Conservative Party of Canada leader Pierre Poilievre speaks during a campaign rally in Quebec City, on March 26.Mathieu Belanger/Reuters
Pierre Poilievre has hopped aboard the patriotic investing bandwagon.
At a campaign stop in Quebec on Wednesday, the Conservative Leader said he recently repatriated his investments held in international stocks back to the Canadian market.
“I brought my money home to this country,” he said. “After President Trump began threatening our economy, I sold my investments in foreign economies and now I invest in Canadian stocks and Canadian companies.”
The same idea has struck lots of Canadian investors over the past couple of months. Holding U.S. stocks has suddenly become something of a moral dilemma.
Do you continue to invest in a country that is attacking your own? Or should you divest from America and recommit that money to Canadian companies, despite the personal costs that may arise?
Mr. Poilievre’s move highlights the predicament. He previously held a mix of investments across U.S., European, Asian and global stock markets, which were reported to Canada’s Ethics Commissioner, a party spokesperson said.
Naturally, there was some bitcoin in there as well. Hardly a surprise given Mr. Poilievre’s embrace of cryptocurrencies.
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Plus, he had some funds concentrated in larger foreign companies and cheaper stocks. Not a classic portfolio, which would typically include an allocation of bonds for stability, but generally spread across a broad range of markets.
(For the curious, the funds were: iShares MSCI Singapore ETF, iShares MSCI Switzerland ETF, Vanguard Global Value Factor ETF, iShares MSCI World Index ETF, Avantis International Large Cap Value ETF and Purpose Bitcoin ETF.)
Now, Mr. Poilievre has gone local.
He’s kept the bitcoin ETF, but the foreign and U.S. holdings have been liquidated and invested in an index fund of Canadian blue chips. Among the top holdings are Royal Bank of Canada RY-T, Shopify Inc. SHOP-T, Enbridge Inc. ENB-T and Brookfield Corp. BN-T.
If we’re nitpicking, the fund Mr. Poilievre has chosen for his financial homecoming, while listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange, is managed by the American asset-management giant Vanguard Group – the Vanguard FTSE Canada Index ETF. Comparable funds are available from Canadian-based providers.
But otherwise, Mr. Poilievre has made a concentrated bet on the Canadian stock market. For the average Canadian, this would be a dangerous approach.
There is nothing necessarily wrong with investing according to one’s principles. Lots of investors want no part of private prisons, tobacco companies or weapons manufacturers. Others don’t want their savings tied to the fortunes of fossil-fuel companies.
But investing wisely means diversifying. It’s sort of the first rule. Going all in on Canadian stocks as Mr. Poilievre has done is putting all your eggs in one basket. Plus, it’s a basket that Donald Trump seems to despise and wants to destroy for reasons unknown.
Canadians may have to endure a bruising recession before Mr. Trump’s time is up. There could be mass layoffs and households in financial distress. Nobody needs the double whammy of seeing their savings dwindle should the Canadian stock market take a nosedive.
No one need worry about Mr. Poilievre’s finances. He has a six-figure salary and a generous pension in the bag. He has the luxury of boycotting the U.S. stock market and betting big on Canada.
In doing so, there are obvious political advantages. He can position himself as a champion of corporate Canada at a time when the country desperately needs corporate champions.
And he can put pressure on Liberal Leader Mark Carney, who has so far refused to publicly disclose his financial holdings. Instead, he said, he has placed his assets in a blind trust and will set up conflict-of-interest screens with the Ethics Commissioner.
“Mark Carney has been hiding his assets in foreign tax havens,” Mr. Poilievre said Wednesday while boasting of his own support of Canadian stocks.
Good politics, if questionable investing.