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Carney’s Splashy Investment Summit Is Over. Now He Has to Deliver

Forget the pitchbook. What matters is what actually gets built

Last week, Prime Minister Mark Carney officially got down to business with over 100 investors representing trillions of dollars in capital to Toronto for a one-day summit on attracting $1 trillion in investment to Canada. If effectively dealing with President Donald Trump is one side of Carney’s strategy for Canada, finding ways to expand our markets and build internal capacity is the other. It is, arguably, the most important and the one where he has the opportunity to leave the most durable legacy.

In many ways, the scrum—with its targeted pitches, 100-plus-project “pitchbook,” breakout sessions, and closed-door meetings—resembled a Dragon’s Den for investors. But on Dragon’s Den, getting a deal is only the beginning; many projects never make it to market. The same is true with the summit and the announcements that will follow. What matters now is whether Canada can turn all that interest into projects that actually get built.

We’ve also seen all this before. Back in 2012, the government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced Canada’s plan for Responsible Resource Development. It followed a similar “one project, one review” formula to the current “one assessment, one review” formula the Carney government has implemented, and it was managed and executed by the Major Projects Management Office. Fittingly, the Carney government has simply dropped the word “management” in its own Major Projects Office; everything else, from coordinating departments to reducing duplication, clarifying responsibilities, and advancing major projects, is largely the same. I know this because I was, at the time, part of the communications team tasked with announcing the Responsible Resource Development plan.

Today, if the machinery is the same, so are the challenges. The problem has rarely been that Canada cannot attract the attention of investors; the opportunities to invest here are fairly well known. It is the lack of trust, plus the conditions of investment in Canada’s regulatory and investment environment, that cause investment to stall. Paul Wells has laid much of this out, noting that trust is a necessary but not sufficient condition to drive the actual spending of capital and the building of stuff.

Those who gathered in Toronto were not there because they felt badly about how the United States has treated Canada or because they want to do Carney a solid. They were there because, in theory, they genuinely believe there is opportunity. Opportunity being the key word.

So it is worth asking: What has changed sufficiently to produce a different outcome this........

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