The Canadian Women Economists Committee invites a speaker each year to give a lecture at the CWEC luncheon, a major highlight of the conference.

Attendance at the luncheon requires separate registration. Please refer to the Registration page for more information.

The Innis Lecture, established in 1974 to honor the distinguished Canadian economist Harold Adams Innis, is typically delivered on the Friday evening following the last regular session of the conference.

Born in 1894 on a farm in Oxford County, Ontario, and passing away in 1952 in Toronto, Innis was educated at McMaster University. He served in the artillery during World War I, where he was wounded in action, before returning to complete a master’s degree in political economy at the University of Chicago. He later joined the faculty at the University of Toronto and, as an economic historian, produced a series of influential works on key economic sectors in Canada. Innis is especially renowned for his studies of the railroad industry, the fur trade, and his "staple" theory of Canadian economic development.

The Innis Lecturer is selected "in recognition of his/her contribution to economics in the broad sense in which Innis conceived the discipline." The first Innis Lecture was delivered by V.W. Bladen and was published in the November 1975 issue of the Canadian Journal of Economics.

The Purvis Lecture is delivered annually during the Purvis Luncheon on Saturday, in honor of the late Douglas D. Purvis, a distinguished Canadian economist from Queen's University.  Participants must register separately to attend the luncheon. During the event, the winner of the Doug Purvis Memorial Prize, awarded for outstanding work in Canadian economic policy, is also announced.