), (1996-1999), Director General of Sport Canada (1994-1996), and Director General of the Cultural Industries Policy Branch at the Department of Canadian Heritage (1991-1994). Mr. Ostry joined the public service of Canada in 1982.

Mr. Ostry was educated at the University of Toronto and the Université Laval, and is a graduate of France’s École nationale d’administration.