Canada’s first-ever investment summit generated headlines and a wave of multi-billion dollar funding announcements this week, but experts caution that the real challenge lies ahead: turning investor interest into projects that actually get financed, approved and built.
The two-day summit, held in Toronto and hosted by Prime Minister Mark Carney alongside two of Canada’s largest pension investors, was designed to build a steady pipeline of private investment for major Canadian projects. Ottawa has framed the event as part of a broader push to attract $1 trillion in total investment to the country over five years.
At the summit, Carney told attendees that some of the world’s largest investors, collectively managing more than $120 trillion in assets, would use the event to “peer into our shop window” as global interest in Canada grows. The invitation-only gathering took place at the Four Seasons in Toronto’s Yorkville neighbourhood and drew investors, money managers and executives from nearly 30 countries, including representatives from BlackRock, Blackstone, Macquarie Group and several major state-owned investment funds, who mixed with Canadian premiers, pension fund leaders and corporate executives.
A Prospectus of More Than 160 Projects
Organizers released a 66-page prospectus outlining more than 160 potential projects spanning energy, minerals and mining, marine and port infrastructure, power and utilities, digital technology, advanced manufacturing and transportation. The list ranges from projects that are shovel-ready to others still at an early concept stage, including the Port of Churchill Plus expansion in Manitoba, the Wind West offshore project in Nova Scotia, and a proposed West Coast Oil Pipeline running from Alberta to British Columbia.
Rachel Samson, vice-president of research at the Institute for Research on Public Policy, said the federal government has introduced measures meant to support these large-scale developments, including a new tax incentive dubbed the productivity mega deduction. The policy, estimated to cost $36 billion over five years, allows businesses to immediately deduct the cost of most new equipment and other investments from their taxable income rather than spreading the deduction over several years. Samson also pointed to Ottawa’s streamlined regulatory approach — summarized as “one project, one review, one year” — as a signal to investors that approvals won’t be as slow as in the past.
Still, Samson said the government needs to demonstrate follow-through. “It’s not enough to have a flashy brochure, you really have to show that the investments can be done in the way that they’re being pitched,” she said.
Community Buy-In and Labour Supply Seen as Key Hurdles
David Jones, a fellow-in-residence at the C.D. Howe Institute and director at Cambridge Economic Policy Associates, said the roster of attendees showed investors have an appetite to put money into Canada if suitable projects materialize. He noted that pension funds and investors are not charities, meaning the summit’s momentum will only pay off if high-quality projects come forward.
Patrick Leblond, an associate professor of public and international affairs at the University of Ottawa, said the buzz generated by the summit could help lower the perceived risk of investing in large Canadian projects and may draw in additional capital beyond what would have happened otherwise. But he warned that projects can stall for years without support from local and Indigenous communities, an adequate workforce, and a genuinely efficient regulatory process — and that investors will lose interest if that happens.
Leblond noted that many of the proposed projects are concentrated in conventional energy, minerals and metals — sectors that frequently face opposition over environmental concerns and often involve Indigenous communities. Without buy-in from those communities, he said, projects risk being blocked, prompting investors to walk away. He also flagged labour shortages as a major risk, questioning where the engineers, metallurgists and construction workers needed for pipelines, mines and rail networks would come from.
Skepticism Over Government’s Role in Picking Winners
Philip Cross, a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute and former chief economic analyst at Statistics Canada, said it was encouraging that the federal government is acknowledging Canada’s chronic weakness in business investment. However, he expressed doubt that Ottawa can effectively decide which projects deserve fast-tracked treatment and which don’t, pointing to what he described as a poor track record of governments selecting investment priorities over the past decade.
Taken together, the experts’ assessments suggest that while the summit succeeded in generating attention and a long list of potential projects, the ultimate measure of its success will be how many of those projects clear the practical obstacles of financing, community consent, workforce availability and regulatory approval in the years ahead.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial, investment, or legal advice. Consult a licensed financial advisor before making investment decisions.
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