Milken Institute plans conference on opening day of Carney’s Canada Investment Summit

California-based think tank the Milken Institute is planning to hold an event with senior business leaders in Toronto to coincide with the start of the Canada Investment Summit led by Prime Minister Mark Carney.

The Milken event, called Global Dialogues Toronto, is a half-day conference scheduled to take place on Sept. 14 at the Park Hyatt hotel, the institute announced on Tuesday.

Confirmed attendees include Royal Bank of Canada chief executive officer Dave McKay, AGF Management Ltd. CEO Judy Goldring, TMX Group Ltd. CEO John McKenzie and Toronto-Dominion Bank CEO Raymond Chun. TD will be the lead sponsor for the event, which aims to attract investors, pension leaders, senior executives and policy-makers.

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It will be held before the start of the government-led investment summit. The high-powered gathering of CEOs and global investors who collectively manage nearly $120-trillion in assets will kick off with a gala dinner that same evening. The Milken event will also likely overlap with a separate forum organized by the Canadian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association.

The institute’s chairman is Michael Milken, the former finance pioneer and “junk bond king” who helped reshape debt markets in the 1980s. He was convicted of securities fraud and later pardoned by U.S. President Donald Trump in 2020.

His non-partisan think tank holds annual large-scale conferences in Asia, the Middle East and South America, as well as its flagship global conference in Los Angeles, which has become a premier gathering for dealmakers and financial leaders.

The Toronto event will explore the ways Canada is “positioning itself for long-term investment leadership,” and its discussions will be posted on the Milken Institute’s website.

Likely panels will focus on topics such as mobilizing large-scale capital, investing in emerging industries, building an artificial intelligence economy and strategies for creating value in investments.

“Canada is sharpening its focus on economic resilience through initiatives such as the proposed $25-billion Canada Strong Fund and a renewed emphasis on trade diversification,” Milken Institute senior fellow Mary Ng, who was formerly Canada’s Minister of International Trade, said in a statement.