Members of Canada’s business and technology community gathered in Toronto this week for the Nrth conference, where speakers pushed institutional investors, banks, regulators and the federal government to do more to support homegrown companies as the trade war with the United States continues to fuel interest in domestic enterprise.
Vass Bednar, executive director of the Canadian Shield, a think tank focused on sovereignty-based policy, told attendees the country should embrace its position rather than shy away from bolder investment. She argued Canadian pension funds have been investing less domestically even as their overall assets have grown, and that when they do commit money at home, they tend to take a cautious approach by favouring government bonds and infrastructure projects. Bednar said pension funds should take on more risk domestically, framing the issue as one of the country needing to back itself before it can expect others to.
Calls for Policy Change to Support Startups
Tal Schwartz, general partner at North Exit Ventures, who appeared alongside Bednar, said policymakers and investors need to rework tax policy and capital allocation so that startups can secure funding through their mid- and late-stage growth. He said Canada currently does well funding very early-stage companies, but that the system becomes far more complicated when those companies need larger, later-stage investment to scale while staying based in Canada.
Schwartz pointed to Portage, a Toronto-based global fintech investment firm, which closed its fourth venture capital fund at roughly US$600 million earlier this month, calling the milestone encouraging. He said, however, that Canada would need many more funds of that size to support the level of innovation happening in the country.
Financial Sovereignty and Digital Money
Other sessions at the three-day conference focused on how Canada’s financial infrastructure could be made more self-reliant. Several speakers discussed tokenized deposit networks, in which traditional bank deposits are recorded on a decentralized ledger such as a blockchain to speed up payments. The idea comes after the country’s largest banks announced this week that they are exploring the development of Canadian dollar-based digital money, beginning with a tokenized deposits initiative.
Ali Abou Daya, chief executive of financial infrastructure company Transactix Financial Inc., said any such system needs to be built with domestic control in mind, down to where the underlying servers are physically located. He said a lack of sovereignty over that infrastructure represents not just a risk to control and system resilience, but also a loss of profit, citing studies suggesting at least $16 billion leaves Canadian financial systems annually because domestic companies rely on foreign payment operators and partners.
Key Figures from the Nrth Conference Discussions
Stablecoins Framed as a Sovereignty Tool
Hannah Zaidi, chief compliance officer at Wealthsimple, described a Canadian dollar stablecoin as an important step toward financial sovereignty. Stablecoins are cryptocurrency-based assets pegged to the value of a real-world currency, making them more stable for transferring money than typical cryptocurrencies. Zaidi said Wealthsimple took part in a pilot last year using a U.S.-denominated stablecoin and found the process costly and cumbersome due to currency conversion, which underscored the industry’s need for a Canadian dollar-based alternative.
Wealthsimple has since invested, alongside Shopify Inc., National Bank and other partners, in Tetra Trust, a company working on a Canadian dollar stablecoin. Zaidi compared the potential impact of instant, low-cost stablecoin payments to how services like WhatsApp and FaceTime transformed long-distance calling from an expensive, friction-filled process into something instant and nearly free.
Conference Rebrand and Expansion Plans
The remarks came at Nrth, the event previously known as Elevate before organizers rebranded it this week. Organizers said the change reflects how much the technology industry has evolved since Elevate began in 2017, and that they want the event itself to evolve alongside it. Beyond the rebrand, organizers said they plan to hold more frequent events starting in 2027.
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