Google scuttled a speaking appearance by Jim Balsillie at a not-for-profit tech group’s annual conference, which is to be held this week at the search giant’s Toronto offices, The Logic has learned.

Balsillie, a frequent critic of Google, was slated to be the keynote speaker at the Canadian RegTech Association Annual Summit, scheduled to take place on Friday at Google Canada’s headquarters in downtown Toronto. Yet the search giant refused to approve the appearance, according to an email to Balsillie’s office that The Logic obtained.

On April 16, Canadian Regulatory Technology Association (CRTA) board member Paul Childerhose wrote that Google senior management was “unable to secure support” for Balsillie’s participation in the event. “This is an extremely frustrating development for our neutral/not-for-profit trade association, I can’t over-emphasize this,” read Childerhose’s email. 

“We will keep in touch and identify future opportunities at events which CRTA will have complete control over,” he added.

The CRTA is a not-for-profit that promotes growth and innovation in regtech, the application of new technology to help businesses and institutions comply with regulation. Its roughly 60 members include both regulated entities and the regulators themselves.

In an interview, Childerhose said he invited Balsillie to speak in early April, and that Google Canada employees—including Alec Humes, strategic partnerships lead at Google Cloud Canada—were initially happy to have Balsillie, the BlackBerry pioneer and longtime champion of Canadian innovation.

Just over a week later, he said, Humes informed him that Balsillie couldn’t speak at the event. (Humes didn’t respond to a LinkedIn message requesting comment.) Google, which provided the space free of charge for the summit, also stipulated that no media be allowed at the event, according to Childerhose.

“As sponsors and hosts of this event, Google Cloud was given an opportunity to provide feedback on the agenda and potential speakers. They preferred other speakers, and indicated that to the event organizers,” Google spokesperson Shay Purdy said.

When asked why he thought Google disapproved of Balsillie’s presence, Childerhose noted, “Jim is constantly railing against Big Tech.” 

The company’s intervention comes as Big Tech’s soft-power influence is under wider scrutiny. In 2022, Google used an off-record event at McGill University to raise opposition to the federal government’s Online News Act, which requires the company to pay for news hosted on its platform. (Google has since agreed to do so.) Last year, as The Logic reported, the University of Toronto accepted an undisclosed gift of more than $500,000 from Amazon to study competition, just as the company was facing off with the federal government on Competition Act reform.

Balsillie, who serves as chair of the Council of Canadian Innovators (CCI), has challenged Google publicly on a range of issues. He came out staunchly against Google-owned Sidewalk Labs, which planned to build a high-tech neighbourhood on the city’s waterfront but pulled out of the project in 2020. 

The CCI, a lobby group Balsillie co-founded that now represents more than 150 of the country’s highest profile scale-ups, has also inveighed against Big Tech, accusing Google and others of fomenting a “branch plant” economy in Canada by siphoning investment out of the country.

“I thought it was absurd, because I wasn’t going to talk about Google,” Balsillie told The Logic of the search giant’s objection to his participation. “The organizers wanted me to talk about Canada’s innovation and knowledge and data policies and how the government has updated strategies for the modern era.”

“I make a case for modern, sovereign policymaking, and heaven forbid that that happens in Canada. And I guess Google thinks I should be censored,” he added.

Communitech CEO Chris Albinson will deliver the summit’s keynote speech in Balsillie’s place.