More recently, conference topics have turned to such issues as technology, the environment, the problem of illiteracy, the economic challenges facing today's youth and globalization in various contexts.
[3] Over the years CIPA has offered as speakers and attracted as participants current and future leaders in politics, education, science, the arts and the rest of civil society.
Speakers in earlier decades included John Kenneth Galbraith, Henry Kissinger, Marshall McLuhan, Denys Arcand, Pierre-Marc Johnson and Bernard Crick.
Former or future Prime Ministers of Canada have featured at the conference too: John Diefenbaker, Lester B. Pearson, Pierre Elliot Trudeau,[4] Joe Clark, Kim Campbell and Paul Martin.
The usual format involves about three days (Thursday evening through Sunday afternoon) of speeches, panels and debates, with ample opportunity for questions from the floor in all cases, together with formal and informal discussion groups.