Carney courts Gulf capital at star-studded Abu Dhabi dinner

Ottawa rolled out its corporate establishment this week as Prime Minister Mark Carney pressed his campaign to redirect Canadian trade and capital away from the United States and toward the Gulf, hosting a dinner for Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan that drew nearly 120 names from the upper reaches of Canadian business, finance and government.

The guest list, obtained by The Globe and Mail, reads as a map of the sectors Ottawa hopes will anchor a deepening economic partnership with the United Arab Emirates: defence and security, energy, critical minerals, infrastructure, international development, space, advanced communications, quantum computing and artificial intelligence. Those are precisely the areas in which the Prime Minister’s Office has said the two countries will expand relations.

The dinner capped the first day of a two-day visit by the Crown Prince, whose father is president of the UAE. It came against a backdrop of rapidly thickening commercial ties. Canada and the UAE signed a free trade agreement in July, and an investment protection treaty entered into force in May. Mr. Carney returned from a visit to the country last fall touting a UAE commitment to invest $70-billion in Canada, a figure that frames the stakes of the courtship now underway.

The composition of the guest list signals where Ottawa sees the money flowing. Energy and infrastructure were heavily represented: Gregory Ebel, chief executive of Enbridge Inc.; Ian Edwards of engineering firm AtkinsRéalis; Alexandre L’Heureux of WSP Global; Kieran Hawe of construction company EllisDon; James Scongack, chief operating officer of Bruce Power; and Eric Desaulniers, head of graphite developer Nouveau Monde Graphite. Bombardier chief executive Éric Martel and Victor Dodig, recently appointed chief executive of Telus Corp., were also listed.

The Desmarais family, long synonymous with Power Corporation of Canada, appeared in force. André Desmarais, the company’s deputy chairman, and Paul Desmarais III, a senior vice-president, were both invited, along with executives from Power Sustainable, a Power Corp. investment arm.

Canada’s large pools of institutional capital were equally visible. Deborah Orida, chief executive of PSP Investments, was on the list, as were Alison Nankivell of Export Development Canada and Geneviève Bouthillier, an executive vice-president at BDC Capital. Government-relations heads from Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, HOOPP and Sun Life attended, alongside venture investor Chris Arsenault of Inovia. Gurinder Grewal, named chief executive of Invest in Canada on Aug. 31, was also present, underscoring the investment-attraction machinery now being pointed at Gulf capital.

The technology sector was not left out. Joelle Pineau, chief AI officer at Cohere, and Valérie Pisano, chief executive of Mila, were among the invitees, reflecting the artificial intelligence ambitions on the bilateral agenda.

Political weight was layered over the corporate turnout. Former prime minister Stephen Harper was one of the most prominent invitees. Members of Mr. Carney’s inner circle filled out the Canadian side, including chief of staff Marc-André Blanchard, Clerk of the Privy Council Michael Sabia, senior diplomatic adviser David Morrison, principal secretary Scott Gilmore and deputy chief of staff Jennifer MacIntyre. Ambassadors to the United States and the UAE, Mark Wiseman and Angad Dhillon, attended, as did Sébastien Carrière, Global Affairs Canada’s chief of protocol. Cabinet ministers and parliamentarians, provincial representatives, lawyers, consultants and lobbyists, hospital and university leaders, museum administrators and representatives of Indigenous communities rounded out the room.

The Emirati delegation mirrored the economic focus. Many of the invited UAE guests work for the Abu Dhabi Crown Prince’s Court, including its chairman, Sheikh Khalifa bin Tahnoon Al Nahyan, and Saif Ghobash, chairman of the Crown Prince’s Office and secretary-general of the Abu Dhabi Executive Council. Sultan Al Jaber, who is both the UAE’s minister of industry and advanced technology and chief executive of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Co., was listed, putting the country’s state oil champion directly at the table.

Port logistics featured as well. Representatives of DP World, the Dubai-based port operator, were invited, including Douglas Smith, chief executive of the company’s operations in Canada, and Sultan bin Saeed Al Mansoori, chairman of Dubai Chambers, who sits on DP World’s board. On Monday the company announced a memorandum of understanding with the owner of Manitoba’s Port of Churchill to explore further development of an expanded northern shipping corridor, a concrete signal of how Gulf capital is already being positioned in Canadian trade infrastructure.

Taken together, the dinner and its guest list illustrate a deliberate strategy: assemble Canada’s investors, operators and dealmakers in one room with the ruling circle of an oil-rich emirate that has pledged tens of billions in investment, as Ottawa works to lessen the country’s economic reliance on the United States.