To realize its ambitious “nation building” agenda, the Canadian government hopes to mobilize $1 trillion over five years in what it calls “generational investments” in housing, infrastructure, defence, and productivity. In numbers, this is $280 billion government spending over five years, which means a lot of private sector capital is needed to reach $1 trillion.
This amount coincides with Canada’s $1 trillion net outflow of investment over the past decade, as estimated by RBC. This marked “the most significant capital exodus in modern Canadian history”.
Over the next decade, RBC estimates that Canada can unlock $1.8 trillion, if only the country could shift to a new investment playbook focused on four pillars:
- A brownfield to greenfield asset recycling program
- Scale-enabling procurement
- Reforms to the corporate income tax and foreign investment regimes
- Leveraging of state capital.
Also read: Budget watchdog questions Ottawa’s $1-trillion investment claim: PBO analysis shows $184-billion gap
Sovereign wealth fund
The Carney government has been looking at ways to capture investments from the private sector. It recently announced the creation of its first-ever sovereign wealth fund – Canada Strong Fund – with an initial $25 billion endowment over three years. The Fund’s mission is to drive economic transformation and create wealth for Canadians, giving them a “direct stake in the Build Canada agenda”.
The SWF, complementing the Canada Infrastructure Bank and Export Development Canada, will focus on equity stakes in strategic infrastructure, energy, mining and advanced manufacturing.
Canada Investment Summit
Even with the SWF’s government seed capital, retail investment and returns and asset growth – in the best case scenario where the Fund is efficiently managed once it is up and running – the government needs more sources of capital, be it to buy government bonds or equity stakes in projects.
Prime Minister Mark Carney has already been courting foreign investors and countries during his trips abroad. His international, investment and central banking background are strong assets for Canada when addressing global business audiences (while the prime minister’s team is still figuring out Quebec audiences).
The government also announced its first-ever Canada investment Summit, which will take place September 14-15, 2026 in Toronto, Ontario.
The world’s largest investors, CEOs, entrepreneurs and business leaders are invited. CBC reported that 100 invitations were sent.
The topic is “Attracting new investment into Canada to advance Canada’s nation-building projects, create new career opportunities for Canadians, and grow our economy.”
Even if 100% of replies are positive, the hardest part is to convince that Canada’s ambitions can be matched with effective execution.
Positive deal signals
How is Canada’s narrative resonating so far?
At the portfolio level, foreign investors added $116.4 billion of Canadian securities to their holdings in 2025, following acquisitions totalling $193.3 billion in 2024.
In 2025, the demand for Canadian securities rose sharply in the second half of the year, with foreign acquisitions totalling $139.2 billion, more than offsetting the cumulative divestment of $22.8 billion recorded in the first half of the year – Statistics Canada.
Global pension capital investor IFM Investors announced in March that “the right policy settings” could lead to a further C$10 billion invested in Canada over the coming decade.
On the energy infrastructure front, Canada signed its first European LNG deal in May. Under the agreement, tied to the proposed Ksi Lisims LNG project in British Columbia, Germany’s state-owned SEFE (Securing Energy for Europe) will purchase one million tonnes per year of LNG for up to 20 years, with deliveries expected to begin by the early 2030s. The “agreement is an important step toward a final investment decision for Ksi Lisims LNG, a project expected to attract over $30 billion in investments,” Natural Resources Canada said.
Canada overtakes US as most attractive market for infrastructure investment
Positive signals also came from the Spring 2026 Infrastructure Pulse survey compiled by Alvarez & Marsal in collaboration with the Global Infrastructure Investor Association (GIIA). Canada indeed ranked as the most attractive market for current and upcoming infrastructure investment opportunities. This is the first time that the Great White North ranks first, overtaking the U.S. in overall attractiveness since the survey began in 2020.
Equity fundraising sentiment for Canada has improved compared to Q4 2025, showing a positive trend over the last 6 to 12 months.
Closed-end infrastructure funds raised nearly US$ 289 billion in 2025, reflecting improved fundraising sentiment among survey respondents compared to Q4 2025 across each of the US, Canada, EU, and UK. GIIA survey
Investors have also indicated an intention to increase the amount of equity they deploy in Canada over the next year, with an increasing percentage of respondents looking to commit larger sums.
Execution discipline and geopolitical risks are key to capital deployment decisions.
What is driving Canada’s market attractiveness ?
- Nation Building’ Program: Canada’s top ranking is largely attributed to its new administration and the “Nation Building” program, which signals a strategic shift toward infrastructure-led economic development,.
- Federal and provincial support: The outlook is bolstered by CA$115 billion in federal infrastructure investment alongside renewed commitments from provincial governments.
- Streamlined processes: The establishment of a Major Projects Office intended to oversee and fast-track projects of national interest has further improved investor sentiment.
Barriers to infrastructure investment in Canada
For all the positives, investors cited barriers to investment:
- Funding model uncertainty: Canada is cited, along with the UK, as having a significant lack of clarity on funding models.
- Project pipeline visibility: There is a noted lack of visibility regarding the project pipeline, which ranks as a top concern for investors in Canada. This concern is higher in Canada than in the U.S., the UK and Europe.
- Regulatory concerns: While Canada’s overall outlook is positive, investors expressed concern over an unattractive regulatory regime, although less so than the U.S. and the UK.
Could private credit derail efforts to attract investments?
The GIIA survey also mentioned that the instability in private credit markets could threaten deals.
Many survey respondents stressed:
Uncertainties around inflation, energy prices and supply chains have increased downside risk, whilst instability in private credit markets might make it harder to finance deals going forward – GIIA survey.
Private credit stress could spill over to Canada
In its latest Financial Stability Report, the Bank of Canada flags vulnerabilities in private credit, loans negotiated privately by non-bank lenders.
The central bank highlights:
- Lack of transparency: Because private credit is much less transparent than public markets, it is difficult for authorities to assess underwriting standards or see where losses are building.
- Untested in downturns: Private credit is still largely untested in a major economic downturn, making its behavior during a crisis difficult to predict.
- Signs of strain: Concerns regarding artificial intelligence have already led to stress in private credit markets, specifically causing a substantial widening of spreads on leveraged loans to the software sector and outflows from exposed funds.
In its Financial System Survey of senior experts in risk management in organizations active in the financial sector, the Bank of Canada reports three top risks:
- International economic and political risks
- External risks
- Asset pricing risks
But private markets are among new developments that respondents have started monitoring within the past 12 months.
Some respondents raised concerns about illiquidity, noting that private market investors are increasingly unable to exit positions or redeem their shares from private credit funds. This illiquidity could force investors to increasingly sell public market assets to raise cash, which could present greater risks to the valuations and liquidity of public assets. BoC Financial System Survey.
The risk is that this global stress spills over to Canada.
Social acceptability risks
The government has been walking back several Trudeau-era climate policies to focus on economic and resource development. So much so that an environmental activist and representative from the government’s own Liberal Party, Steven Guilbeault, is quitting politics altogether, after having stepped down from the cabinet in November 2025. “C’est la vie” was Carney’s reaction, signaling little regret to lose a figure of environmental activism and all the symbol behind it.
There is also the question of consultations with Indigenous communities that triggers antagonist positions, even among First Nations.
Together, these issues are a risk to project execution.
