Don Drummond (economist)

Don Drummond, OOnt is a noted Canadian economist, having served extensively in the federal Department of Finance Canada, as Chief Economist at Toronto-Dominion Bank and as a scholar at Queen's University. He is known for his wide contributions to public policy in Canada and extensive citation on economic issues.

Drummond was born and raised in Victoria, British Columbia, where he graduated from the University of Victoria. He subsequently received his M.A. in Economics from Queen's University in 1977, and was awarded a Doctor of Laws honoris causa by Queen’s University in June 2010. On Tuesday, June 9, 2015 the University of Victoria conferred an Honorary Doctor of Laws ( LLD ).

Drummond joined the federal Department of Finance where he served for 23 years, holding a series of progressively more senior positions in the areas of economic analysis and forecasting, fiscal policy and tax policy. He served as Assistant Deputy Minister of Fiscal Policy and Economic Analysis, Assistant Deputy Minister of Tax Policy & Legislation and Associate Deputy Minister. In this latter position, Drummond was responsible for economic analysis, fiscal policy, tax policy, social policy and federal-provincial relations. As well, Drummond coordinated the planning of the annual federal budgets.Paul Martin, Finance Minister and later Prime Minister, called Drummond “one of the most principled and imaginative public servants with whom I have ever worked”.

Drummond was Senior Vice President and Chief Economist for the TD Bank from 2000 to 2010. He led TD Economics’ work in analyzing and forecasting economic performance in Canada and abroad. From 2001 until his retirement, he headed government relations for the bank.

He was regarded as having transformed the bank's economics department into a "think-tank on topics of national importance". Many of Drummond’s reports at TD were credited with significantly influencing government’s policy decisions, including the reported impact of his 2008 report “Time for a vision of Ontario's economy” (co-authored with Derek Burleton) in shaping the 2009 Ontario Budget and convincing the provincial government to harmonize its sales tax with the federal Goods and Services Tax.

During this tenure at TD, he participated in a variety of public policy initiatives, including serving as an advisory panel member of Bob Rae’s review of Ontario post-secondary education (the "Rae Report"), serving on the Task Force for Modernizing Income Security for Working-Age Adults of the Toronto City Summit Alliance (now, the Greater Toronto CivicAction Alliance), chairing the Labour Market Ministers’ Advisory Panel on Labour Market Information, and co-chairing a Toronto Financial Services Alliance Working Group to establish a global risk management institute in Canada.

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