This is sadly how policy decisions get made in government. The smart people building stuff are usually busy building stuff and are turned off of events with titles like "leaders of Canada". At the same time, a lot of the successful Canadian founders, who would have time for this, found success via acquisition by US companies and aren't around to attend.

I'm curious if there are articles about Canada hemorrhaging math/finance talent to New York? Or is this just something we perpetually complain about in tech as if talent/industry centralization wasn't a phenomenon in almost every big new market in history.

All of our good Canadian musicians, comedians, and actors go to the US and become big, countless have done so. That's how we can tell if their good or not, usually. And nothings wrong with that. No one complained when Drake signed to a US label when his new career took off...