Toronto is absolutely buzzing this week!
TIFF, the Canada Investment Summit, and a major investment conference showcasing Canadian energy companies. I was less than 10 feet away from the inimitable Helen Mirren last night. She is stunning. Awestruck.
But today I’m thinking about a different kind of star power: Canada’s resources, some of the biggest pools of investment capital in the world, and a question I think we should be asking more often.
You don’t need to know everything, just enough.
WHAT HAD MY ATTENTION
What about investing Canadian?
Last week Prime Minister Carney used a very Canadian metaphor: when we buy Canadian and travel Canadian, “nobody is in the stands, 40 million of us are on the ice.”
So let’s take that one step further. What about investing Canadian?
Canada has some of the largest and most sophisticated pension funds in the world. Our pension funds invest Canadian retirement savings in infrastructure, businesses and energy projects all over the world. And they should. Their job is to earn good returns for Canadians.
But what if we made more Canadian energy, resource and infrastructure projects attractive enough that more of that money wanted to invest here too?
We talk a lot right now about becoming less dependent on the U.S. That means diversifying our customers, attracting international investment and building stronger partnerships with our allies. But independence also means remembering the extraordinary capacity we already have ourselves: resources, expertise, people and capital.
Forty million of us are on the ice. Let’s invest in the team too.
THE SMART ENOUGH QUESTION:
You don’t need to understand pension-fund allocations or infrastructure financing to get into this conversation.
Start with: “What can I invest in that actually invests in Canada?”
Ask and get informed. Find out where your pension, savings or investments are already going. Learn what Canadian options exist and what the risks and returns are. Then decide what makes sense for you. Participating in the conversation doesn’t require knowing the answer before you ask the question.
MY SMART ENOUGH TAKE:
Invest Canadian doesn’t mean invest Canadian at any cost. Pension funds have a job to do, and so do each of us when we make decisions about our own money.
So instead of simply demanding that more Canadian money stay home, I think the more useful way to think about it is: how do we make Canada worth investing in?
Not forcing investment home. Making home worth investing in.
WORTH YOUR TIME:
Some of Canada’s biggest pension funds are committing billions more to invest here, including in energy, infrastructure and critical minerals.
I like seeing our own institutions increasing their bets on Canada too. The important caveat: they still need good returns.
As they should. Which brings us right back to the question: how do we make Canada worth investing in?
And yes, we need the world’s money too!
That brings me back to Toronto. The Canada Investment Summit is happening here today and tomorrow, bringing together sovereign wealth funds from around the world, international pension money, major private investment firms and Canadian business leaders to look at opportunities in energy, mining, critical minerals, infrastructure, technology, defense and more.
These are some of the biggest pools of capital in the world deciding where they want to put their money next. Canada wants a bigger share of it, with a goal of catalyzing $1 trillion of investment here over the next five years.
And we need it. The projects we’re talking about building are BIG: pipelines, LNG, mines, ports, modern nuclear power, electricity infrastructure, data centres and defence manufacturing. International investment can bring capital, but also customers, expertise, relationships and connections to new markets.
I’m also here for a major investment bank’s conference focused specifically on Canadian oil and gas companies. There’s a huge turnout of investors and producers, at a time when energy security is impossible to ignore. Everyone is watching not only the Strait of Hormuz, but the Red Sea and the security of alternative routes like Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline.
In an increasingly unstable world, reliable energy matters. So does being a reliable supplier.
THE SMART ENOUGH QUESTION:
So if you’re not an investment expert but you want in on this conversation, here’s a question you can ask:
“What does Canada have that the world actually wants to invest in?”
Then listen to the answers. Energy? Critical minerals? AI and data centres? Infrastructure? Defence? Agriculture?
And then ask the better follow-up: “What is stopping us from getting more of it built?”
Now you’re in the conversation.
MY SMART ENOUGH TAKE:
International investment isn’t just about getting someone else’s money.
Done well, it can mean new customers, new partnerships, expertise, market access and countries with a financial interest in Canada succeeding.
We don’t need to choose between investing in ourselves and attracting the world.
Invest Canadian. Attract international capital. Partner with countries we trust.
More customers. More partners. More capital. More choices.
That is what diversification actually starts to look like.
Resources are part of security too!
President Zelenskyy’s visit to Canada last week put another piece of this into focus for me. Canada and Ukraine announced a 100-year partnership that brings defence, energy, critical minerals, manufacturing, technology, trade and investment into the same conversation.
There are some very practical examples. Canada and Ukraine plan to work together on drone production, all the way from critical metals and minerals through engineering and manufacturing. Canada is also backing Ukrainian energy security, including support for natural gas purchases, while the two countries deepen cooperation on energy, critical minerals and investment.
It’s a useful reminder that you can’t really separate economic security from energy security from defence security anymore. Defence needs minerals and metals. Economies need reliable energy. Both need infrastructure, technology and expertise. And somebody has to finance all of it.
THE SMART ENOUGH QUESTION:
Here’s an easy question the next time someone is talking about increasing defence spending:
“What resources do we actually need to build all of that?”
Because announcing more money for defence is one thing. Turning that money into ships, aircraft, drones, ammunition, technology and infrastructure requires actual stuff.
Where does it come from, Who produces it, Do we have enough? Who are we dependent on, those questions get you surprisingly deep into the conversation, pretty quickly.
MY SMART ENOUGH TAKE:
Security isn’t only about what you can defend. It is also about what you can build, produce, finance and reliably supply.
Canada has energy, uranium, critical minerals, metals, manufacturing expertise and capital.
That makes developing our resources more than an economic conversation.
It is increasingly a security one too.
LYNNIE IN 90 SECONDS
There is one fairly important catch to everything I just wrote: we still have to build the projects.
Last week I talked about changes to Canada’s Impact Assessment Act process intended to make some project reviews faster, clearer and less duplicative. I endorse.
Because think about everything above. We want Canadian pension money investing here. We want international investors choosing Canada. Our allies increasingly need secure supplies of energy and critical materials. And Canada has an extraordinary amount of what the world needs.
But if projects take too long, cost too much or carry too much uncertainty to build here, capital has choices. So do customers.
If we want Canadians to invest here, the world to invest here, and our resources to actually contribute to our prosperity and security, we need to be able to build things faster, more predictably and more efficiently.
Otherwise, none of the rest matters.
See you next Week!
Lynn