Jul 6, 2016
Trudeau to pitch Canada to tech billionaires at Allen & Co conference
After hosting U.S. President Barack Obama at last week’s North American Leaders’ Summit, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will pitch Canada during a trip to the picturesque U.S. town of Sun Valley, Idaho. Trudeau will speak on Wednesday at the annual Sun Valley gathering of tech and media elites, an event arranged by boutique investment firm Allen & Company.
The conference, which is closed to the media, is often described as summer camp for billionaires. High-profile guests include Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.
Mornings are spent in conference sessions, while guests are free to spend their afternoons outdoors, enjoying activities such as white water rafting and mountain biking.
Trudeau, of course, has not shied away from pitching Canada to elite audiences. In January, he spoke at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, delivering a speech entitled “The Canadian Opportunity.”
Since then, Trudeau’s government has pledged to spend $125 billion over the next decade on infrastructure spending, in an effort to kick start Canada’s economy. As part of that spending pledge, the prime minister is encouraging pension funds and foreign investors to invest alongside Canada in some of these projects. While tech billionaires may not fit that mold, the event does include a range of investors.
Other leaders who have spoken at the event in recent years include Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto (2013) and former Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti (2012).
Trudeau is also not the first sitting Canadian prime minister to attend Sun Valley. Paul Martin spoke there in 2004, highlighting the importance of the trade relationship between Canada and the United States.
“North American trade issues require North American solutions, solutions that respect the differences in our sovereign countries that also recognize the huge common interest and our profound interdependence as neighbours on this continent,” Martin said at the time.
