Our Team
Doug Blair | James K. Martin | Eric Thomson | Bill Hingston | Derek Ireland | Peter Brackenridge | Tom Richardson | Ronald Doering | David McBain | Chris L. Callaghan | Roy Atkinson | Bryne Purchase | Ian Hornby | Colin Wiltshire | Bruce Doern | Armin Zeinali
Doug Blair
Doug Blair is the President of RIAS Inc. and acts as general manager for consulting assignments by the firm. He is an economist with over 25 years of experience in the design, conduct and management of applied research and analysis of regulatory issues, regulatory policy and process, economic impact assessment and cost-benefit analysis. For 15 years, Mr. Blair has managed many large, complex projects and teams of experts on a range of regulatory topics, both for RIAS Inc. and the Blair Consulting Group.
James K. Martin, PhD
Dr. Martin is a seasoned, highly focused professional with 26 years of senior executive experience in the federal government, managing professional organizations in both line departments and central agencies. For the past 4 years, Jim has been President of jk&e martin consulting inc. - an Ottawa-based management, risk management and regulatory policy consulting firm. He possesses in-depth knowledge of government decision-making processes, having been responsible during his career for policy and evaluation research, for the formulation of both sector-specific and government-wide policies and programs, and for overseeing the federal regulatory process. He is familiar with and assessed policies and programs using all major governance instruments – tax, expenditure, and law (including regulatory programs). In recent years, Jim has established a very successful track record in providing consulting services in the areas of regulatory reform, managing regulatory programs, regulatory impact analysis, international regulatory cooperation, governance of corporate review functions (audit, evaluation and performance measurement), result and risk management accountability frameworks, business case preparation, and critical review of research and policy documents.
Eric Thomson
Mr. Thomson is an economist specializing in regulatory impact assessment models and economic forecasting. Eric has worked with some of Canada’s top organizations on a variety of economic forecasting and consulting projects, including the Conference Board of Canada where Eric produced medium and long-term provincial forecasts and the automotive sector industrial forecasts. Eric also worked an economist at the Centre for the Study of Living standards, where he published and presented major works on labour productivity issues in Canada
Bill Hingston
Bill Hingston, who is fluently bilingual, has worked in the Privy Council, Treasury Board and Foreign Affairs, has consulted on regulatory issues and has carried out program evaluations. In the Privy Council, he managed the introduction of a new Cabinet decision-making process, and authored the Drafter’s Guide to the Memorandum to Cabinet. At Treasury Board, he handled the development of the government’s Regulatory Policy and piloted the government-wide Regulatory Review. As a regulatory consultant, he authored the Guide to the Regulatory Process for PCO, and co-wrote: a study on Canada/US regulatory cooperation; a publication on responsible regulation (for industry and government); and reports on regulatory disincentives to investment in Canada’s therapeutic product and chemical sectors. He managed evaluations of UN, Health Canada, and Foreign Affairs’ programs and has collaborated on evaluations for Fisheries and Oceans, Industry Canada, Citizenship and Immigration, and the Government of Ontario.
Derek Ireland, PhD
Dr. Ireland has 40 years of experience as an economist in the Canadian public and private sectors, including seventeen years as a private consultant. He has extensive experience in a wide range of economic research and policy fields: competition law, intellectual property rights, corporate, securities and bankruptcy law; governance and capacity building; federal-provincial relations in Canada and other countries; trade, investment and innovation policies; industrial, private enterprise and small business development; regional and urban development and poverty; tourism strategies and feasibility studies; human resource development; the environment/sustainable development, and economic development in countries with emerging market economies.
Peter Brackenridge
Peter Brackenridge specializes in regulatory policy development, strategic planning, governance, capacity assessment, and performance measurement in the regulatory sector. During a distinguished career of 33+ years in the federal Public Service, Mr. Brackenridge occupied a variety of Senior Executive positions with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (including Vice-President, Programs, and Vice-President, Operations), and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. Peter’s management focus related primarily to food, animal health and plant protection regulatory inspection programs as applied to agri-food and fish commodities. He has extensive experience in federal-provincial relations, and international liaison and negotiations.
Tom Richardson, PhD
Dr. Richardson has 34 years of federal government experience including 10 years at Treasury Board in energy, natural resources and Crown Corporations management and budgeting. In his 13 years at AAFC he held several senior positions in the Policy Branch including acting ADM. He has extensive and in-depth knowledge of fed/provincial decision-making, and was a key player in the development of the 5-year multi-billion dollar fed/provincial Agricultural Policy Framework agreement (APF).
Ronald Doering
Dr. Ronald L. Doering, BA, LL.B, MA, LL.D, is a past president of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. Ron has broad experience in administrative law and practise, Aboriginal law and policy, environmental law and policy, and all aspects of food and agricultural law, including labelling, recalls, biotechnology regulation, plant protection and animal health. He is well known in the food industry providing regulatory and legal advice to many Canadian and international food companies. Ron has taught administrative and constitutional law at Carleton University; and, is an adjunct professor at the University of Guelph, where he teaches food law and policy. He is also a prolific writer on public policy issues with over 90 articles in recent years, including the popular monthly column “Food Law” in Food in Canada magazine.
David McBain
David McBain has over 32 years of experience working in various capacities (from scientist to senior executive) within the Canadian government and the United Nations. His focus has been on human health and environmental protection, and he brings a unique combination of expert knowledge, experience and insight covering a broad spectrum of activities including science-based hazard and risk assessment and management, evaluation and audit, policy development, and legislative and regulatory reform.
Roy Atkinson
Roy Atkinson is a seasoned consultant with the experience of a senior public servant. He has over 25 years of experience as a Canadian federal public servant specializing in economic policy, regulation, program evaluation, institutional development and 14 years of consulting to federal departments and regulators, the Province of Ontario, the Canadian private sector; and with international organizations, agencies and NGOs. His public service career covered industrial policy, industry restructuring, design and evaluation of funded programs, competition and regulatory policy, international trade negotiation, start-up of a pharmaceutical price regulatory body, and biotechnology policy. He led a biotechnology strategy task force that created Canada’s Biotechnology Strategy, and the Canadian Biotechnology Secretariat which was charged with implementing the strategy.
Bryne Purchase, PhD
A PhD graduate in Economics from the University of Toronto, Dr. Purchase is the author of a number of publications relating to regulation, governance, competitiveness, energy and environment. He is currently an Adjunct Professor at the School of Policy Studies, Queen’s University. Bryne’s career in public policy spans over 35 years, starting with the Ontario Ministry of Treasury and Economics, where he was Assistant Deputy Minister and Chief Economist in the Office of Economic Policy. Dr. Purchase has also been a principal at Strategico, senior research director at the C.D. Howe Institute and the Economic Council of Canada, a Senior Fellow in the School of Policy Studies at Queen’s University, and Research Director of the Government and Competitiveness Project for the federal government. In 1998, Dr. Purchase returned to the Ontario government as Deputy Minister of Finance, Deputy Minister of Revenue and Deputy Minister of Economics. He served in these capacities until August 2000 when he assumed the position of Deputy Minister, Ministry of Energy, Science and Technology until 2004.
Bruce Doern, PhD
Dr. Bruce Doern is Distinguished Research Professor in the School of Public Policy and Administration, Carleton University and the Politics Department, University of Exeter in the UK. Over a 40 year career as an academic and policy consultant, he has authored over 70 books and numerous articles. These include research on Canadian and comparative regulatory policy, governance, innovation, and institutions in several regulatory realms including energy, environment and sustainable development, intellectual property, biotechnology, telecommunications, consumer affairs, competition, and science and technology. He has also served as a consultant on regulatory assessment, regulatory budgets/agendas, science-based risk regulation, regulatory cooperation, and diverse applied regulatory management problems and reforms with numerous federal and provincial departments, agencies and royal commissions and with international bodies such as the OECD and in the United Kingdom. He has also served as a Scholar in Residence with both the C.D. Howe Institute, and the Conference Board of Canada. Papers: Bruce Doern and Michael Prince, Biotechnology and the Governance of Food, Health and Life in Canada (book under peer review with University of Toronto Press); Bruce Doern, The Governance and Reform of Food Safety Systems: Canada in a Comparative Context. A paper prepared for Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, October 2010; Bruce Doern, The Relationships Between Regulation and Innovation in the Transport Canada Context. A Paper prepared for Transport Canada.
Ian Hornby
Ian Hornby is a highly seasoned expert in the regulatory field. He holds an MPA from the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. As President of The Brattle Street Round Table for the past 16 years, Ian provides strategic advice in support of legislative and regulatory proposals, identification and analysis of legislative and regulatory options, prepares documentation and submissions in support of legislative and regulatory proposals, including drafting of Memorandum to Cabinet (MCs), Regulatory Impact Analysis Statements (RIASs) and ministerial briefings, designs and facilitates consultations with internal and external stakeholders in support of regulatory and legislative proposals, and conducts training for public servants involved with legislative and regulatory proposals. He has worked with numerous departments, including Transport, Revenue, Fisheries and Oceans, National Defence, Health, Justice, the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat, and the Privy Council Office.
Colin Wiltshire
Colin Wiltshire, Managing Partner of Wiltshire Consulting Inc, has over 25 years experience reviewing and analyzing the operations of federal government departments and agencies and advising on design and implementation of regulatory and management practices that optimally balance achievement of objectives and management of risk. Colin is a member of the Society for Risk Analysis and the Global Association of Risk Professionals. He is the author of Managing Risk and Risk Acceptance published in Optimum, the Journal for Public Sector Management. In 2001, Colin’s expertise in the field of risk management lead to a collaborative project with Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat (TBS) to develop a government-wide Integrated Risk Management (IRM) framework. Colin is also an expert in the fundamental role that risk assessment, risk management, risk communications play in preparing sound CBA. Colin developed the Cost-Benefit Analysis and Risk Analysis for Regulators course with Jim Martin and Doug Blair for the Canada School of Public Service, and delivers the course to regulators on an ongoing basis.
Chris L. Callaghan, B.Sc., M.Sc.
Chris Callaghan currently owns and operates Lotic Consulting Ltd., an Ottawa-area firm specializing in performance measurement and evaluation. Established in 2006, Lotic Consulting caters to Canadian federal departments and agencies and international development organizations. The company’s main focus is to keep pace with current trends and thinking in monitoring and evaluation, and to apply this knowledge at the working level. Chris is a biologist by training, and his quantitative background in science makes him well-suited to constructing and implementing measurement and evaluation frameworks. Chris has provided monitoring and evaluation advice and assistance to several federal departments and agencies, including the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat, Environment Canada, the Public Health Agency of Canada and Finance Canada. More recently, Chris has assisted a regional Ukrainian government in their efforts to monitor and evaluate programs aimed at developing the Ukrainian small business sector. Chris has a deep knowledge of the theory of performance measurement and evaluation, including their application in regulatory environments. Chris’ up-to-date focus on the current trends in thinking and his familiarity with the accumulated wisdom on the challenges of implementing monitoring systems makes him particularly effective in providing practical advice to clients.
Armin Zeinali
Armin Zeinali is a graduate of the MA program in economics from Queen’s University, where he has done leading research in the areas of cost benefit and cost effectiveness analysis in education and health. Armin also has a MSc in Banking and Finance, a BSc in Electrical Engineering, and a Professional Certificate in Investment Appraisal and Risk Analysis.
