The federal government announced Friday that Toronto will be the host of the first Canada Investment Summit in September.Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press
Prime Minister Mark Carney is inviting more than 100 of the world’s largest investors to a summit in Toronto in September as Ottawa expands its pitch to attract more foreign investment to Canada.
On Friday, Mr. Carney’s office announced it will hold the first Canada Investment Summit on Sept. 14 and 15. The aim is to draw top chief executives, business leaders and entrepreneurs from some of the world’s largest investors. It’s a group that could include asset managers such as Blackstone Inc., which manages nearly US$1.3-trillion, and sovereign wealth funds such as US$936-billion GIC, which is based in Singapore.
The event will be co-hosted by two of the country’s largest pension fund managers, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and the Public Sector Pension Investment Board, which together manage nearly $1.1-trillion in assets.
“Canada has what the world wants,” Mr. Carney said in a statement that promoted the country’s energy resources, critical mineral deposits and high levels of education, among other assets.
The summit is intended to capitalize “on those advantages to help drive billions of new investments into Canada,” he added.
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The government has circulated invitation letters on the Prime Minister’s letterhead. The chief executives of CPPIB and PSP, along with senior government figures such as ambassador to the United States Mark Wiseman, are expected to make follow-up calls, using their networks of contacts to encourage prominent executives to make the trip to Toronto.
Other major Canadian pension funds have been invited, and the guest list could also include provincial premiers.
The event is intended to amplify Canada’s attempts to position itself as a stable and predictable place to invest, which has caught the eye of major investors abroad. Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne said Canada is increasingly viewed that way.
“We are an energy and food producing superpower. There’s a lot of interest around Canada. So, now this summit is really about: How do you transform interest into projects and catalyze the momentum that we see?” he told reporters during a call from Washington, where he was taking part in meetings with the International Monetary Fund as well as G7 and G20 finance ministers and central bank governors.
For months, Mr. Carney and other government and business leaders have travelled abroad to pitch Canada as a reliable destination for investment that still has direct access to the U.S. market, in spite of continuing upheaval in trade.
That included a trip to the United Arab Emirates in November, when the UAE pledged to invest $70-billion in Canada.
In April, Mr. Champagne visited Beijing with Canadian business leaders and the two countries signed a joint statement intending to deepen financial-sector ties.
Ottawa promised in its most recent federal budget to spur more than $1-trillion in total investment from public, private and institutional partners over five years.
The summit will bring senior investors to Toronto on the heels of the FIFA World Cup games played in the city, and will overlap with the Toronto International Film Festival, which is already a magnet for celebrities.
“The time is right,” CPPIB’s chief public affairs officer Michel Leduc said in an interview.
“This is about putting our best foot forward and really getting the attention of [investment pools worth] $50-trillion or more coming here and really wanting to be serious about what can be done,” he said.
Mr. Carney’s predecessor, Justin Trudeau, attempted a similar push in his early days as prime minister.
In the fall of 2016, he and several senior ministers hosted international investors for a day of meetings at Toronto’s Shangri-La hotel.
That private gathering was divided into two main sessions: one focused on Canadian-based pension funds and investors, while a second primarily involved BlackRock Inc., the world’s largest asset manager.
The second session included BlackRock clients that represent trillions of dollars in combined assets, including managers from Abu Dhabi, China, Saudi Arabia and Sweden.
At the time, Mr. Wiseman was BlackRock’s senior managing director, and he was a former CPPIB executive before Mr. Carney appointed him as Canada’s U.S. ambassador earlier this year.
On Friday, when Mr. Champagne was asked how this summit would differ from the Liberal government’s previous efforts, he pointed to the current focus on energy markets as well as Mr. Carney’s international efforts to diversify trade.
Mr. Champagne said the recent conflict in the Middle East has underscored the need for countries to diversify their sources of energy, which is generating new interest in Canada.
“That’s why I think this summit is different in a way, that the world is in a much different place than it was,” he said. “And certainly the fact that the Prime Minister will be chairing that investment summit is leading that momentum that we see around Canada these days.”