Carney to showcase Canada’s capital agenda at first-ever investment summit

Prime Minister Mark Carney will host Canada’s first national investment summit in Toronto on September 14 and 15, 2026, in an effort to address the country’s long‑standing shortfall in business investment.

The two‑day event will bring hundreds of domestic and international investors, many with trillions of dollars in assets under management, to a downtown Toronto hotel. Carney, cabinet ministers, provincial premiers and other Canadian business leaders will present a slate of major projects across the country.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said she will showcase 34 proposed projects, while Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe plans to pitch opportunities in the province’s energy, critical‑mineral, defence and agriculture sectors. New Brunswick Premier Susan Holt will highlight a port expansion, a data centre in Lorneville and a rehabilitation project for the Mactaquac power plant.

The summit is co‑organised by the Prime Minister’s Office, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and Public Sector Pension Investments, two of Canada’s largest asset managers. It follows Prime Minister Carney’s capital‑focused agenda, which he outlined 18 months ago when he first took office. Since then, federal policy and Ottawa’s budget framework have been reoriented to funnel spending into critical infrastructure and other large‑scale projects.

Carney has set a target of “catalyzing” $1 trillion in investments in Canada over five years, a goal that experts consider ambitious. Mahmood Nanji, a fellow at the Ivey School of Business at Western University, said Canada has suffered from a well‑documented dearth of business investment for much of the past decade, which has contributed to weak productivity and sluggish growth.

“This has been a bit of Canada’s Achilles heel over the last couple of decades,” Nanji said. “And this is why I think Prime Minister Carney, upon being elected, this was his big bet on rebuilding the Canadian economy.”

Critics often blame the investment shortfall on regulatory burdens and the long timelines and uncertainty surrounding project approvals. The CPP Investment Board’s Insights arm published a report on Monday surveying 65 of the world’s largest asset managers about their views on Canada’s investment opportunities. The energy sector emerged as the most attractive, but it also carries the sharpest risks, including fears of policy reversals, regulatory fragmentation and scale or liquidity constraints.

“Canada ranked well on openness to capital and execution in the energy transition, and trailed only Singapore when it came to policy stability and predictability,” the survey found. Nearly 70 percent of investors said predictability was extremely important or essential in deciding where to invest.

Jeremy Kronick, president and CEO of the C.D. Howe Institute, said Carney has taken steps to signal that Canada is “open for business” since taking office in March 2025. The Major Projects Office and the One Canadian Economy Act aim to streamline approvals for nation‑building projects.

“I think there’s been enough done on the change in tone,” Kronick said. “But regulatory processes are harder to change.”

Political opinion has also shifted, according to Angus Reid polling in July, which showed broad support for a new pipeline from Alberta to the British Columbia coast. Nanji cautioned that major projects remain common targets for litigation and that Indigenous stakeholders must be engaged before making too many promises to investors.

Statistics Canada reported that foreign direct investment reached $96.8 billion in 2025, the highest level since 2007. BMO chief economist Doug Porter said most of this inflow has come in the form of mergers and acquisitions rather than greenfield investments, which the summit organisers hope to stimulate.

Porter noted that the Canada‑U.S. trade war, which has intensified in recent weeks, could affect investor sentiment. “All other things being equal, I would have expected investment inflows to fall off in the face of President Donald Trump’s aggressive tariff agenda,” he said. “But the figures are encouraging given the backdrop.”

Carney said his pitch to investors will focus on Canada’s reliability as a supplier in an uncertain world. “Canada is about so much more than being next to the United States, OK? We have what the world wants,” he said at a Liberal cabinet retreat in Banff on Thursday.

Participants will be presented with a list of projects that is likely to include ports, pipelines and critical‑mineral extraction, many of which will involve exporting goods to markets beyond the United States.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published September 12, 2026.

Craig Lord, The Canadian Press

Article and image source: timminstoday.com