Prime Minister Mark Carney arrives at his Ottawa office on Friday ahead of his roundtable with financial executives in Toronto.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
Bay Street executives left smiling after their meeting with Prime Minister Mark Carney on Friday afternoon in Toronto, where he tried to sell the government’s economic growth agenda and push for more investment from business leaders.
At the beginning of the week, the Prime Minister’s Office reached out to chief executive officers at some of the country’s largest banks, insurers and pension plans to schedule an hour-long roundtable on “fostering effective public-private cooperation,” according to an invitation reviewed by The Globe and Mail. The meeting was left off the Prime Minister’s official public agenda.
Mr. Carney invited the CEOs to share their views on two issues. The first was Canada’s current economic conditions and outlook. The second item on the agenda was “promoting economic growth and mobilizing capital.”
Audrey Champoux, a spokesperson for the Prime Minister, said in an e-mail that the discussion focused on “how the government and the private sector can work together to promote growth, mobilise capital, and create the right conditions to catalyse more investment in Canada.”
She said they discussed the Canada Strong Fund, the Major Projects Office and the upcoming Canada Investment Summit, scheduled for the summer.
Leaving the meeting, Charles Brindamour, CEO of Intact Financial Corp., said: “The government is super engaged. We’re all cheering them on.”
The heads of several insurers and banks – including Mr. Brindamour, Sun Life Financial Inc.’s Kevin Strain and Bank of Nova Scotia’s Scott Thomson – left the meeting, then paused for an animated conversation in the building’s lobby before walking back to their offices.
Royal Bank of Canada CEO Dave McKay called the session a “good meeting,” then followed CIBC boss Harry Culham out the door. Bank of Montreal chair George Cope and OMERS CEO Blake Hutcheson also attended.
Former prime minister Stephen Harper would often arrange informal meetings with CEOs when visiting Toronto on government business, according to three executives invited to the session. The Globe and Mail is not naming the sources because they are not permitted to publicly discuss the meeting.
The gatherings stopped after Justin Trudeau took power in 2015, although former finance minister Chrystia Freeland routinely sat down with Bay Street executives in the same office Mr. Carney used for Friday’s meeting.
During Mr. Trudeau’s tenure, the relationship between corporate Canada and the federal government grew distant, and often frosty. Several bank CEOs, including RBC’s Mr. McKay, criticized Ottawa’s tax-and-spend economic policies.
Getting Canadian companies to invest more, and banks to lend more freely, has been top of mind for Mr. Carney since his days as governor of the Bank of Canada, beginning in 2008.
In 2012, as head of the central bank, Mr. Carney took a swing at corporate Canada, accusing companies of sitting on huge piles of “dead money” that should be invested productively or returned to investors.
On Thursday, a trade delegation from Mexico was greeted by Canada-U.S. Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc in Toronto. The group has scheduled more than 1,800 business-to-business meetings in Canada.
With a report from Bill Curry