“Our pension funds are amongst the world’s largest and most sophisticated investors,” Carney told the World Economic Forum in Switzerland. The funds are one of Canada’s prized assets, along with the country’s educated workforce and its sizable reserves of energy and critical minerals. “We have capital, talent and a government with the immense fiscal capacity to act decisively.”

But some key questions were left unasked: If Canada’s pension funds are so powerful, why aren’t they investing more in their home country? Is it possible for these behemoths of global finance to commit more of their multitrillion-dollar assets to the Canadian economy in this time of need?

In the past, most of Canada’s major pension funds have pushed back against even a whiff of political interference. Yet recently, some pension CEOs are saying they are open to investing more in Canada, especially in strategic sectors of national interest. Deals like the recent Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDP) investment in renewable-energy company Boralex show that some of the funds are already moving in this direction.

Are these sleeping giants getting ready to pony up the capital needed to kick-start Canada’s critical industries? Here are the central issues in this debate.

The Maple 8’s global reach

Canada’s major pension funds rank among the top in the world. The eight largest, known as the Maple 8, manage more than $2.5 trillion in assets. The largest of these, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB), is the seventh-largest pension fund in the world. At the end of 2025, CPPIB held $781 billion in assets for the CPP, which serves 22 million Canadian workers and retirees.

CDP, which manages funds for the Québec Pension Plan and other public funds and investors in Quebec, is number two in Canada at $517 billion. The Ontario contingent includes three large public-sector funds: the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (OTPP), the Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan (HOOPP) and the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (OMERS). The Maple 8 also includes British Columbia Investment Management Corp. (BCI) and Alberta Investment Management Corp. (AIMCo), investing funds in B.C. and Alberta, and Public Sector Pension Investments (PSP), managing federal public-service pension funds.

The funds have developed a management style known as the Canadian model, marked by independence from the governments that established them, internal professional management (rather than outside managers) and global investment in stocks and bonds and alternative assets such as real estate. The formula has mostly been successful. The annual average return of Canadian pensions has outperformed all but a few countries since the financial crash of 2008, although gains have slipped in the last two years as a result of declining real estate and private equity assets.

Pensions already invest in Canadian stock markets. Could they invest more?

The global profile of these funds has sparked calls to invest more in Canada. A CBC investigation in February showed that most of the Maple 8 invest far more in the United States than in Canada. CPPIB, for example, has $366 billion invested in the United States (47% of its total) and only $98 billion in Canada (13%). OMERS’s portfolio is 55% American, and PSP is 41% invested in the United States.

The level of U.S. investment seems shocking, bordering on unpatriotic, considering the recent economic pain inflicted by the United States. Only three of the Maple 8 funds have more assets invested in Canada than in the United States – HOOPP, OTPP and AIMCo.

We have the capital available right now to make those investments. We’re just waiting for those opportunities to manifest themselves.

– Michael Wissell, CIO, HOOPP

But compared with Canada’s share of global markets, the pensions are actually over-invested in their home country. According to the MSCI World Index (a broad-based investment index holding companies across the globe), the United States represents 70% of total world investment markets. Canada’s share is tiny at only 3.6%.

The funds argue that their mandate is to invest across the world in markets, sectors and companies that will deliver the best returns at acceptable risk to ensure that they can meet their long-term pension payouts.

Paul Calluzzo, a professor at the Smith School of Business at Queen’s University and a researcher for the Institute for Sustainable Finance, points out that pension funds have a legal and ethical obligation to invest in the best interests of their beneficiaries. “If a pension fund was to invest more in Canada, or support strategic industries, or just invest in infrastructure that was strategically important, that would be a cross-subsidy where the pension holders are footing the bill for something that benefits everyone,” he says.

The pension funds contend that it’s prudent to over-invest somewhat in Canada because of their “home-field advantage” through their detailed knowledge of local companies and cultures. But governments should resist the urge to think of pension funds as a national piggy bank, Calluzzo says. “There’s a temptation to say, ‘We have these huge pools of capital; let’s do something with them that helps Canada,’” he says, adding that it’s important to be mindful that pensions don’t belong to governments. “Those huge pools of capital are from the people who have been paying into their pension all those years. That’s something that should be respected.”

Pension CEOs open the door, but just a crack

Nevertheless, over the last few months, several pension fund CEOs have said they are open to investing more in Canada.

“As a nation, we have a significant opportunity to build a stronger and more resilient future, and OMERS wants to be part of that,” CEO Blake Hutcheson said in February. “We like the advantage that our relationships and on-the-ground expertise offer.” OMERS is looking for deals that support the fund’s financial objectives and Canada’s growth, he said.

“We have the capital available right now to make those investments,” Michael Wissell, chief investment officer at HOOPP, told Reuters on March 10. “We’re just waiting for those opportunities to manifest themselves.”

Last June, PSP CEO Deborah Orida said her fund is actively looking for additional Canadian investments. After years searching for global alternative investments, she told Bloomberg, “at PSP we’re asking ourselves: Have we been underleveraging our home-ice advantage.”

And in a speech last September, John Graham, CEO of CPPIB, cheered what appears to be a new spirit of cooperation by federal and provincial policymakers. “Unity and coordination will initiate the nation-building projects Canada requires. And those are exactly the projects that international and domestic investors, including us, are eager to invest in.”

Two years ago, it was a different story. The funds vigorously pushed back against a letter signed by 90 Canadian business and financial leaders, calling for rules to require pension funds to invest more domestically.

But last year’s Trump tariffs have created an elbows-up mood among Canadians, including millions of members of the plans the funds manage. The funds are also confident that Carney – former central banker and Bay Street executive – will seek ways for them to finance national projects without increasing risk or jeopardizing returns. “We can do more together, respecting that they [pension funds] are independent but at the same time looking at opportunities,” Finance Minister François-Phillippe Champagne told CBC in February.

Key sectors: Energy, critical minerals, defence and infrastructure

So what are the strategic sectors that could be targeted for additional investment?

Certainly energy – especially electrification – is one promising area. According to a list of proposals by the Major Projects Office (MPO), the federal agency is looking at a number of clean-energy proposals, including small modular reactors in Ontario, northern hydro projects and a British Columbia transmission line. The Shareholder Association for Research and Education recently released a report saying $220 billion in proposed new investment is threatened unless Canada’s power grid is urgently modernized, a need expected to be a focus of the upcoming federal electrification strategy. Support for clean energy has also been triggered by the recent spike in oil and gas prices caused by the U.S.-Israel invasion of Iran.

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Last week’s $3.8-billion acquisition of Boralex by CDP and Brookfield Asset Management is a sign of growing pension interest in clean energy. The investment “aligns with our commitment to the energy transition and our determination to help build Quebec-based champions,” said CDP executive vice president Kim Thomassin. The investment follows the fund’s $10-billion takeover last year of Innergex Renewable Energy. (CDP is unique among the Maple 8, however, operating with both financial and Quebec development mandates).

Rising oil and gas prices from the Iran war also means that liquified natural gas projects and Alberta’s proposed Western oil pipeline could also be a focus for pension funds. Oil and gas investment hinges on how long the price hikes will last and whether they will minimize the future glut in fossil fuels caused by the global renewable-energy transition. AIMCo is a large investor in Alberta’s oil and gas industry, including a major holding in the Coastal GasLink pipeline. There have been suggestions that the Alberta government may pressure AIMCo to ramp up its provincial oil and gas investments. To date, though, AIMCo has not expressed interest in the proposed oil pipeline.

Critical-mineral projects have also been identified as priorities for the MPO. The federal government adopted a national critical-minerals strategy in 2022, aimed at promoting domestic production and processing. According to the most recent strategy update, there are 140 mining projects planned for development by 2034, worth $72.4 billion in potential investment.

The Carney government’s Defence Industrial Strategy could also create investment possibilities. No defence-related proposals have yet been identified by the MPO. However, the government’s “buy Canadian” approach aligning defence purchases to the battery and critical-minerals sectors, as well as its upcoming electrification strategy, has potential to generate additional defence-sector investment, said New Economy Canada, a coalition of 60 business, Indigenous and labour organizations.

Infrastructure including transport projects, data centres, waste and water facilities, and agriculture also hold future investment potential. CPPIB has already identified data centres as a key area, pointing to its $225-million data-centre investment in Cambridge, Ontario. Transportation, such as the Alto high-speed rail project, also holds potential. CDP is already taking a lead role in this proposal, joining the consortium developing the project.

Reaching out for help from Australia

With such a long list of potential projects, the funds have called on some of their colleagues in Australia to lend a hand.

Representatives of the Maple 8 funds (plus the Investment Management Corporation of Ontario, manager of Ontario government pensions) signed an agreement with a group of large Australian pension funds to foster joint investments. They pointed to “a shared heritage, open and resource-rich economies, strong credit worthiness” and legal institutions as solid terrain on which to build.

Like Canada, Australia has a group of fast-growing pension funds with a relatively small domestic investment market, prompting it to look for partners around the world, particularly for infrastructure investments. IFM Investors, one of the Australian signatories, already invests in two Canadian infrastructure companies, Global Container Terminals in Vancouver and Enwave Energy in Toronto. IFM said it intends to invest up to $10 billion in Canada over the next decade “with the right policy settings in place.”

With this agreement, the funds are exploring possibilities for a larger pool of infrastructure investors, a strategy that would reduce risk for any individual fund.

It’s all about the projects

In the federal budget in November, the government set a target of enabling $1 trillion in total new investments over the next five years in Canada. The government’s charm offensive is aimed at persuading pension funds and other investors to open their wallets to help meet this ambitious target.

Ultimately, it will come down to whether the right projects can be put on the table. Proposals will need to meet three requirements: they’ll need to be in the national interest, demonstrate a high probability of returns that meet or exceed fund benchmarks, and represent an acceptable level of risk. Governments, project proponents and pension funds are looking for investments that check all three of these boxes.

Eugene Ellmen writes on sustainable business and finance. He is a former executive director of the Canadian Social Investment Organization (now the Responsible Investment Association).

The post Can Ottawa convince Canada’s pension giants to invest at home? appeared first on Corporate Knights.

The “Buy Canadian” campaign is an important one in today’s economic climate, but product labels do not tell the whole story of what we are paying for when we take out our wallets. Because of the economy’s complex supply networks and business ownership structures, it’s hard to see where the money goes.

This lack of visibility makes it difficult to make purchasing decisions that support the economic health of local communities. But tools like Economic Nutrition (EN) can enable us to choose products and businesses that do just that.

Economic Nutrition is a powerful framework that encourages people to invest in the future of communities.

– Zita Cobb, Founder & CEO, Shorefast

Economic Nutrition is a practice and framework designed to help people and organizations make informed purchasing decisions that support local economies. It was developed by Shorefast, and we already use the tool with our community-led businesses. Data from our Economic Nutrition labels, for example, support our local procurement strategy and help us benchmark against geographic and spending targets. The labels have not only helped us ensure that our spending is directed in ways that support the local economy; they have also deepened our relationships with our suppliers and our customers.

And we recently launched an Economic Nutrition pilot project through the Shorefast Institute for Place-Based Economies for others looking to support their own communities in this way. Over the past few months, 13 organizations – including businesses, non-profits and municipalities – have been collaborating with the Shorefast Institute to learn about Economic Nutrition and to start their own process of obtaining EN certification. The process is providing us with key learnings as we seek to scale up the model to businesses across Canada in 2026.

Economic Nutrition is a key part of our efforts to refocus the economy around place-based communities, recognizing that each community in Canada has distinctive strengths, cultural knowledge and human creativity that – when properly developed – can stimulate local economic growth and boost the national economy.

The concept is modelled after the nutrition information found on food labels. In the same way that those labels provide clear and consistent facts on a food’s nutritional content – including calories, fat and cholesterol – Economic Nutrition displays standardized information on the percentage of every dollar a business spends on producing a product or service, and its geographic distribution.

The EN label simplifies detailed accounting and complex money flows to provide clear, easy-to-understand information about the financials behind a product or service, using the total operating costs of a business for a fiscal year. By introducing visibility into the equation, Economic Nutrition enables people to see how much of their money remains local and how it’s being allocated.

Increased visibility also builds trust between people and businesses, fostering customer loyalty and related benefits. And the tool enables businesses to more easily measure their procurement practices against their own targets and industry standards to identify areas for improvement.

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Bottom line: people want to make buying decisions that positively affect place-based communities and support the Canadian economy, but they lack the information they need to make those choices. Economic Nutrition gives businesses the opportunity to display the financial facts behind the price of their products and showcase materials sourcing and employment practices that benefit the communities in which they operate.

Economic Nutrition is a powerful framework that encourages people to invest in the future of communities. Thriving local economies drive the national economy forward. Now more than ever, Canada needs tools like Economic Nutrition to build economic strength and a more prosperous and resilient country.

Zita Cobb is the founder and CEO of Shorefast, a Canadian registered charity.

The post Product labels should do more to help people ‘Buy Canadian’ appeared first on Corporate Knights.