Canada Investment Summit: What it means for domestic investors and entrepreneurs

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Canada recently hosted its first-ever Investment Summit, a gathering of investors from over 30 countries who collectively manage more than $100 trillion in assets.

The summit was a big swing by Prime Minister Mark Carney. It’s part of a broader push to strengthen Canada’s economic position amidst an ongoing trade war with the United States, Canada’s largest trading partner.

The Summit was meant to court foreign investors. But what kind of opportunities does this open for domestic capital? And how will it affect Canadian entrepreneurs and SMEs?

Our experts from McGill University weigh in.

Private airport investments are an opportunity for Canada and Quebec’s pension funds.

Prime Minister Carney announced at the summit that four Canadian airports would soon welcome private investment: Trudeau International Airport in Montreal, Toronto Pearson International Airport, Vancouver International Airport, and Calgary International Airport.

Patrick Augustin, an Associate Professor of Finance at McGill University, says this is not just an opportunity for foreign investors; it’s an opportunity for Canada and Quebec’s capitalized pension funds:

Our work on pension systems has reinforced an important point: mobilizing long-term savings is only one side of the equation. If we want more of that capital to contribute to domestic economic growth, we also need to create attractive investment opportunities at home. Otherwise, pension funds, quite appropriately given their fiduciary responsibilities, will invest wherever they find the best risk-adjusted opportunities globally.

Australia offers an interesting precedent. The expansion of its superannuation system created an enormous pool of long-term capital, while infrastructure reforms opened assets such as airports to private investment. Today, Australian pension capital is deeply involved in infrastructure. The lesson is not that pension funds should be directed to invest domestically, but rather that governments can create the conditions under which domestic investment becomes commercially attractive.

Seen from this perspective, opening Canadian airports to private investment is potentially an important complement to efforts to mobilize more capital. Well-structured infrastructure assets can attract both Canadian pension funds and international investors. And if the proceeds are reinvested in new infrastructure, as proposed, the government can effectively use mature assets to help finance the next generation of productive investment.

The broader point is simple: attracting capital to Canada requires not only more capital, but more opportunities worth investing in.

The jury’s still out for Canadian SMEs and entrepreneurs.

The Canada Investment Summit was a mixed bag for domestic entrepreneurs and SMEs. Niels Billou, the incoming director for the McGill Dobson Centre for Entrepreneurship, says the Summit could be good for growth-stage projects. But more support is needed for domestic startups. Here’s what Billou said:

Was Canada’s Investment Summit good for entrepreneurial companies and SMEs? The answer is maybe. The Carney government landed roughly $500 billion in commitments toward its $1 trillion target, with the headline capital concentrated in energy, critical minerals, infrastructure, and AI/data centres. Banks were part of that: BMO pledged to mobilize up to $70 billion over ten years, TD $150 billion over five, and Scotiabank $100 billion over five, all framed as broad lending, underwriting, and financing for “Canadian companies and projects.” CIBC was the exception, earmarking $2 billion specifically for SMEs, but scoped to defence and dual-use civilian suppliers, not entrepreneurship generally. So there is a real bank-funded spillover stream here, just a narrower one than the summit’s totals imply: SMEs and entrepreneurs can access this capital through ordinary commercial channels, but only one institution tied a specific number to small business, and even that was sector-restricted.

The sharper gap remains in funding innovation. BetaKit’s reporting puts a number on it: Canada saw roughly $8 billion CAD in venture investment in 2025, against $320 billion USD in the US.

Carney’s summit capital is aimed at growth-stage and mega-projects. The argument some commentators are making is a trickle-down one, that confident growth-stage deployment will eventually give early-stage VCs more room to write cheques. That’s a hope, not a mechanism, and it does nothing for the structural early-stage gap, weak IP retention, or entrepreneur brain drain. As Jaxson Khan (Aperture AI) put it, “the follow-through is what decides whether any of this reaches” the startup sector, and that’s still unproven.

What would actually counter it: dedicated scale-up capital vehicles (not just growth-stage PE/infrastructure funds) targeted at Canadian-founded tech and cleantech firms; an IP strategy that ties public R&D funding to Canadian ownership retention rather than allowing IP to migrate on acquisition; and using federal procurement as demand-side industrial policy.

There’s actual movement on that last point already. The government’s 2026 Small Business Procurement Program reforms and the Council of Canadian Innovators’ “strategic procurement” push both argue government buying power, not just summit-style capital attraction, is the more reliable lever for Canadian entrepreneurs and SMEs. That’s arguably the more promising counter-argument to the summit’s big-capital framing: buy Canadian innovation before trying to buy Canadian growth.