OMERS chief executive officer Blake Hutcheson at the 2025 U.S.-Canada Summit in Toronto in October, 2025.Sammy Kogan/The Globe and Mail
The OMERS pension plan is looking to add at least $10-billion in new investments in Canada to its portfolio over the next five years, as chief executive Blake Hutcheson says a push to attract more capital to Canadian projects is starting to show results.
The Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System has about 18 per cent of its $145-billion portfolio invested in Canada – about $26-billion. Over the next five years, Mr. Hutcheson aims to increase that share to 25 per cent, he said in an interview.
The investing teams at OMERS are kicking the tires and putting in bids on more assets, especially in infrastructure and real estate, he said. And the fund – the seventh-largest of Canada’s eight biggest pension investors – is gaining confidence that there will be deals worth making in defence as well as in growth capital for Canadian startups.
“What’s really changed is the conditions that are being created are much better,” Mr. Hutcheson said. “There’s more in the window.”
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Among its existing Canadian investments, OMERS has a major stake in nuclear energy provider Bruce Power, and it owns land registry provider Teranet. Its real estate portfolio includes prominent malls such as the Yorkdale Shopping Centre and hotels such as the Fairmont Banff Springs. The plan also indirectly has a 5-per-cent stake in Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, the owner of the Toronto Maple Leafs, Raptors and other sports franchises.
But roughly three-quarters of the $2.6-trillion that Canada’s largest pension funds collectively manage is invested abroad, and governments have urged them to do more at home. The plans’ CEOs have said they are open to boosting their Canadian investment but, at times, they have been defensive – including Mr. Hutcheson.
To protect their independence, they reminded politicians that the plans’ mandates require them to seek out the best returns for their members anywhere in the world, without taking undue risks. And some of those CEOs have said there are still too few big-ticket investment opportunities up for grabs in Canada.
That hasn’t changed. But Mr. Hutcheson is the first CEO of a major Canadian pension fund to set a specific target that would meaningfully boost the overall share of his plan’s portfolio invested in Canada, marking an important change in tone.
“In recent months, my whole posture has changed, and we are very open to a lot more in Canada,” he said.
At all three levels of government, Mr. Hutcheson said the approach from policy makers has shifted from “expectation without opportunity to one of partnership with real opportunity.”
OMERS has tweaked the models it uses to allocate its assets around the world, making the models more favourable to Canada. And the plan’s leaders have signalled to its board of directors that the conditions are ripe to put more capital to work in Canada.
The additional $10-billion of investment that OMERS is promising would be over and above what it already owns. If the plan borrows money to boost the size of new investments in infrastructure or real estate, that could add up to “$20-billion of firepower” that OMERS can, “under the right conditions, deploy here,” Mr. Hutcheson said.
Ottawa has had regular contact with pension-fund leaders about how to make Canada a more attractive place to invest. The government launched the Major Projects Office to co-ordinate faster approvals for priority projects. And Prime Minister Mark Carney and Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne have led high-profile trips abroad, with business leaders in tow, to promote Canada as a destination for foreign capital.
“We are in the room, and I’ve personally been in the room more in the last six months than I have been in the last six years,” Mr. Hutcheson said.
But some business leaders have privately expressed anxiety that all the talk and enthusiasm has yet to produce a significant increase in transactions or shovels in the ground.
There is some truth to that, Mr. Hutcheson said, but activity has noticeably picked up in several sectors – especially in real estate.
Mr. Hutcheson is a veteran real estate investor – he was formerly CEO of OMERS-owned Oxford Properties – and he said a 13-per-cent HST rebate on new homes in Ontario, backed by federal funds, has been the “most substantial” breakthrough. Several municipalities have cut fees and levies, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. can offer financing for large projects and cities “are fast-tracking any sort of crane quicker than they have in a decade.”
In the infrastructure sector, “we’ve been in more bake-offs or RFPs,” he added, referring to government-led requests for proposals.
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In the defence sector, Mr. Hutcheson also sees a chance to back military suppliers and to extend that support to other NATO countries, though there are still parts of the defence sector that OMERS considers off-limits.
That is partly the result of a sense of urgency to act on the discussions that Canadian business leaders and policy makers have been having, he said.
“The message that I’ve repeatedly shared is, stop mixing and start painting,” Mr. Hutcheson said. “In recent months, we’re seeing the painting.”
Canada also looks more attractive to investors in relative terms, as wars, inflation and political instability put “a bigger risk premium” on deals in other countries, including in the United States, he said. And OMERS expects the Canadian dollar will get stronger relative to other currencies, creating a further incentive for pension plans to invest at home.
Like many large pension funds, OMERS still has minimal interest in being a government partner on greenfield projects that carry uncertainty around building costs and timelines to completion. “The risk is too high,” Mr. Hutcheson said.
Some pension funds have urged governments to sell key infrastructure such as airports, hydroelectric power assets and highways to private owners. But “we’re not sitting around waiting for the government to say, ‘We’re downloading X,’ nor are we advocating for it,” Mr. Hutcheson said.
Instead, he is increasingly convinced the seeds that governments are planting “are starting to grow trees,” so OMERS is “leaning in.”
“Do I want people to move faster? For sure. Do I want the tax regimes to be more enticing and catalytic? Of course. Do you want regulations to get out of the way in service of getting our economy kick-started? They can always do more,” he said. “But on all three fronts, we’re seeing more than we have in a long time.”