Gordon Laxer


Biography

Founding Director, Parkland Institute

Gordon Laxer is the founding Director and former head of the University of Alberta’s Parkland Institute. A non-partisan institute that has been referred to as “Alberta’s unofficial opposition”, Parkland conducts policy research in the public interest through the lens of political economy.

In addition to his work at Parkland, Gordon is an author, a political economist, and a professor emeritus at the University of Alberta, where he taught from 1982 to 2013. His most recent work, After the Sands: Energy and Ecological Security for Canadians, won the 2016 Errol Sharpe Book Prize and was shortlisted for the John W. Dafoe Book Prize. His other writings include Open for Business: The Roots of Foreign Ownership in Canada and NAFTA 2.0: For People or Polluters?