Canadian investors are increasingly redirecting their money away from U.S. markets and into domestic assets, a shift that appears to align with Prime Minister Mark Carney’s ongoing campaign to encourage homegrown investment.
According to Marsh People and Investments Canada’s 2026 Global Asset Owner Barometer, more than half of Canada’s asset managers plan to cut their U.S. equity allocations within the next year. The survey found this represents the largest planned pullback from U.S. markets among all regions covered in the report.
The trend is already showing up in trading activity. Canadian investors sold $31 billion in U.S. shares in July, a record figure based on government data.
Summit Aims for $1 Trillion in New Financing
Carney has spent months urging Canadian financial institutions to look closer to home for investment opportunities. Last week, he invited some of the world’s largest investors to the Canada Investment Summit, setting a goal of attracting $1 trillion in new financings for the country.
During the summit, the federal government unveiled plans to open Canada’s largest airports to private capital and to reduce taxes on new business investment to the lowest rate among G7 nations.
Greg Taylor, chief investment officer at PenderFund Capital Management, told attendees at the summit that sentiment appears to be changing. “It could be that Trump has galvanized us, and Canada is going to put money to work,” he said.
On the domestic investment side, the summit produced several large commitments: $325 billion from Canada’s biggest banks, $50 billion from the Maple Fund, and $52.5 billion from BCE Inc. for a data centre project in Saskatchewan.
Foreign Capital Also Flowing In
Foreign investment into Canada has picked up as well. Total foreign inflows across all asset classes over the past year reached US$211 billion, equivalent to roughly 8.7 per cent of Canada’s GDP.
Peter Stensgaard Mørch, chief executive officer of PensionDanmark, said at the summit that Canada is proving attractive to outside investors. “The Canadian government demonstrates a strong understanding of what is required to attract additional investment,” he said.
Canada Investment Summit: Key Figures
Infrastructure and Inflation Hedges in Focus
Carney’s government is also pursuing a slate of major infrastructure projects, and asset managers appear to be responding. The Global Asset Owner Barometer found that 66 per cent of asset owners intend to grow their Canadian infrastructure holdings, well above the 51 per cent global average.
The report attributed the interest to infrastructure’s role as a hedge against inflation and its long-duration return profile. Separately, 41 per cent of money managers surveyed said they are looking at inflation-linked assets such as bonds or bond-return ETFs amid continued high inflation. Meanwhile, 37.8 per cent of asset owners said they are holding more cash to preserve flexibility, an increase of nine percentage points from a year earlier.
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