The Decibel - Inside ‘Davos on the dock,’ the invite-only Muskoka conference

Episode Date: August 4, 2026

The Dock has been around since 2015. It’s an invite-only conference where tech, business and political leaders gather to talk. This year it was at a billionaire real estate magnate’s cottage estate in Ontario’s Muskoka region. And Prime Minister Mark Carney attended for part of the three-day conference. Guests are asked not to talk about what happens there, but business reporters Tim Kiladze and Sean Silcoff managed to report details about who goes, what ideas get suggested to the government and a dramatic moment involving Shopify CEO and co-founder Tobi Lütke. Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at [e-mail] Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

It's the summertime, which for a lot of people, means heading to a cottage. But chances are the prime minister is not at the cottage with you. Well, two weeks ago, he actually did visit someone's cottage, though really it's more of a sprawling estate, as part of an exclusive conference called The Dock. It's a secretive event. The guests who are there by invitation only are asked not to talk about what guests. gets discussed. And sometimes what's talked about can even influence government policy. Business reporters Tim Kallads and Sean Silcoff have gotten the details from the doc.

And today, they're on the show to explain what happens when a few dozen tech and business leaders gather with politicians at a developer's cottage for two days. I'm Rachel Levy McLaughlin sitting in for Cheryl Sutherland, and this is The Dessable from The Globe and Mail. Tim, Sean, thanks so much for being here. Hey there. Thanks for having us. So let's start off by explaining the doc.

Tim, what is the purpose of this conference? It is meant to bring business leaders and government together. And we like to think of it as Davos on the dock, but a little bit more exclusive where things are kept confidential. The conference has actually gone on since 2015. It was much smaller before. It used to have about 30 people. Now this year it was around 60 guests.

And in terms of who's there, you know, there's chief executives, wealthy entrepreneurs, politicians, world-renowned scientists and experts in areas like AI and venture capitalists. And the idea is that, you know, business and government tend to not cross past all that much in a collaborative way. But there's a lot of things that they should probably hear each other out on. And the doc started as a much smaller affair about 10 years ago and has grown over time because, It seems as though everybody who goes tends to get something out of it. Sean, how common are exclusive conferences like this where CEOs and politicians are meeting up? There are several around the world. This is not unique.

People talk about Bilderberg. Certainly Sun Valley is the best known. It brings together globally, very powerful CEOs from communications, IT, finance, that sort of thing. These things have been happening for years in various formats. I don't think this is novel or unique. It's definitely something that is an attempt by Canadians to really capture that and see if they can take the conversation about this country forward in a more proactive way. And I think that was the spirit that led to its formation 11 years ago and continues to drive it. Can you set the scene for me?

Where does this conference take place? So it's up on Lake Rosso in Muscoca, which is one of the kind of more ritzie glan. Amarous Lakes. And it's on an estate or compound, whatever word you want to use, called Furndale. And that's owned by Peter Gilgan, who's a massive real estate developer here in the greater Toronto area. He started a company called Matamy Holmes. And this compound used to be kind of a resort and conference center. It's got multiple boat houses, guest houses, a helipad. It's even got this classic diner called Ernie's, which is kind of this retro 60s look. On the cottage estate, there's a, there's a diner. That's right, on the estate.

And the idea is that it's this place where people can speak freely. If you go to a hotel, for instance, you never know who's listening. And so this is a spot where, you know, people can kind of drop their guard and actually speak their minds. So, Sean, I take it, people aren't in, you know, suits and ties at this thing. No. And in fact, we saw pictures from a previous talk that showed people wearing T-shirts and shorts, mussey hair, look like just a... bunch of folks hanging out at a cottage.

Who gets invited to this event, Sean? Well, we weren't. When you look at the guest list from this year and past years, what you see, as Tim pointed out, was a lot of CEOs and entrepreneurs from tech and other areas of the economy. For example, last year, Chip Wilson was there. He was the founder of Lulu Lemon. Chris Hadfield is there. He's been many times.

But you also see CEOs from corporate Canada, people like Eric Martel from Bombardier, Dave McCoy, of course, RBC. They've been a big sponsor of the event. CEO of RBC. CEO of RBC, thank you. And also CEOs of classic Canadian companies like Trans Canada. This year we saw a lot of CEOs from the space world, like MDA and Telesat, a couple of folks, at least from the biotech world, drug developers.

and you've seen for many years some of the leading names in artificial intelligence, Raquel Erdogan this year. She's building a driverless car company called Wabi. It's a spinout of University of Toronto. And another U of T spinout co-hear. One of their co-founders, Nick Frost, was there. You'll also see the odd celebrity. This year, there was Ryan Reynolds. Last year, Ed Norton, the actor. And a few international luminaries, people who've worked in senior roles in the U.S. government. Last year there was Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google. So they like to bring in international thought leaders as well. Why so many CEOs from space and biotech this year?

The theme has really shifted, as the theme has shifted in the highest conversations in this country to sovereignty. And space and biotech are two areas where we have strengths. We have powerhouses in space, MDA and TELOSAT. And I think the world has obviously gotten a little less predictable. And so there's a real need that's seen by the senior leaders of the government and in business to really lean into these areas. And biotech, well, gosh, this is a country that gave the world insulin, the discovery of stem cells, how GLP1s work. So we have 100 years of scientific research success, but not necessarily a lot of success in taking those drugs to market. So I think there's a recognition that some of the know-how that we have coming out of our universities,

putting together companies, these are areas that the country needs to focus on in terms of securing our economic sovereignty going forward. So it sounds like each year has a theme. Tim, how does it work? Do they all just hang out on a dog in chat or is there more structure? Two things. I'm going to paint a bit of a scene here for you because I had lots of friends after the story ran, ask like what's the vibe like you know and you know everybody asks like is it like

patagonia vests and lots of people walking around with like capacious bags um it's not yeah it's a little i don't know i would say dull in a way um a little Canadian uh so golf shirts and shell tank tops for ladies but there is some messy cottage hair which is how you know this crowd lets loose And then in terms of the actual agenda, it's kind of like a normal conference. Although it's confidential and private and all that kind of stuff, there is just kind of a normal structure to these things. So this year, it was from a Wednesday to a Friday in mid-July. And, you know, guests arrived kind of late Wednesday. There's an opening dinner.

You mingle. The Thursday, it's kind of like a regular conference agenda. There's, you know, structured fireside chats, a lunch. What this conference does to try to make itself a bit unique is they have these things called unconferences, which is a very techy thing. Yeah, what is that? They basically just have these small group chats and people can suggest ideas about what to kind of put into the schedule or they have these small conversations facilitated

throughout the day by different, you know, thought leaders. I hate that term. But, you know, these experts that are around. And so the idea is that they don't want it to be too structured and they wanted to have it more conversational. And then on the Friday this year, that's when the prime minister showed up. So he was there from 9 to 11 a.m. and had a bit of like a fireside chat where they had a bit of a debate and people from the conference would kind of present some of the ideas that they talked about of the previous day and a half.

And then he would give or kind of weigh in with a bit of how government is thinking about these things. There's one other thing, of course. I've never been to a fireside chat that had a fire. This one has a fire. There's a campfire and there's all there was also a house band, which includes Chris Hadfield, that entertain the guest. So kind of adds to the mood. There are some other events scheduled at dockside cruise. There's morning yoga if people want to do it. So it is like a bit of a hybrid of summer camp for experienced people. It sounds like a corporate retreat kind of. Yeah. That might be a good way of

putting it. Sean, we mentioned the guests are asked not to talk about what was discussed. Why is secrecy so important to this conference? Well, I think the idea is you, put a bunch of important people at a room together, and if they know they're off the record, they probably feel like they can speak freely. A lot of these people run public companies, and what comes out of their mouths is tightly controlled. They have to make sure that they're on side with securities regulators and so on. And a lot of people just don't like to share their opinions in public, although we've definitely seen a departure from that from some of the tech people. We can talk about that. But I think the idea is if you lead a public company, if you're a public

figure, you might not want to speak so candidly if you know a lot of people are listening. Well, if it's only 50 people that are listening and each of them is a peer, you can talk more freely. And also, it probably ensures that you have this crowd come. I mean, I've been to a lot of conferences where you don't necessarily get the A-listers, but if a conference is only A-lister's, I I think that feeds upon itself. And the more you have, the more enticing it is for others to come. And the idea, again, is that this leads to productive, high-level discussions that can really move the needle for the economy or policy and whatnot. I want to get into the drama from these conferences in a sec.

But first, we've talked about the secrecy. How did you guys find out what was going on? Well, this year, we knew about it because it appeared in the prime minister's public schedule. So it wasn't a secret, and we want to make that clear. Premier Mr. Justin Trudeau was gone before. That has been reported. Christopher Freeland had gone. Find as Mr. Champagne has been.

Was there this year. But this year, it kind of caught more people's attention. One, because Carney went and wasn't there last year. And two, it's just also kind of a pivotal time for the country. So there's just a lot of questions around, like, what are business leaders and politicians really talking about and how are they thinking? And we just wanted to know that. What kind of influence does this conference have? Obviously, they have a lot to talk about, but is it producing results?

There's definitely been some tangible policy that's come out of it over the years. So in some of the early iterations, say 2016, 2017, that's when Canada was putting together its first round of an AI strategy. And coming out of this conference, we developed things and created things like the Vector Institute in Toronto. and then other AI hubs in Edmonton and Montreal put some money behind it and we're able to keep some of these kind of top people in Canada. Last year at the conference, one of the ideas batted around was this idea of having kind of an invest in Canada forum is maybe the best way to put it, to show off what Canada has to offer to all these kind of big global sovereign wealth

funds and things of that sort. And that's actually happening this year. Don't get me wrong. you know, that idea has been batted around before. So, you know, you don't want to give the conference too much credit. But it really and truly was talked about last year and now it's happening. So sometimes meetings like this can actually just get people in a room to kind of say, okay, who's putting up the money, who's got the contacts, let's make it happen. You know, it's maybe kind of it's the final thing that gets an idea across the finish line to becoming real.

This conference, its existence, as Tim said, was not a mystery. But there was certainly no desire among the organizers to share what was discussed or any insight into what was going to come out of it or who the guest list was. We did a lot of reporting into this and a lot of people weren't happy that we were asking questions and weren't that helpful. Obviously, when you report and put enough time and effort into it, you eventually find some things out as we did. But one of the organizers even told me, and this is a quote, it's flabbergasting what you eyes are trying to hunt down, it's kind of embarrassing. It's so petty. That's a direct quote. And I think that speaks to a real desire to maintain the secrecy of this. And, well, you say that

to a reporter and it's kind of like pulling out the catnip for the cats. We'll be right back. Sean, you mentioned earlier a little bit of drama. Can you tell me more about what happened? Absolutely. There was a remarkable exchange last year at the dock in 2025. You had Ian Bremmer from the Eurasia group talking on what sounded like a panel on stage with Eric Schmidt from Google. He was the former CEO of Google. So you had one of the world's best known talking heads on geopolitical matters in Ian Bremmer and someone who'd built a company. And Toby Lutke, who is Canada's most successful entrepreneur. He's the CEO of Shopify was in the crowd.

And he felt that Ian Bremmer was kind of monopolizing the country. conversation. So he spoke out in this room of about 50 people, all these CEOs and entrepreneurs and leaders, and said, hey, Ian, would you mind not talking so much? I really want to hear from this guy who actually built a company. And a number of people mentioned that to us that we spoke to. And they thought it was quite rude of Toby to do that. I actually asked Toby if he could add some context about that. And he sent me this remarkable text. He said, the doc is a conference where basically leaders with 90 IQs go to use terms they heard people who with 100 IQs say to impress people with 80 IQs. I went a few times to read them the Riot Act on where Canada is headed if they want

to keep up the non-player character act. And non-player character is a, Toby's a big gamer. And this refers to those characters in video games who aren't the main players. They're not the people doing the shooting or being shot at. They're just sort of these inert characters. And I think this really speaks to a growing frustration. People who stick around and build companies in this country feel like it's already hard enough to actually start and build a company in Canada. That's the perception they have. And we've seen a growing number of entrepreneurs actually moved to the United States to start their companies. And so there's been this real frustration. in the country about that.

And it's sort of fueled a lot of entrepreneurs, particularly Toby, to become increasingly outspoken and critical about some of the directions the country has gone on. You also said that then he wasn't invited again this year. That's right. And I should also add, for some context, that he has become more outspoken over the years,

particularly on X. And after our story ran, there was a number of exchanges where he made some pretty aggressive comments, one of them being that he said he supported giving people who have more money, more votes during an election. So take it all with a bit of a grain of salt or understand the broader context as to, there's pushing the needle or moving the needle. And then there's also kind of having strong, strong thoughts. I think what everyone still has in common who's

attended, including Toby, is they want Canada to be better. It's just that people have sometimes very different opinions about how to get there. We've talked about how Prime Minister Mark Carney was at this event, participated in this fireside chat at the conference. What do we know about what Mark Carney said and how guests reacted to it? So this is one of the things that was a bit harder to probe, and it gets back to this idea of confidentiality. We know he spoke for two hours.

Some of it was kind of laying out all the things that the government is doing, and that maybe sound kind of basic. but think about it. There's a lot going on in the world right now. There's AI. There's trade. There is the potential of Alberta separatism. There's a new pipeline to the West Coast.

And so some of it is just being able to hear kind of from the horse's mouth, like how all these things fit together and how the government is viewing it. One person described it to us as understanding that, you know, Carney is playing five-dimensional chess. And they were quite enthused by that and said that a number of people in the room kind of walked away, energized because they have a better appreciation of just how much the government is doing and how many balls they're juggling. What was the official statement from Carney's office about this visit to the dock? The PMO was fairly tight-lipped about what was actually discussed, although they

did acknowledge he was there to quote, meet and engage in robust conversations with entrepreneurs and industry leaders on ways to continue scaling and growing the economy. We also know that some of the key topics this year were sovereignty, which is no surprise, space and artificial intelligence. I would also add that Carney has been meeting with business leaders beyond the dock. He was in New York, gave a speech there and then met with the Business Roundtable, which has leaders from some of the largest companies in the U.S. or financial companies here in Canada. He put out an official request to meet with leaders of things like the banks and the insurers when he was here on Bay Street a few months back.

So these meetings have been happening. And for a broader understanding behind it, you know, Carney comes from the business world. Like he used to be, you know, the governor of the bank of Canada and then the bank of England was chair of Brookfield asset management. He can have a good dialogue with these people because he speaks their language. And so he's also trying to correct this notion here in Canada or, of course, correct, this idea that, you know, government doesn't listen to business. Is it considered lobbying? This is FaceTime with cabinet ministers, the prime minister. Is it considered lobbying?

I think Carney smartly put it on his schedule to show that this is, you know, not something that they're hiding from the world. I would also say, too, there are a lot of conversations that happen that fall into this gray area. As I said before, like Carney was in New York meeting with some of the biggest American executives in the financial world. That was also a private meeting. There are very strict and well-known lobbying rules in Canada, and many of the people at the conference are registered lobbyists or their companies are. And I think they would know that if they were in a situation where they were engaged in a conversation that would trigger the lobbying rules, that they would file a communication report about that. To end here, I'm wondering what you two think we should make of this conference, the decisions and deal. that are made, sometimes they have policy implications. There's not a ton of transparency.

How should we be thinking about this? Sean, you are first. I think a lot of these types of conversations happen behind closed doors, as they always have among people in power and people of wealth. And our job as journalists is to try to uncover the fact that these conversations are happening and to the extent that we can report on them. And that allows readers and citizens to ask more questions and make up their own mind. I don't think it's a bad thing that government leaders and business people are talking. They do all the time and that's, we should expect that. And again, that's why we have lobbying rules. But it's our job as journalists, as I said, to bring this to light. And I think Stoke interest in these kinds of interactions.

And judging by the huge response the story has had, there's obviously a lot of interest. And I think that hopefully can convince the leaders and business people who attend that there is value and great interest among the general population to hear more about what came out of this and increased transparency, increased disclosure. But failing that, there's us trying to do our job to bring this to light. Tim, what do you think? I think I already said this a little bit, but like I was thinking about like even this past week Dominic LeBlanc was down in Washington, was at a baseball game.

and they're trying to reignite trade talks. Like, we don't know what happens inside those trade talks. We want to know. That's our job as journalists. But also trust and privacy do matter, both within government and within business. And more than anything, I think it's healthy to have the two sides talk to each other. I'd rather that than have zero collaboration. And then you just get a mismatch of policy and, you know, moving the country

be forward. Tim, Sean, thanks so much for being here. Happy to. Thank you. That was Sean Silcoff, a business reporter at the globe who covers technology and life sciences, and Tim Kallatz, who covers the business world in Canada for the globe. That's it for today. I'm Rachel Levy McLaughlin, in for Cheryl Sutherland. Our producers are Madeline White, Mikhail Stein, and me.

Our editor is David Crosby. Adrian Chung is our senior producer, and Angela Pachenza is our executive editor. Thanks so much for listening.