PRELIMINARY EVENT PROGRAM
Advancing Financial Wellbeing in Canada: Working Across Sectors for Greater Impact
November 26, 2026
Virtual event hosted by the Centre for Healthy Communities (CHC), School of Public Health in partnership with Canadian Cancer Society, Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and KIAS | Kule Institute for Advanced Study
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9:00 a.m.
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Welcome and Land Acknowledgement Laura McDougall, MD, MHSc, FRCPC, Dean, School of Public Health, University of Alberta |
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Welcome and Opening Prayer Elder Bert Auger |
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Event Overview and Housekeeping Candace Nykiforuk, PhD, Scientific Director, Centre for Healthy Communities and Professor, School of Public Health |
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9:30 a.m.
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Keynote Presentation: Why Financial Wellbeing is Critical (and now more than ever) Elizabeth Mulholland, CEO, Prosper Canada [time for questions from the audience following the presentation] |
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10:00 a.m.
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Presentation: Financial Wellbeing through a Public Health and Quality of Life Lens Presented by:
[time for questions from the audience following the presentation] |
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10:30 a.m.
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Presentation: promotefinancialwellbeing.ca : An Interactive Tool for using Evidence-Informed Strategies and Indicators to Support Action on Financial Wellbeing Laura Nieuwendyk, Senior Program Lead, Centre for Healthy Communities, School of Public Health [time for questions from the audience following the presentation] |
| 11:00 a.m. | Break |
| 11:15 a.m. | Community Marketplace Conversations (detailed below) |
| 12:30 p.m. | Break |
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1:00 p.m.
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Panel Discussion: Taking Action on Financial Wellbeing Lisa Allen Scott, PhD, Director, Healthier Together - Healthy Settings, Promoting Health, Partnerships & Innovation, Planning and Quality, Primary Care Alberta Karina Hurtado, Portfolio Manager, Financial Empowerment, United Way - Alberta Capital Region Lindsay McLaren, PhD, Professor, Department of Community Health Sciences, University of Calgary and Research Associate, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (National Office) Louise Simbandumwe, Co-Director, SEED Winnipeg Inc. Moderator - Candace Nykiforuk, PhD, Scientific Director, Centre for Healthy Communities and Professor, School of Public Health [time for questions from the audience] |
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2:15 p.m.
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Closing Remarks Candace Nykiforuk, PhD, Scientific Director, Centre for Healthy Communities and Professor, School of Public Health |
About the Community Marketplace Conversations
- Opportunity for smaller group discussions and networking on the sub-topics related to domains within the Financial Wellbeing Framework (see details below)
- Conversations are meant to spark insights, ideas, networking, and actions about the sub-topic
- Participants can choose which topic conversations they would like to join and will be able to move between the conversation topics
- Participants are encouraged to engage in the community marketplace conversations
- A facilitator will be present in each Community Marketplace Conversation to briefly introduce the topic and get the conversation started
Community Marketplace Conversation Topics
The Community Marketplace Conversations will focus on the domains within the Financial Wellbeing Framework. Specifically, the following topics will be explored in the smaller group conversations:
Government: In this conversation, participants will share their experiences, successes, or challenges with targeting structural actions that can be taken by government units through the governing systems of public and private sectors. Specifically, this domain refers to macroeconomic, public, and social policies as well as underlying power structures.
Organizational & Political Culture: In this conversation, participants will share their experiences, successes, or challenges with targeting processes that affect the delivery and sustainability of government units, organizational, and community actions. This domain involves consideration of organizational culture and power dynamics.
Socioeconomic & Political Context: In this conversation, participants will share their experiences, successes, or challenges with targeting social and political actions. It encompasses changes to the political and community landscape that, together, shape the availability of resources, opportunities for poverty reduction, possibilities for growth of the middle-class, and improvements in the distribution of power at the societal level.
Social & Cultural Circumstances: In this conversation, participants will share their experiences, successes, or challenges with taking political, community, organizational, and individual actions that shape or recognize social and cultural contexts, hierarchies of power, and people’s social backgrounds and identities (e.g., immigration status, gender, sexual orientation, race/ethnicity) that accumulate to impact their financial circumstances.
Life Circumstances: In this conversation, participants will share their experiences, successes, or challenges with targeting political, community, organizational, and individual actions that impact people’s complex life circumstances, multiple roles, and power relationships (e.g., individual agency and power within a household) that come together – positively or negatively – to shape their financial situation.
Come prepared to engage in visionary conversations, share your experiences, and meet others working on these topics. Together, we will spark insights, ideas, and actions.