Carney, locked in US trade war, pitches Canada to global investment titans

By Nivedita Balu and Promit Mukherjee

TORONTO, Sept 14 (Reuters) – Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney welcomes dozens of global investors to Toronto this week, hoping to lure investments for more than 160 projects that he says are key to steering Canada’s economy through a trade war with the United States.

Carney, a former Goldman Sachs executive and central bank chief, on Monday held bilateral meetings with attendees including BlackRock CEO Larry Fink and Blackstone President Jon Gray, his office said.

The summit, to be held mainly on Tuesday, will host discussions for future investments, although major deals could take 12 to 18 months to materialize, a government source said. Carney has pledged to attract investments of C$1 trillion ($721 billion) in the next five years by cutting red tape and developing mining, energy, technology and infrastructure projects.

“The world’s largest investors, managing over C$120 trillion of assets, will come to ‘peer into our shop window’ because the world is looking at Canada differently,” Carney said at a welcome reception on Sunday.

Attracting investment is crucial for Canada’s economy to weather mounting tariffs imposed by the United States, Canada’s top trade partner. Carney has sought to do business with new partners in the Middle East and Asia and to strengthen Canada’s alliance with Europe.

Carney has tried to address past concerns of a tedious and time-consuming regulatory regime and lack of large-scale investment-grade projects in the country.

On Monday, Finance Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne said the federal tax agency will prioritize advance income tax ruling requests for investments of C$1 billion or more to help investors get a binding decision quickly on how tax law will apply to a proposed deal before they commit capital.

MATCHMAKER

The summit aims to match some 100 global investors with Canadian CEOs, companies and local officials to facilitate investments or partnerships. The projects are in various stages, from concept stage to shovel-ready, according to a copy of a prospectus seen by Reuters. It pitches Canada as a stable and predictable market poised for long-term economic growth.

Bell Canada CEO Mirko Bibic tried to set the tone by announcing an expansion of a previously announced data center in Saskatchewan.

“Today, we’re announcing that we’re expanding that project, quadrupling it. It will now be a 1.2 gigawatt facility at full buildout, requiring C$50 billion in capital investment,” Bibic said.

The dealbook speaks to Canada’s technology aspirations, with 96 data centers in development. Opportunities include an equity investment for Xanadu’s photonic quantum computer targeted for commercialization by 2029 to 2030, equity investment in a data center campus in Alberta, and project financing for a hyperscale and AI-focused campus in New Brunswick.

The Crawford Nickel Project, which will produce low-carbon nickel for batteries and green steel, is also on the list.

The prospectus also lists infrastructure projects, generally favored by pension funds and other long-term investors, including C$900 million in financing sought for a proposed high-speed transportation pod between Calgary and Edmonton.

Canada’s foreign direct investment flows have been steadily rising since 2022, government data shows, with a quarterly average around C$23 billion in 2024 and 2025, and C$20 billion so far this year. That compares with C$16.3 billion in 2023 and C$15 billion in 2022.

A large chunk of Canada’s inbound investment has been related to mergers and acquisitions, such as Mubadala Capital’s C$12 billion acquisition of CI Financial and Anglo-Australian miner Rio Tinto’s purchase of Arcadium Lithium, or from the reinvested earnings of foreign firms.

SUPERCHARGE FDI

But greenfield investments, a measure of foreign spending on new factories and warehouses, have not seen a major bump since Carney took office.

Doug Porter, chief economist at BMO Capital Markets, cautioned that it is difficult to lure such investments in a mature economy like Canada’s.

“It will be fascinating to see if this (investment summit) actually does supercharge foreign direct investment,” he added.

The Carney government’s priorities mark a departure from those of his predecessor Justin Trudeau, a fellow Liberal who focused more on human rights, climate change and Indigenous issues.

Carney has said he looks forward to welcoming Saudi investors to the summit, and has mended ties with India and China.

Canada’s financial sector, meanwhile, has pledged billions of dollars for Canadian companies.

On Monday, the country’s second-biggest lender, TD, announced a C$150 billion five-year commitment for lending and financing projects across energy, critical minerals and resources, defence and aerospace, digital and AI, and infrastructure. Scotiabank said it had committed C$100 billion in financing to support Canada’s growth agenda.

The summit has also attracted protests from a coalition of labor unions, Indigenous groups, housing advocates, and climate and anti-war organizations accusing some of the attendees of profiting from housing speculation, fossil fuel expansion and defense-related investments at the expense of ordinary Canadians. They have planned an evening march in Toronto on Monday.

Nick Barry-Shaw of the advocacy group Council of Canadians said the gathering of global investors amounted to a privatization effort rather than a nation-building exercise.

“This is not an investment summit. This is a privatization summit,” Barry-Shaw said. “This isn’t nation building. This is country selling.”

($1 = 1.3864 Canadian dollars)

​

(Reporting by Nivedita Balu, Ryan Patrick Jones and Wa Lone in Toronto, Promit Mukherjee and Maria Cheng in Ottawa; Editing by Caroline Stauffer, Edmund Klamann, Andrea Ricci and Stephen Coates)