Prime Minister Mark Carney speaks at the Canada Investment Summit welcome reception at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto on Sunday.Laura Proctor/The Globe and Mail
Prime Minister Mark Carney said global investors are “looking at Canada differently” ahead of a high-level forum this week courting overseas capital, as Industry Minister Mélanie Joly said she is confident that visiting executives will announce deals in the coming days.
Speaking on Sunday to a business audience in Toronto at a welcome reception for the Canada Investment Summit, which is set to take place Monday and Tuesday, Mr. Carney said the country has begun to draw increased attention from the world’s largest investors.
“Something’s changed over the past year in our country,” he said to nearly 500 invited guests, most of them Canadian, from sectors such as banking, mining and technology, as well as federal and provincial politicians.
Mr. Carney first announced plans for the summit in April, saying it will focus on attracting new investment for nation-building projects. It is part of his stated effort to broaden Canada’s economic ties in order to reduce dependence on trade with the United States. The heads of major global investment funds will gather at the Four Seasons Hotel in Toronto, where they will hear pitches about Canadian opportunities.
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In an interview before Mr. Carney made his remarks, Ms. Joly said many of the people involved have already been in discussions leading up to the two-day event.
“I’m confident that we can be able to reach deals. There’s lots of interest,” she said. “There’s been a lot of conversations about potential deals before the summit. Many of the projects that are on the table, we’ve been discussing with many investors for months now.
“Now I’m confident that we can get to MOUs, so intent of investment. Of course, then there will be work to be done on the due-diligence side, which makes sense.”
Behind the scenes, the summit’s organizers have managed expectations, describing the event as a starting point. Some deals could be announced but not many are expected.
The federal government is playing host to the summit in partnership with two of Canada’s largest pension funds, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) and the Public Sector Pension Investment Board (PSP Investments).
The guest list includes investors from the United Arab Emirates and the wider Persian Gulf region whom Mr. Carney has been courting.
The China International Capital Corporation and China Investment Corporation are also expected to attend.
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As Industry Minister, Ms. Joly is responsible for the Investment Canada Act. The legislation allows the federal government to review significant foreign investments. This includes applying a “net-benefit” test to review an investment’s effects on economic activity, employment and competition.
It also allows for a review on national-security grounds, such as whether the investment raises risks related to the transfer of sensitive technology and whether it involves a foreign state-owned investor.
Ms. Joly said Ottawa can protect national security while also giving potential investors a better sense of the rules that will apply.
“We need to be able to provide a form of predictability to companies and investors from different jurisdictions to make sure that if they are interested in a project, they’re not surprised afterwards by a complicated regulatory system that could prevent their investment,” she said.
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In the lead-up to this week’s summit and the government’s fall budget later this year, some business and policy groups have said tax changes are needed to truly boost investment.
Ms. Joly signalled an openness to such suggestions.
“We’ve done a lot on the tax front already, but we have to do more and we will do more,” she said, without elaborating.
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Mr. Carney spoke for 10 minutes Sunday at the reception, held at the Royal Ontario Museum. The event had nearly 500 invited guests from sectors such as banking, mining and technology, as well as federal and provincial politicians.
He began his remarks by recounting that the ROM was founded by a Canadian banker, Sir Edmund Walker, who viewed museums as “shop windows” through which visitors could glimpse Canada’s potential.
At the summit, Mr. Carney said, investors who manage more than $120-trillion “will come to peer into our shop window because the world is looking at Canada differently, and I suggest we should look at ourselves differently too.”
Industry Minister Mélanie Joly says Ottawa can protect national security while also giving potential investors a better sense of the rules that will apply.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
Over the past week, Canadian banks, businesses and pension funds have announced plans for hundreds of billions of dollars in investment and financing, Mr. Carney said, and federal and provincial leaders are “looking to match that level of ambition abroad.”
“I suspect there are a few more announcements coming,” he said.
On Monday, Mr. Carney and Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe will make a joint announcement about an investment in Canadian data sovereignty, according to the Prime Minister’s public schedule.
On hand to hear Mr. Carney speak included Toronto-Dominion Bank chief executive officer Raymond Chun, Cohere CEO Aidan Gomez, Build Canada Homes board chair Evan Siddall and Northleaf Capital Partners CEO Stuart Waugh, as well as Finance Minister François- Philippe Champagne and Ms. Joly.
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PSP Investments CEO Deborah Orida and CPPIB CEO John Graham also spoke at the reception.
This week’s investment summit begins with a gala dinner on Monday evening, followed by a full day of panels on Tuesday.
While many of the panels will be open to the media, much of the action is expected to take place in the form of private meetings on the sidelines of the event.
On Monday during the day, two other investment-related events are taking place that are not formally linked to the Prime Minister’s summit.
The California-based think tank Milken Institute is holding an event called Global Dialogues Toronto at the Park Hyatt hotel.
That event is sponsored by TD and will be attended by Canadian banking executives.
Also on Monday, the Canadian Venture Capital and Private Equity Association is holding an all-day event to promote Canada’s technology sector.
Organizers of the federal summit have privately circulated a 66-page “prospectus” booklet, reviewed by The Globe.
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The document provides short summaries of more than 160 Canadian projects that are open for investment.
The list of projects includes conventional and clean energy, minerals and metals, marine and port infrastructure, power and utilities, digital technology, advanced manufacturing and transportation.
The list does not mention any of Canada’s large airports, even though the Carney government has hinted at investment-related changes.
The federal government’s April fiscal update said Ottawa is looking at “alternative models of ownership” for airports. That language followed a line in the 2025 budget that said the government would “consider options for the privatization of airports.”
Airport privatization is the type of large-scale investment that is attractive to institutional investors, such as pension funds, which prefer to buy into existing assets with revenue streams over what are known as “greenfield” projects that are not yet built.
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The spring update also announced plans for a $25-billion sovereign wealth fund, called the Canada Strong Fund, and suggested that some of the funding would come from “generating the full value from federal assets.”
There has not yet been a detailed update from Ottawa on plans for the Canada Strong Fund, nor has there been an update on Ottawa’s plans for airports.
The Canadian Labour Congress is urging Ottawa not to include airports on the menu at this week’s summit. It released a report Friday outlining economic arguments against airport privatization.
“Canadians already pay too much to fly. Privatizing our airports risks making that problem worse,” CLC Secretary-Treasurer Lily Chang said in a statement.
Canada’s premiers have been invited to attend the summit and Ontario Premier Doug Ford highlighted his province’s list of 15 priority projects Sunday. The list includes energy, mining and artificial-intelligence projects.