Canada's Productivity Initiative: Toronto

Improving Canada’s economic productivity is essential to ensuring long-term prosperity, but doing so will require coordinated policies that support innovation, technology adoption and competitiveness across the economy. Join business leaders, public policy experts and government officials in Toronto on Wednesday, February 12, 2026, to assess where Canada stands in its productivity challenge and highlight opportunities for innovation and technology, including AI, to strengthen economic performance.

Why attend?

This half-day public session is the final session of Canada’s Productivity Initiative led by the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy, with this event hosted in collaboration with the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto.

This half-day conference invites professionals from across business sectors, government, and the wider public sector to explore the key factors shaping Canada’s productivity performance, including technology adoption, regulatory burden, competitiveness issues and the broader economic conditions facing businesses nationwide.

The session features a fireside chat with Carolyn Rogers, Senior Deputy Governor of the Bank of Canada and The Honourable Bill Morneau, along with panel discussions bringing together experts from business, academia and government to explore how innovation and technology can strengthen productivity.

"The limited availability of venture capital and senior leadership talent prevents local startups from scaling effectively, prompting young companies and promising talent to relocate to markets like the United States, where funding and growth opportunities are more abundant. This brain drain weakens Canada’s innovation pipeline and diminishes its global competitiveness."

-- Excerpt from the What We Heard Report from Canada’s Productivity Summit.

"By integrating entrepreneurial training into university curricula with partnerships among academia, industry and government, Canada could cultivate a new generation of innovators prepared to drive economic growth."

-- Excerpt from the What We Heard Report from Canada’s Productivity Summit.