THE GIST
Our analysts just identified a stock with the potential to be the next Nvidia. Tell us how you invest and we'll show you why it's our #1 pick. Tap here.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is going big-game hunting, attempting to lure at least $1 trillion of direct investment into the True North. Hundreds of these big-wigs descended on Toronto, during the glitzy Toronto International Film Festival, to both make it seem like the city is the center of the universe and that they don't need the U.S. anyway.
WHAT HAPPENED
The push, unlike any in the country's history, comes on the heels of the Canada's largest financial institutions pledging hundreds of billions to shore up the economy as a hot trade war with the Trump administration shows no signs of immediate resolution.
TD Bank on Monday said it would invest C$150 billion, or about $108 billion, over five years to sectors it deems crucial to the country's future including AI, aerospace and defense, energy and minerals. The bank says the money will help trigger a Canadian "investment supercycle," in a note published in August. The investments will also be used to support small and medium-sized Canadian businesses affected by tariffs.
And last week, the Bank of Montreal said it would invest C$70 billion in a similar effort, joined by CIBC with a C$2 billion initiative of its own for Canadian defense firms, and Scotiabank with a C$100 billion commitment over five years.
The Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan, one of the world's largest, will also commit another C$10 billion, along with a host of other financial institutions like Sun Life and the Public Sector Pension Investment Board.
WHY IT MATTERS
Carney, a former central banker and chair of Brookfield Asset Management, is no stranger to raising large sums of money from senior investors. But he's also tapping into a newfound patriotism among Canadians, who are consistently shunning American goods and travel as President Trump ramps up his anti-Canada rhetoric and trade policy.
"Something's changed over the past year in our country. Canadians, we all know what I'm talking about, we feel it everywhere," Carney said on Monday. "Canadians are standing united, buying Canadian, confidently choosing a Canadian future."
One stock. Nvidia-level potential. 30M+ investors trust Moby to find it first. Get the pick. Tap here.
Canada's chief opposition leader, Pierre Poilievre, decried Carney's plan "foreign direct illusions," a play on FDI or foreign direct investment, and said the federal government's plan is tantamount to switching control of Canadian resources to foreign buyers without "building anything new."
But outside of Poilievre, Carney's plan has bipartisan support. Conservative Ontario Premier Doug Ford released a 28-page document inviting foreign companies to invest in Ontario. And the closing speech at the Canada Investment Summit will be delivered by former Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Justin Trudeau's predecessor, and who led Canada through the 2008 financial crisis.
"He's got business and government working together, he's sped up the approval process of projects and foreign investors are here because they believe we're going to get stuff done for the first time in a decade," RBC CEO David McKay told CNBC, of Carney's pro-business push.
WHAT'S NEXT
The broader move underpinning all this is ensuring Canada remains competitive with or without the U.S. Carney has made unprecedented moves as trade negotiations with its southern neighbor sputter, like fostering closer ties with China's massive consumer market, and engaging in discussions with the European Union to forge a closer alliance.
It's a vision of the world he laid out in his speech earlier this year at the Davos confab, where "middle powers" like Canada will have to take up the mantle of global leadership as the U.S. becomes more unpredictable under Trump.
But the jury's still out on whether all this will work, or it's just biding time until the erstwhile best friends, Canada and the U.S., can kiss and make up.
