For decades, one of Canada’s biggest selling points to foreign investors was its access to the world’s largest economy next door. Prime Minister Mark Carney is now trying to sell something bigger — to bet on Canada itself. On Monday and Tuesday, hundreds of global investors will gather in Toronto for the Canada Investment Summit.
The invitation-only meeting will bring some of the world’s largest pension and sovereign wealth funds and asset managers together with corporate executives, Canadian premiers and federal officials. Carney, a former central banker with deep ties to the global investment world, wants them to put money into everything from mines and pipelines to ports, artificial intelligence and advanced manufacturing. It is part of a much bigger push to catalyse $1 trillion in investment in Canada over the next five years, with about $280bn in public investment and government incentives to help draw in private and institutional capital.
The summit comes just days after another escalation in Canada’s trade war with the United States which has been ongoing since President Donald Trump started his second term and unleashed a wave of tariffs across the world, including on Canada, one of its historically closest allies. Relations have ruptured as Trump has repeatedly referred to Canada as the 51st state of the US and Carney as its “governor”. The threats are particularly damaging to Canada which, pre-tariff, sent nearly 80 percent of its exports to its southern neighbour.
After talks collapsed last month, Washington imposed levies of 50 percent on about US$20bn worth of Canadian goods, prompting Ottawa to impose retaliatory tariffs of 15 to 50 percent on a similar value of US imports. While the two sides have been negotiating, Carney has also been travelling the world to shore up relations and re-start or beef up trade ties, efforts that are bearing some fruit in Toronto with the summit. Investors may be wary of projects that depend heavily on the US market.
But the turmoil also gives Carney a chance to sell Canada as “a relatively stable, rules-based jurisdiction” in an increasingly volatile world. Carney has pulled in a large audience for that pitch. Getting roughly 300 major global investors focused on Canada for two days is unprecedented and a political win in itself, Nadjibulla said.
But getting them into the room is the easy part. Through trade agreements with 51 countries, Canadian businesses have preferential access to 1.5 billion consumers around the world, the government said in a news statement ahead of the summit. They range from satellite technology to some enormous infrastructure projects, including a proposed oil pipeline from Alberta to British Columbia’s coast.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
