Canada Growth Summit 2019
Be a part of the conversation that delivers long term growth in CanadaWatch highlights from the day
See a detailed agenda, speaker info and more
How Canada Can Compete Globally
PPF’s Canada Growth Summit has fast become a Canadian institution, a can’t-miss event on Canada’s economic policy calendar that brings together more than 400 of the top minds in policy, business, investment and government.
In 2019, the Growth Summit focused on how Canada can compete globally. We had a stellar lineup of thinkers, doers and deciders to discuss and debate the issue, including:
- The Hon. Lisa Raitt, Deputy Leader of the Official Opposition, will discuss Canadian competitiveness with BNN Bloomberg anchor Amanda Lang.
- The Hon. Navdeep Bains, Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development, will join Murad Al-Katib and Lorraine Mitchelmore to discuss how Canada’s old industries are new again
- John Chen, CEO of BlackBerry, will provide the inside track on how he has reimagined Canada’s tech icon
- Canadian economic policy heavyweights Robert Asselin and Sean Speer will present a bipartisan approach to rethinking Canada’s global competitiveness
- Tashia Batstone, Senior VP of CPA Canada, Deloitte’s Zabeen Hirji and Six Nation Polytechnic’s Rebecca Jamieson will look at real case studies from the changing world of work
- Daniel L. Doctoroff, Chairman & CEO of Sidewalk Labs, will share his thoughts on Canada and the 21st Century City Reimagined
For more information or if you have any questions related to Growth Summit, please contact Husvini Poolay.
Thank you to our lead partners:
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Thank you to our supporting partners:
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Thank you to our media partners:
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April 10 – Canada Growth Summit Expert Table dinners
Our Canada Growth Summit Expert Table dinners were held throughout Toronto’s downtown on April 10.
Back by popular demand, these dinners offered a select number of Growth Summit registrants an opportunity – on a first-come, first-served basis – to dine and discuss growth-related issues with a range of leading subject-matter experts. Gain insight into the growth and the competitiveness agenda in Canada and globally. Highlights from last year include David Dodge, the former Governor of the Bank of Canada, speaking on “What Canada Needs Next”.
Experts for this year include:
- David Dodge, former governor of the Bank of Canada
- Ambassador David MacNaughton, Canada’s Ambassador to the United States and Janice Stein, Professor, Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy
- Clint Davis, Chief Executive Officer, North35 Capital Partners and Kim Baird, Former Chief of the Tsawwassen First Nation, and Consultant, Kim Baird Strategic Consulting
- Chantal Hébert, columnist with the Toronto Star and Andrew Coyne, columnist with the National Post
- Stephen S. Poloz, Governor, Bank of Canada
- Goldy Hyder, President and Chief Executive Officer, Business Council of Canada and Lorraine Mitchelmore, Chair, Resources of the Future; Former President and Country Chair of Shell Canada
- Dr. Kathryn Hume, Director of Business Development, Borealis AI
- Hon. Jean Charest, Partner, McCarthy Tétrault LLP and former premier of Québec
- Dr. Mona Nemer, Chief Science Advisor, Government of Canada and Dr. Alan Bernstein, President and Chief Executive Officer, CIFAR
- Leo W. Gerard, International President, United Steelworkers, and Ilse Treurnicht, Former CEO, MaRS Discovery District
- Peter Wallace, Secretary of the Treasury Board and John Knubley, Deputy Minister, Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada
- Robert Asselin, Senior Global Director of Public Policy, BlackBerry and Sean Speer, Senior Fellow in Public Policy, University of Toronto
- Travis Hester, President and Managing Director, GM Canada
For more information or if you have any questions related to Expert Table dinners, please contact Bev Hinterhoeller
PPF is grateful to our dinner hosts for their support:
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April 11 – 32nd Annual Testimonial Dinner
The Summit led up to PPF’s 32nd Annual Testimonial Dinner, which took place on the evening of April 11, 2019. This year we honoured Rona Ambrose, Alan Bernstein, George Cope, Pierre-Marc Johnson and Farah Mohamed. Maayan Ziv was our Emerging Leader Award recipient and Karyn Pugliese was our Hyman Solomon journalism Award winner.
More on Testimonial Dinner & Awards 2019
Speakers
Murad Al-Katib, Chair, Agri-Food Table; President and Chief Executive Officer, AGT Food and Ingredients
Tashia Batstone, Senior Vice-President, External Relations and Business Development, Chartered Professional Accountants of Canada
Yoshua Bengio, Scientific Director of the Mila, Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute, Full Professor, Department of Computer Science and Operations Research, University of Montreal
Janet De Silva, President & CEO, Toronto Region Board of Trade
Jan De Silva is an experienced international business executive with a track record of excelling in on-the-ground leadership roles.
As President & CEO of the Toronto Region Board of Trade, Jan is spearheading efforts to make Toronto one of the most competitive and sought-after business regions in the world.
Prior to joining the Board, Jan spent 14 years in leadership roles in Asia. She served as CEO of Sun Life Financial’s Hong Kong subsidiary and Mainland China joint venture. She co-founded and was CEO of Retail China Limited, which was acquired in 2010. She later served as Dean of Ivey Asia, leading the Hong Kong campus and Asia operations of Ivey Business School of Western University.
Highly respected for her business advocacy and government engagement efforts, Jan has been named one of Canada’s Top 100 Most Powerful Women, a Woman of our Time by Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post and made the Canadian Board Diversity Council’s inaugural Diversity 50 list. She currently sits on the boards of Intact Financial Corporation, Blue Umbrella Limited and the Greater Toronto CivicAction Alliance.
Daniel L. Doctoroff, Chairman & CEO, Sidewalk Labs
Daniel L. Doctoroff is Chairman and CEO of Sidewalk Labs, an Alphabet company that is seeking to develop a new district that would serve as the global model for the 21st century city, integrating great urban design with cutting edge technology.
From 2008 to 2014, Dan was President and Chief Executive Officer of Bloomberg L.P., the leading provider of news and information to the global financial community.
Prior to joining Bloomberg L.P., Dan served as Deputy Mayor for Economic Development and Rebuilding for the City of New York. With Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, he led the city’s dramatic economic resurgence, spearheading the effort to reverse New York’s fiscal crisis after 9/11 through a five-borough economic development strategy. Dan also oversaw the creation of PlaNYC, New York’s pathbreaking sustainability plan. He recently published Greater than Ever: New York’s Big Comeback, a memoir-manifesto about his experience in City Hall.
Before joining the Bloomberg Administration, Dan was Managing Partner of the private equity investment firm Oak Hill Capital Partners. While at Oak Hill, Dan founded NYC2012, the organization that spearheaded efforts to bring the Olympic Games to the city.
Dan serves on the Boards of the University of Chicago, Bloomberg Philanthropies, World Resources Institute and the United States Olympic Committee. He is the founder of Target ALS, which raises funds for and has established a new model of collaboration to advance ALS research. He is a founder and chairman of The Shed, an innovative new cultural institution on Manhattan’s Far West Side.
Dan is a graduate of Harvard College and The Law School at the University of Chicago. A native of Michigan, Dan has lived in New York for the past 35 years with his wife, Alisa.
Zabeen Hirji, Global Advisor, Future of Work, Deloitte and Former Chief Human Resources Officer, RBC
Zabeen is a strategic advisor to the private, public and academic sectors and a director on not-for-profit boards, focused on Future of Work, diversity and inclusion, leadership and talent management. She is also a Corporate Director. She retired from RBC in 2017, following a long and distinguished career. Zabeen is currently Global Advisor, Future of Work at Deloitte, advising the firm and its clients on an issue key to the transformation agendas of business and government, helping clients build workforces and workplaces to succeed in an environment of rapid technological advancements, changing demographics as well as expectations of clients, employees and society. As a proponent of inclusive prosperity, she advises senior levels of government and academia on diversity and inclusion, culture transformation and preparing youth for the Future of work. This includes her roles as Advisor to the Clerk of the Privy Council for the Government of Canada on diversity and inclusion, and Visiting Professor at the Public Policy Institute at King’s College, London, U.K. She Chairs the Board of Civic Action, a CityBuilding organization, and sits on the Governing Council of the University of Toronto. From 2007 to 2017, Zabeen was RBC’s Chief Human Resources Officer, covering 80,000 employees in 40 countries, a member of RBC’s Group Executive Committee, and also responsible for Brand, Communications and Corporate Citizenship. RBC has consistently been recognized as a Best Place to Work, reflecting its high-performance, highengagement inclusive culture and leading talent practices. Personal Honours include: 2017 Canadian HR Awards-Ivey Business School Lifetime Achievement Award in Human Resources; 2016 Governor General’s Meritorious Service Medal for advancing diversity and inclusion, Simon Fraser University’s Outstanding Alumni award; 2014 Catalyst Canada Champion for Women and Minorities in Business; and WXN’s Top 100 Most Powerful Women Hall of Fame inductee in 2012. Zabeen holds an MBA from Simon Fraser University.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/zabeenhirji/
Royce Mendes, Director and Senior Economist at CIBC
Mr. Mendes joined CIBC Capital Markets in 2015 as a Director and Senior Economist after having spent several years at the Bank of Canada. He leads the group’s efforts in monitoring and forecasting the Canadian economy, a team judged to be the most accurate by Reuters in 2018. Mr. Mendes is regularly quoted in the media for his work at CIBC.
While at the Bank of Canada, Mr. Mendes held roles as Portfolio Manager for Canada’s foreign reserves, Associate Editor for the Financial System Review publication and Principal Researcher in the Financial Markets Department. Prior to working at Canada’s central bank, he was an equity research analyst at a Toronto-based hedge fund.
Mr. Mendes holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Western Ontario and a Master of Finance degree from Queen’s School of Business. He also holds the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation.
Lorraine Mitchelmore, Chair, Resources of the Future; Former President and Country Chair of Shell Canada
Neil Parmenter, President & CEO, CBA
Neil Parmenter is President and Chief Executive Officer of the Canadian Bankers Association (CBA). As President and CEO, he communicates the perspectives of the industry to all levels of government, regulators, stakeholders, media and the public. In this capacity, Mr. Parmenter plays a strong role in the development of public policy on financial services that contributes to a sound, successful banking system that benefits Canadians and Canada’s economy. He provides leadership over the CBA’s financial literacy education programs, Your Money Students and Your Money Seniors, and is the industry representative on the National Steering Committee on Financial Literacy, an expert panel tasked with the implementation of the National Strategy for Financial Literacy for Canada. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the International Banking Federation (IBFed), a forum that addresses issues affecting banking around the world.
Prior to this role, he held the position of Senior Vice President, Corporate and Public Affairs (Global) and Chief Communications Officer at TD Bank Group. In that capacity, he led TD’s Corporate Communications for Canada and the United States and the Canadian Government Relations practice while counselling the CEO, CFO, Senior Executive Team and Board of Directors on key government relations, communications, and public affairs issues.
Mr. Parmenter holds a B.A. in Political Science from Western University, a Certificate in Public Relations from Humber College, a Canadian Securities designation and completed an Executive Program in Strategic Marketing Management from Stanford University. He has won several industry awards from the Canadian Public Relations Society (CPRS) and the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC). He also served as a Director of the Toronto Financial Services Alliance
Ilse Treurnicht, Former CEO, MaRS Discovery District
Ilse Treurnicht’s career spans scientific research and commercialization, technology startups and growth companies, venture capital, and public policy. From 2005-2017 she served as CEO of MaRS (marsdd.com) in Toronto, overseeing the development of the organization from a startup to a leading urban innovation hub.
Ilse was Chair of the Canadian Task Force on Social Finance in 2010, and is recognized for advancing a Canadian innovation ecosystem that fosters both economic and social prosperity. She has served on the Government of Canada’s Science, Technology and Innovation Council (STIC), and on the boards of several technology firms and non-profit organizations. She is currently a member of Canada’s Advisory Council on Economic Growth and the Advisory Committee on Open Banking. She also serves as executive chair of Triphase Accelerator Corporation (a cancer drug development firm), and is a board director of Cogniciti (a brain health company) and the Public Policy Forum. She holds a doctorate in chemistry from Oxford University, which she attended as a Rhodes Scholar.
Rebecca Jamieson, Tuscarora, Six Nations of the Grand River
Rebecca Jamieson, Tuscarora, is the President-CEO Six Nations Polytechnic, mother, grandmother, sister and auntie. Six Nations Polytechnic (established 1993) is centre of excellence for Indigenous community-based learning at the post-secondary level. Rebecca has been involved at all levels of First Nations education in a wide range of roles including teaching; counselling; policy, curriculum and institutional research and development; teacher education; administration, governance and jurisdictional negotiations. In Ontario, Rebecca has also been actively involved in public postsecondary education, serving as the first Executive Director of the College Standards and Accreditation Council (CSAC), and on the Board of Governors for several Ontario Universities and Mohawk College.
Rebecca holds an undergraduate degree in psychology and philosophy from Wilfrid Laurier University and a Master of Education from the University of Toronto. Rebecca is a member of the College of Teachers and holds Supervisory Officers Qualifications. She is trained in mediation and alternative dispute resolution and is a Graduate of the Carver Institute, Policy Governance. In recognition of her contributions in Indigenous education Rebecca received the Order of Ontario (2008); was appointed Distinguished Fellow, Mohawk College (2015), received an Honorary Doctor of Laws, University of Western Ontario (2015), an Honorary Doctor of Laws, Wilfrid Laurier University (2017) and was appointed to the Order of Canada (2018).
Tiff Macklem, Chair of the Expert Panel on Sustainable Finance, and Dean, Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto
Tiff Macklem became Dean of the Rotman School in 2014.
From 2010-2014, Tiff served as senior deputy governor of the Bank of Canada, sharing responsibility with the governor and four deputy governors for monetary policy and for the Bank’s role in promoting financial stability. He was also the Bank’s chief operating officer and a member of its board of directors, overseeing strategic planning and coordinating the Bank’s operations. Macklem has also played a leading role in efforts to ensure stable financial systems worldwide.
Prior to his appointment at the Bank, Tiff served as associate deputy minister of the federal Department of Finance and Canada’s finance deputy at the G7 and G20, the IMF, and the Financial Stability Board. He also served as chair of the Standing Committee on Standards Implementation of the Financial Stability Board. In that role, he worked to establish an international system of peer review to promote and assess the implementation of new financial standards across the 24 most financially important countries in the world.
Tiff is a well-known expert in monetary and financial systems and has contributed articles to academic journals, as well as providing chapters and commentaries on monetary and financial sector policy and international economics in books and conference proceedings.
Since coming to Rotman, Tiff has also been appointed the chair of the board of the Global Risk Institute, chair of Ontario’s Panel on Economic Growth and Prosperity, a director of Scotiabank, and a member of the Asian Business Leaders Advisory Board.
Kim Thomassin, Member of the Expert Panel on Sustainable Finance, and Executive Vice-President of Legal Affairs and the Secretariat, Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ)
Kim Thomassin has been Executive Vice-President, Legal Affairs and Secretariat since January 30, 2017. She manages the Legal Affairs, Corporate Secretariat and Compliance and Responsible Investment teams. Her mandate specifically involves managing CDPQ’s legal and regulatory activities, including the implementation of legal and governance structures for all investment transactions. Her team also plays a central role in supporting CDPQ in its globalization strategy. She is a member of the Executive Committee, in addition to being a member of the Boards of Ivanhoé Cambridge, the institution’s global real estate subsidiary, and Cirque du Soleil. She is one of four members of an expert panel on sustainable finance set up by the federal government to engage with Canadian business experts.
Before joining CDPQ, Ms. Thomassin was National Client Leader and Managing Partner for the Québec Region at McCarthy Tétrault. As a member of the Leadership Team, she contributed to the firm’s regional and national management while strengthening its national presence. In her 17 years at the firm, she held various important positions and specialized in project finance and acquisition transactions in the energy and infrastructure sectors. She has been involved in several transactions related to large-scale Canadian and international projects. She has also represented public institutions and developers in connection with public-private partnerships.
Ms. Thomassin received a B.C.L./LL. B. from Université Laval and a minor in psychology at McGill University. She also studied at the University of Western Ontario’s Faculty of Law. Ms. Thomassin is a member of the Québec Bar.
Tim O’Brien, General Manager, AI Programs, Microsoft Corp.
Tim leads Ethical AI Advocacy at Microsoft and is responsible for programs to drive and promote responsible development and use of technology, inclusive of public policy and the ethics of artificial intelligence. As part of this role, Tim conducts research focused on ethical use of AI across geographies and cultures.
Tim is also a Guest Lecturer at INSEAD, one of the world’s leading business schools, where he speaks on cross-cultural leadership and ethics.
Prior to this role, Tim led the Global Communications group for Microsoft, managing communications strategy and operations in over 90 countries around the world, and the Platform Strategy team, where he was responsible for technical evangelism to drive developer adoption of Microsoft platforms and services.
Before joining Microsoft in 2003, Tim worked as an engineer, a marketer and a consultant at both startups and Fortune 500 companies. He has over 25 years of experience in the tech industry.
Tim has a BS in engineering from Purdue University and an MBA in marketing from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.
Anchor, BNN Bloomberg
Award-winning business journalist Amanda Lang has been covering business in North America for 20 years. Lang is the host of Bloomberg Markets for BNN Bloomberg, a global program airing daily from Toronto and New York. Previously, Lang was CBC’s senior business correspondent, reporting for its flagship nightly news program, The National, and host of The Exchange with Amanda Lang, a daily business program airing on CBC News Network. For five years before that Lang hosted The Lang and O’Leary Exchange, with Kevin O’Leary. And prior to that the pair co-hosted SqueezePlay, on BNN, for 6 years.
Lang studied Architecture at the University of Manitoba, before becoming a journalist. Her first job in journalism was for the Globe and Mail, and subsequently Lang joined the Financial Post newspaper, where she became the paper’s New York correspondent. In New York she made the leap to television, where she first was part of the team that launched BNN and before long wound up at CNN as a reporter and anchor. Lang is also a best-selling author. “The Power of Why,” (HarperCollins, October 2012) explores the connection between curiosity and success. “The Beauty of Discomfort” (HarperCollins, April 2017) examines how difficult change can be, and set out strategies for how to achieve it.