PM Trudeau among prominent speakers featured at Collision tech conference

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will be among some 600 prominent politicians, business leaders and journalists featured at one of the world’s largest tech conferences.

The two-day Collision conference begins today and Trudeau is to take part in a question and answer session with a Financial Times editor on Thursday.

The conference — billed as Collision from Home this year — is taking place virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to the Collision website, more than 32,000 people from 140 countries are expected to join the conference.

Trudeau’s session, which was recorded in advance, focuses on Canada’s response to the pandemic, with particular emphasis on the role of science and innovation in fighting the deadly novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19 and attempts to find treatments and an eventual vaccine.

Among the other featured speakers are Microsoft president Brad Smith, World Health Organization director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Netflix chief production officer Greg Peters and Canadian author Margaret Atwood.

Trudeau is taking a break today from his daily pandemic briefing outside Rideau Cottage to quietly celebrate St. Jean Baptiste Day, Quebec’s Fete nationale.

There are no public festivities this year as efforts to limit the spread of COVID-19 continue across the country.

Trudeau is to mark the occasion by visiting an ice cream shop in the national capital region with his family.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 24, 2020.

The Canadian Press