Chris Jones (DPhil)
Chris Jones lives in Ottawa with his family. He first came to Ottawa from BC in 1982 to work as an aide to the Federal Minister of the Environment. Aside from a period living overseas where he studied and worked, he has remained in Ottawa since.
Chris worked on Parliament Hill as a political aide/advisor for nearly four years. He then went into association management working for several for-profit industry associations, becoming Vice-President of Canada’s national tourism industry association. Later he worked in the not-for-profit sector, becoming CEO/Executive Director of two national associations. He has a strong, multi-sectoral policy background and a deep understanding of the dynamics of the Canadian political process.
In the late 1990s, he spent two years as an aide to the Leader of the Federal New Democratic Party on Parliament Hill. Chris has a longstanding interest in political economy and the role that finance has played in distorting the productive capacities of our economy. As a young person, he spent a year (1988-89) as an analyst in the fixed income securities division of an investment bank in the City of London (UK). He left because he could see that the funds being raised in the Commercial Paper markets were mostly not being put towards productive uses such as investment in fixed capital formation i.e. new plant and equipment, or training of workers, but instead were being arbitraged in bets on currency or interest rate fluctuations in order to make quick profits.
This exposure to the speculative excesses of investment banking has made him highly aware of how badly served Canadians in general have been for the past thirty years by politicians of all stripes serving finance, instead of orchestrating productive investments in sustainable technologies and jobs for ordinary families. In particular, he regrets the practices of quantitative easing and the largescale underwriting by banks of investments in climate-denying carbon exploitation plays and real-estate flipping, which have received the support of policy makers in Ottawa.
Chris believes that a new politics and economics is urgently called for grounded in a concern for the long-term well-being of our population and the natural eco-system which we and other species depend upon. In addition to prioritizing policies for our young people and native and aboriginal Canadians, that politics must instigate a fair and just transition for Canada’s oil and gas resource workers who are effectively stranded in industries whose future is increasingly in doubt. He also believes that COVID 19 has underscored the need for a new preventative approach to public health, including domestic production of critical vaccines, antivirals and other personal protective supplies; a halt to deforestation and encroachment on natural habitat; and a greater regulation of largescale agribusiness and factory farming practices. This will increasingly require a politics based on the genuine, in-depth and regular consultation of the people of Canada in ways that transcend our flawed electoral system.
Seeing a lack of meaningful change on offer from Canada main political parties, he ran as an Independent candidate in the riding of Ottawa Centre in the 2019 federal election.
Chris obtained a Bachelor’s degree at Queen’s University and then did a Master’s degree at the London School of Economics and Political Science where he wrote a thesis on national economic planning. He later earned a Doctorate at the University of Oxford in political economy.
Reach him at: jonescp36@gmail.com