For decades, one of Canada’s biggest selling points to foreign investors was its access to the world’s largest economy next door.
Prime Minister Mark Carney is now trying to sell something bigger — to bet on Canada itself.
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On Monday and Tuesday, hundreds of global investors will gather in Toronto for the Canada Investment Summit. The invitation-only meeting will bring some of the world’s largest pension and sovereign wealth funds and asset managers together with corporate executives, Canadian premiers and federal officials.
Carney, a former central banker with deep ties to the global investment world, wants them to put money into everything from mines and pipelines to ports, artificial intelligence and advanced manufacturing. It is part of a much bigger push to catalyse $1 trillion in investment in Canada over the next five years, with about $280bn in public investment and government incentives to help draw in private and institutional capital.
The summit comes just days after another escalation in Canada’s trade war with the United States which has been ongoing since President Donald Trump started his second term and unleashed a wave of tariffs across the world, including on Canada, one of its historically closest allies.
Relations have ruptured as Trump has repeatedly referred to Canada as the 51st state of the US and Carney as its “governor”. The threats are particularly damaging to Canada which, pre-tariff, sent nearly 80 percent of its exports to its southern neighbour.
After talks collapsed last month, Washington imposed levies of 50 percent on about US$20bn worth of Canadian goods, prompting Ottawa to impose retaliatory tariffs of 15 to 50 percent on a similar value of US imports.
While the two sides have been negotiating, Carney has also been travelling the world to shore up relations and re-start or beef up trade ties, efforts that are bearing some fruit in Toronto with the summit.
“Carney is trying to turn a period of external pressure and uncertainty caused by the Trump trade war into an affirmative agenda,” said Vina Nadjibulla, cofounder and CEO of the Centre for Strategic Statecraft, a non-partisan policy think tank in Canada. “Build more at home, diversify Canada’s economic relationships abroad and attract the capital needed to do both.”
While the uncertainty of the trade war makes Canada a harder sell in some ways, it becomes a more compelling one at the same time.
“It cuts both ways,” Nadjibulla said. Investors may be wary of projects that depend heavily on the US market. But the turmoil also gives Carney a chance to sell Canada as “a relatively stable, rules-based jurisdiction” in an increasingly volatile world.
Carney has pulled in a large audience for that pitch. Getting roughly 300 major global investors focused on Canada for two days is unprecedented and a political win in itself, Nadjibulla said.
But getting them into the room is the easy part.
“The summit can open doors and create relationships,” she said. “Success will ultimately depend on how many of those conversations turn into serious investment, financing and projects that actually get built.”
What is Carney selling?
He is making the case that Canada has a lot for investors to bet on beyond its access to the US, from energy to critical minerals to skilled workers to connections to markets around the world. Through trade agreements with 51 countries, Canadian businesses have preferential access to 1.5 billion consumers around the world, the government said in a news statement ahead of the summit.
“We’re trusted, because we’re reliable and because we have what the world wants,” Carney said on Sunday. “That’s why the world is coming to our door.”
A leaked prospectus prepared for the summit lays out 167 potential investments across energy, mining, ports, transportation, technology and advanced manufacturing.
They range from satellite technology to some enormous infrastructure projects, including a proposed oil pipeline from Alberta to British Columbia’s coast.
But the list is heavily weighted towards resources and energy. Minerals and metals alone account for nearly 38 percent of the projects, as per Nadjibulla’s calculations. Add energy and power infrastructure and the share rises to almost 70 percent.
“The summit is fundamentally about financing the physical productive capacity of the Canadian economy,” she said, pointing to mines, processing, energy generation, export infrastructure, ports and manufacturing.
Not all of the projects, however, are ready for investment. Some of those on offer are fully permitted, while others are still at the concept or feasibility stage.
“Some are quite large and expensive and are unlikely to be ready for prime time,” said Rachel Ziemba, an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, a policy nonprofit.
Canada also has to prove it can build
For investors, getting major projects to that point has long been a sticking point.
Ziemba pointed to lengthy regulatory reviews, particularly for projects that need both federal and provincial approval.
Nadjibulla similarly cited “long and uncertain approval processes” and questions about whether projects can move “from announcement to execution”.
“Investors will want to see a credible pipeline, faster and more predictable permitting, policy stability, clearer revenue models and better coordination across provincial and federal jurisdictions,” Nadjibulla said.
Carney is trying to convince them that things are changing. His government has created a Major Projects Office to speed up approvals for projects it considers to be in the national interest, alongside a “one project, one review” approach aimed at reducing federal-provincial overlap.
The summit is a chance to show investors how that will work, Ziemba said. “But this is still early days.”
What does all of this mean for Canadians?
Even if Carney gets more of these projects financed and built, a bigger debate remains over who ultimately stands to benefit. In an interview with Democracy Now, Avi Lewis, leader of Canada’s New Democratic Party, criticised the prime minister for “selling our airports and our ports and privatising more of our economy to the benefit of foreign investors”.
That debate will be playing out just outside the summit. Labour, Indigenous, housing and climate groups are planning a Monday rally under the banner “The Many vs. the Money,” arguing that Canada’s economic future should not be shaped primarily by corporate executives and global investors.
The trade war has been shifting Canada’s investment focus from manufacturing and other industries built around the North American market to ports, pipelines and logistics that can help Canadian resources reach new markets.
Ziemba also pointed to another potential trade-off – those sectors require a lot of capital without necessarily creating the same number of jobs. That “may limit the benefits to Canadians looking to replace the US-integrated sectors,” she said.
Even if there are any major announcements this week, they will only tell part of the story.
Ziemba said she will be watching how much investors actually commit, the timelines and “clarity on who pays”.
“The summit helps with the first problem, showing investors what is available,” Nadjibulla said. “But execution will determine long-term success and whether the capital actually arrives.”