February marked the launch of Build Canada, a mysterious website that loftily promised plans for a “bolder, richer, freer country.” Soon, more details emerged: it was a non-partisan forum for entrepreneurs of all stripes to publish their visionary, occasionally radical policy ideas for bettering Canada. (Examples included making its public service leaner, its health records more accessible and its markets more friendly to drone-makers.) Once word broke that several Shopify execs—some quite vocally right-leaning—were possibly involved on the back end, the tech panic began: was Build Canada just DOGE 2.0?

“Absolutely not,” insists Daniel Debow, Shopify’s former VP of partnerships and corporate development and Build Canada’s unofficial head honcho. Even if Canadians don’t know Debow’s name, they’ve interacted with a company he either co-founded or invested in early—like Wealthsimple, SkipTheDishes, Ritual, Borrowell and Rypple, a cloud-based HR firm acquired by Salesforce for a cool $60 million. While Debow and Build Canada’s volunteer team aren’t planning an Elon-esque government takeover, they do have the business bona fides to know that, after years of sluggish productivity, the country could do with way less red tape and a gigantic injection of inspiration.

You’ve been on pseudo-sabbatical since you left Shopify back in December. How does a serial business-building brain like yours cope with more free time?

I’m spending time with my family, who I love. I’ve tried to learn how to cook. I’m also figuring out how to build electronic instruments—I want to invent a new one.

Within a couple months of wrapping work, you launched another huge new project: Build Canada. What’s the elevator pitch?

It’s a website that allows Canadian “builders”—people who’ve created high-growth businesses, whether that’s a startup or a brewpub—to take their policy ideas and turn them into specific, actionable memos that people can read and react to. Each builder meets with a volunteer to get their idea down—they may use AI tools like OpenAI and Perplexity to help with research, writing and fact-checking—then the humans stitch it together. The memo is also reviewed by public policy people. Some have worked in Parliament; some are in academia. The day in, day out is run by a core group of five to 10 volunteers, but about 50 people have pitched in in one way or another. They’re not all CEOs or founders, but there are a couple of those.

And you’re the guy who brought the whole thing together?

I’m chief cheerleader and cattle rustler—cat herder, maybe. I’d just finished my job, and I should’ve been playing a lot of music. But what I saw was, Oh my gosh, there’s an election coming! Change is happening. And what people are upset about in Canada is public policy. Health care, immigration, tax policy, regulatory policy—go down the list. Those were the things everyone wanted to talk about.

Like all the best plans, Build Canada was hatched in a group chat—the rumour was it started in one with members of what’s been called the “Shopify Mafia.”

It was actually the result of multiple group chats. In mine, there were lots of businesspeople, but also friends who are teachers, accountants, lawyers, doctors and landscapers. The feeling from people in every industry, across the board, was: we want to grow economically, and it’s harder than it needs to be. How can we put out ideas that could have a direct, positive impact on Canada’s GDP? That was the chat.

Thanks for clearing that up. To some outsiders, this project seemed a bit mysterious—a bit Wizard of Oz.

We did the exact opposite of the wizard behind the curtain. What’s the traditional complaint about how Canadian businesspeople have engaged with the government? They do it behind closed doors or in smoky back-room meetings. We publish ideas on the internet.

What advantage does the memo route have over the usual........

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