Carney Courts Global Capital at Toronto Summit as Trump Tariffs Bite

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is courting some of the world's largest investors this week, hosting a summit in Toronto aimed at drawing billions of dollars north even as U.S. President Donald Trump pushes factories and capital south of the border.

About 300 chief executives and senior figures from major investment firms are gathering at the Four Seasons in Yorkville, an upscale Toronto neighbourhood, for the Canada Investment Summit. The attendees collectively manage more than $120 trillion in assets, a figure that underscores the scale of capital Ottawa hopes to tap.

Carney, who previously ran the central banks of Canada and England and spent 13 years at Goldman Sachs before chairing the boards of Bloomberg L.P. and Brookfield Asset Management, is at ease among the money managers he is hosting. He argued that Canada's appeal rests on its own strengths: vast energy and critical-mineral resources, a highly educated workforce, and trade agreements that give businesses based in Canada access to roughly 1.5 billion consumers worldwide.

"Canada is about so much more than being next to the United States," Carney said, adding that the turnout showed investors were interested in Canada on its own merits. "They are coming because of Canada. If they wanted to go to the United States they would go to the United States."

The summit is being described by a Canadian official as the largest gathering of investment decision-makers ever assembled in the country, with Canadian chief executives presenting projects at varying stages of readiness. The same official cautioned that a rush of deals is not expected this week, with the most significant results likely to surface over the next 12 to 18 months. The official spoke on condition of anonymity.

The event lands at a fraught moment in Canada-U.S. relations. Trade talks collapsed on Aug. 21, after which Trump imposed 50% tariffs on about $20 billion in Canadian goods and Canada retaliated. Washington then raised the stakes further, announcing bans on some Canadian imports and moving to shut Canadian products out of large, long-term U.S. government contracts.

Those measures, along with Trump's efforts to shift manufacturing south, are eroding what had long been one of Canada's biggest attractions for foreign investors: reliable access to the enormous U.S. market under continental free trade.

Carney is drawing a pointed contrast with the United States, pitching Canada as a stable, rules-based alternative to an increasingly unpredictable partner. Investors coming to Canada, he said, will find "a country that respects rule of law and a country that is reliable."

"That combination is pretty rare in the world," he said. "And it's an attractive combination."

He sharpened the message on Sunday, telling Canadian business leaders that the country's greatest strength was something "that cannot be found on any balance sheet: trust."

John Graham, chief executive of CPP Investments, one of the world's largest institutional investors and manager of Canada Pension Plan assets, is helping host the summit. He said the fund weighs opportunities in Canada against those elsewhere. "The conversation about Canada is changing," Graham said.

The summit aims to match global capital — including Canada's pension funds, among the world's biggest institutional investors — with major projects in critical minerals, technology, defence, advanced manufacturing and energy. Carney's private meetings are being tailored to investors' portfolios and the kinds of projects they want to finance, according to a Canadian official.

BlackRock CEO Larry Fink and Blackstone President Jon Gray will headline a public discussion on global capital, while former Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper is scheduled to close the summit. Carney then heads to Europe, where he will address the European Parliament later in the week as Canada pursues a broader strategic partnership with the EU.