Canadian Leadership in a Challenging World Inaugural Gathering of Global Canadian Leaders August 22-23, 2016 Programme The goal of this gathering is two-fold: • Provide an opportunity for Canadian leaders from across the country and around the world to meet one another and exchange ideas • Brainstorm on opportunities to enhance Canada’s global impact. Drawing upon the rich experience of this diverse group of leaders, we hope to surface a number of creative, crunchy (i.e. tangible) ideas, noting in each case how they would be good for Canada and the world, why Canada could have the capability to take on a leading role, and what it would take to make it happen. We will not try to decide between ideas or to enforce a false consensus. By Canada, we mean all Canadian stakeholders, not just the government. A number of ideas may require government involvement or leadership. There may be others where Canadian foundations, think-tanks, companies, NGOs or Universities—or some combination—can play the leadership role, with or without government involvement. The structure of the day is highly interactive. Certain participants will make brief “scenesetting” remarks, but there will be no formal speeches or presentations. There will be two formats: committee of the whole and breakout groups, generally along thematic lines. As a reminder, Global Canada is a non-partisan, multi-stakeholder initiative to bring together Canadians, at home and abroad, who are making a positive difference in the world. Guests are participating in their personal capacity, not as representatives of their organization. The meeting will follow Chatham House rules to preserve the privacy and the candour of the conversation. No comments made during the event may be attributed to particular individuals.
August 22nd 18:00 Dinner cocktail reception: Welcome and introduction 21:00 Closing of cocktail reception August 23rd 08:00 Breakfast 08:30 Welcome and overview of the day 08:45 Scene-setting observations on the state of the world. How Canada is positioned and perceived. 09:15 Breakouts sharing creative ideas for Canada to make a positive difference at a global scale. 10:00 Presentation and full-group discussion of ideas 10:30 Break 11:00 Discussions on specific opportunities for global impact Discussions with participants over the past weeks and workshops over the past year have surfaced 10 areas where Canada could potentially have a world-scale impact. These areas are not exhaustive—there are doubtless other important areas—but they provide fertile grounds to explore opportunities for Canadian impact in more detail. They will be discussed in 2 sets of 5 opportunities, with an initial outlining of each area at the full group level, followed by breakouts along each area of opportunity. First set of opportunities: the environment and economic growth, human development, and humanitarian assistance. 1. Encouraging and demonstrating positive pluralism; 2. Rising to the challenge of the environment, the extractive industry, and truly sustainable mineral development; 3. Accelerating improvements in human development; 4. Leading on women’s empowerment, in particular sexual and reproductive rights and health; 5. Role-modelling better approaches to migration and refugees. 12:00 Report back to main group
12:30 Lunch 13:30 Second set of opportunities: Peace, justice and strong institutions 6. Supporting the development of responsible, resilient national states and robust civil societies; 7. Playing a global leadership role on police reform, strengthening of judiciaries and human rights-compliant rule of law; 8. Rallying efforts to improve the international fiscal equity of global corporations and very high net worth individuals; 9. Enhancing the effectiveness of international governance; 10. Proactively shaping the governance of globally-disruptive technologies. 14:30 Report back to main group 15:00 Break 15:30 Discussion on building and engaging global Canadians. Canada and the world benefit if more Canadian leaders are globally aware and globally engaged, and if decision-makers at home better draw upon the insights and abilities of Canadians abroad. There will full-group discussion followed by breakouts along 5 areas of opportunity: 1. Increasing the number of Canadians successfully occupying leadership positions in international governmental organizations, foundations and civil society organizations; 2. Increasing the global experience base of Canadian private and public sector leaders; 3. Systematically drawing upon the insights and abilities of Canadian leaders located abroad; 4. Systematically bringing together globally-engaged Canadian individuals and institutions based in Canada; 5. Supporting a new generation of responsible, world-scale Canadian companies with a positive global impact. 16:45 Report back to main group 17:15 Summary and next steps 17:30 Close 17:30-18:30 Optional visit to the Au Sommet Place Ville Marie Exhibition of Montréal (45th floor of 3 Place Ville Marie) 18:00 Beginning of Dinner Cocktail Reception (46th floor of 3 Place Ville Marie) 20:30 Formal finish of event, but 46th floor remains open until 23:00 for those who wish to continue their conversations.