Prime Minister Mark Carney will open the first-ever Canada Investment Summit in Toronto on Sept. 14 with a pitch to roughly 250 executives whose firms manage close to $120 trillion in assets, and what Ottawa is offering them now includes publicly owned airports and ports.
The two-day summit is hosted by the Prime Minister’s Office in partnership with CPP Investments and PSP Investments, and is built around a target the government has repeated since April: catalysing $1 trillion in total investment in Canada over five years, according to the federal summit page. The Globe and Mail reported this week that the program pairs a Sept. 14 gala dinner with a Sept. 15 keynote and fireside chat by Carney, followed by an afternoon panel pitching Canadian energy assets ranging from pipelines to nuclear power. Former prime minister Stephen Harper is among those attending. BlackRock chief executive Larry Fink, Blackstone president Jonathan Gray and Barclays chief executive C.S. Venkatakrishnan have confirmed, and representatives of the Saudi and Emirati sovereign wealth funds are expected.
Less prominent in coverage of the guest list is what is actually on offer. Carney said earlier this year that his government is open to selling public assets if the proceeds fund new infrastructure, Global News and The Canadian Press reported, and both the federal budget and the spring economic statement raised exploring new ownership options for federally owned airports. Transport Canada owns 23 large and mid-sized airports, including the six busiest, in Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, Calgary, Edmonton and Ottawa. A Transport Canada discussion paper first reported by the Toronto Star also floated amalgamating some key ports while selling others. The Australian infrastructure fund IFM Investors has said it is looking to buy up to $10 billion in Canadian assets over the next decade.
That detail matters to anyone who flies or ships goods. Privately held airports recover capital costs through landing fees and passenger charges, and those costs eventually surface in ticket prices, which is why a change in airport ownership is not only a balance-sheet question for Ottawa.
The urgency behind the summit comes from a Royal Bank of Canada analysis finding Canada suffered a net $1 trillion investment outflow between 2015 and 2024, which the bank called the largest capital exodus in modern Canadian history. For every dollar invested in Canada from abroad over that period, RBC calculated, two dollars left. The same report projects Canada could attract up to $1.8 trillion over the next decade if pipelines, liquefied natural gas terminals, nuclear, hydro and critical minerals projects advance. Ottawa says foreign direct investment is now at a two-decade high and that its Major Projects Office is carrying 27 nation-building initiatives worth more than $192 billion.
One caution on the headline figure: the roughly $120 trillion attributed to attending firms is assets they manage worldwide, not capital available to Canada. Pension funds and asset managers allocate to countries in fractions of a percentage point.
The timing is awkward. The summit opens six days after Canada’s counter-tariffs on U.S. steel, dairy and electronics take effect Sept. 8, and 10 days after Statistics Canada reported the economy shed 42,000 jobs in August, with youth unemployment at 12.9 per cent.
There is also a constitutional constraint the investor pitch does not resolve. The Supreme Court of Canada has held that Indigenous communities must be consulted on development crossing their traditional territories, and First Nations leaders have argued that the Major Projects Office, created under the Building Canada Act to designate projects of national interest, weakens the right to free, prior and informed consent. Environmental groups have signalled they will litigate any federal move they view as a shortcut around existing law.
Opposition is organizing in public. A letter titled Confront Carney’s CEO Summit has drawn more than 1,000 signatories, including David Suzuki, Yann Martel, Cory Doctorow and Kanien’keha:ka activist Ellen Gabriel. A counter-summit, The Many versus the Money, is scheduled for Sept. 13 with Naomi Klein speaking, and a demonstration is planned for the summit’s opening day.
The question the government’s own materials leave unanswered is what happens afterward. Officials are preparing a deal book for attendees, but there is no public version of it, no published list of assets under consideration, and no announced mechanism for tracking whether pledges made in a hotel ballroom turn into spending in Canadian communities. Business Council of Canada chief executive Goldy Hyder told CBC News the real test of a summit like this is follow-through. Ottawa has not said when, or whether, it will report back.
Via The Globe and Mail. Additional reporting drawn from the Government of Canada summit page, Global News, The Canadian Press, the Toronto Star and RBC Thought Leadership.
