Your Talking Points: Beyond the Investment Summit
Sep 17, 2026
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Your bi-weekly briefing on policy developments, advocacy insights and the conversations that shape both regional progress and your business success. September 17, 2026 Sign up | View online Hello, This week, Toronto hosted the country's first Canada Investment Summit, drawing global and domestic investors who manage trillions of dollars between them. Prime Minister Mark Carney wants to turn that interest into $1 trillion in new investment for Canada over the next five years. Canada's biggest banks and funds are already moving. In the days leading up to the Summit, they pledged hundreds of billions of dollars toward energy, critical minerals, infrastructure, and technology projects and companies. TD's economists say that kind of capital could kick off a genuine investment supercycle. Scotiabank also launched the Scotia Growth Institute alongside its own $100 billion commitment, a new platform dedicated to studying what it will take to turn Canada's strengths into lasting growth. For decades, having the world's biggest economy next door enabled complacency in Canada. Proximity did the work that our own competitiveness should have. That cushion is gone, and it's forcing Canada to finally address the things that were always within its control. Ontario accounts for nearly 40 per cent of the national economy, is an energy powerhouse, and boasts a robust and skilled workforce. On paper, it should be one of the easiest places in the world to deploy capital. But it’s not. In our new report, Beyond the Investment Summit, we look at the levers that are within Ontario’s control. Pulling them would foster the right environment to attract the level of investment that a province of its size and scale should. There’s a role for both the federal government and the province to play. We're calling on them to build a coordinated pipeline of investable projects, create a clear front door for investors, continue the work on tax and regulatory reform, and make the Summit a recurring accountability mechanism. We also want to see capital mobilized into our homegrown champions. We've long called for immediate expensing to make investing in Canada easier. When government works with the private sector to identify what is needed to incentivize investment and put capital to work to grow the economy, initiatives like the new Productivity Mega Deduction are the result. The Summit created the moment. Now Canada must turn it into momentum. What to Expect in this Issue ▸ By the Numbers: Investing in Canada ▸ 3 Questions on Triggering a Canadian Economic Supercycle ▸ Featured Events     ▸ Policy at a Glance SOURCES: 1: Department of Finance Canada 2: PMO 3: Regulating for Growth: 18 Actions to Unlock Canada's Financial Services Sector 4: World Bank Business Ready report 3 Questions on Triggering a Canadian Economic Supercycle With global investors in Toronto this week for the Canada Investment Summit, TD Economics has put a number on what's at stake.   In Triggering a Canadian Investment Supercycle, Deputy Chief Economist Derek Burleton and Chief Economist Beata Caranci tallied more than $1 trillion in announced major projects across energy, defence, AI, resources and transportation. If Canada plays its cards right, TD estimates GDP growth would run a full percentage point higher than the current baseline, year-after-year, compounding to roughly $12,000 in additional output per Canadian by 2035.   It isn't a forecast, but rather a scenario. Most of what's on that list is a proposal rather than a commitment. But Burleton argues the conditions for a supercycle are lining up in a way they haven't in years.   We asked him what it would take to turn a thesis into something real. 1. Is the difference between a supercycle and the current trajectory big enough for people to feel? “Without this investment, you're probably looking at an economy growing at one to one and a half percent. So that extra point per year is a real lift. It accumulates year-after-year, and it would be material to our standard of living, which has pretty much not grown in the last ten years or so. It's not chump change.” 2. Most of the project spending would initially happen elsewhere. What does a national supercycle mean for Ontario and Toronto? “Super cycles generally involve a breadth of growth. It may start in one part of the country and then you do tend to see ripple through. Going back to the 2000s, that's what happened. A lot of it was oil sands development, and over time you saw some ripple through into Ontario and some of the knock-on effects on growth. Ontario has a lot to offer, clearly a big market, a lot of skilled workers. But that notion that governments have to be bold applies in particular to a province like Ontario, where it doesn't benefit from the energy that Alberta does.” 3. You've said the hard part is sustaining this. What worries you most? “When we went through ‘Liberation Day,’ for a few months we were in real crisis, and you were actually getting a real push. It was a fairly short window, but as usual, when the crisis settles, this is when it gets tough again. It becomes harder when the economy isn't in severe recession or not in crisis. Somehow we've got to keep governments' iron to the fire to keep forging ahead.” Read more from our two-part conversation. Member POV “The challenge is creating opportunities here that are sufficiently competitive and investable. Unlocking Canadian investment is every bit as important as attracting investment from abroad.” — Jason Hatcher, Chair and CEO, Signal Hill Canada, giving the opening remarks at Beyond the Summit: Strengthening Canada's Competitiveness Forum “We want you to help us identify emerging challenges across your sectors. What’s changing? What are the biggest opportunities? And where can the Board and its members make the greatest difference? The strength of our policy agenda comes from the expertise, perspectives and engagement of our policy committee members. And what we hear from you today will help shape the work we do moving forward as we look to the year ahead.” — Lisa Kimmel, Co-Founder, Lantern Media LLC, Vice Chair, Toronto Region Board of Trade Board of Directors and Chair, Policy and Advocacy Committee at our 2026 Policy Priorities Setting Session Get Involved Policy at a Glance RELATED REPORTS & INSIGHTS Regulating for Growth: 18 Actions to Unlock Canada's Financial Services Sector Beyond the Investment Summit: Preparing Ontario to Attract and Retain Global Investment Canada Is Starving Its Best Companies of Capital: New Report Sets Out Nine Fixes Beyond Red Tape: Regulate for Growth EVENT RECAPS Toronto Region Board of Trade’s 2026 Policy Priorities Setting Session Reading this as a forward? Subscribe to stay connected. 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