This spring, leaders from across Canada will step away from their day-to-day roles and into a shared national experience designed to challenge assumptions, widen perspectives, and connect them to the realities shaping communities across the country.
From May 22 to June 5, participants in the 2026 Governor General’s Canadian Leadership Conference will take part in study tours across all 13 provinces and territories, forming a collective portrait of Canada. Each tour offers a distinct regional lens, with a shared purpose, to bring leaders face-to-face with the people, places, and ideas shaping Canada’s future, and to explore what it means to lead in a country as diverse and complex as ours.
Going deep rather than wide
Each participant joins one tour, spending two weeks immersed in a single region. From Atlantic Canada to the North, from Québec and Ontario to the Prairies and Western Canada, these experiences are designed to go deep rather than wide.
Together, they reflect the diversity of the country, while grounding each group in the specific histories, challenges, and opportunities of the region they are exploring.
Along the way, participants will meet Indigenous leaders advancing self-determination and stewardship. They will hear from youth, community advocates, and social service organizations working at the front lines of housing, health, education, and food security.
They will engage with business and industry leaders navigating economic transition, innovation, and global pressures, alongside public servants, labour leaders, and policymakers responding to rapidly changing realities.
“The GGCLC experience was personally and professionally life changing. Those intense weeks with my Team BC folks have made me a better human because of the opportunity to understand life in Canada through so many different sets of eyes. I learned that the value of breaking down my own perceptions and beliefs, to allow in the diverse views of others, is essential to becoming a more effective leader.” ~ Matt Hiltz (2017 GGCLC Participant)
There Is No Single Story of Canada
Perspectives are shaped by geography, culture, language, and lived experience. In Atlantic Canada, conversations may centre on rural development, coastal economies, and linguistic identity. In Québec and Ontario, participants will engage with innovation, culture, and urban challenges. Across the Prairies and Western Canada, discussions will explore food systems, natural resources, and energy. In the North, leaders will grapple with climate, sovereignty, and community well-being in remote contexts.
These experiences reflect the conference theme, Leading Canada’s Sustainable Prosperity. Not as a fixed idea, but as an open question. What does prosperity look like, and who is it for? How do different regions define it, and what can be learned by bringing those perspectives together?
An Invitation to Listen
By design, the study tours push leaders beyond familiar perspectives. They create space for difficult conversations, unexpected connections, and a deeper understanding of how decisions made in one part of the country resonate in another.
The study tours are an invitation. To listen. To learn directly from communities. And to carry those insights forward.
