Carney announces sovereign wealth fund ahead of spring economic update

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Mark Carney announced the creation of a sovereign wealth fund one day ahead of his government’s spring fiscal update, with an initial endowment of $25 billion.

“We’re proud to announce a new pillar of our plan, the Canada Strong Fund — Canada’s first national sovereign wealth fund,” said Carney, during a press conference in Ottawa on Monday.

“This will be a Government of Canada fund, but more importantly, it will be a people’s fund,” he added. “It will be your fund.”

Carney did not provide details on how he plans to initially finance the fund which is designed to give Canadians an investment stake in domestic major projects, alongside private sector investors. The fund will operate as a Crown corporation.

The prime minister said more details will be provided in the spring economic update, which will be tabled on Tuesday.

When asked how this fund will operate differently from the Canada Infrastructure Bank or the Canada Growth Fund, Carney said the sovereign fund will provide returns instead of debt.

“When you lend money, you hope to get it paid back, and then you move on, that’s what the Canada Infrastructure Bank does,” said Carney.

“You don’t get the returns that the underlying business or project gets, the equity returns, the returns to the owner, which…run substantially higher than the returns for debt,” he added.

Other jurisdictions have sovereign wealth funds which have proven successful, including in Norway and Singapore.

Carney said his government is taking lessons from those countries that had the foresight decades ago to start funds that benefited from their resources. Carney said the fund may start out with a domestic focus, but could grow to global investments.

The prime minister has spent the past year travelling to other countries to attract capital investment in Canada. The federal government recently announced Canada will host an investment summit in September, which includes invitations to some of the world’s largest investors to Toronto.

More to come.

Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com and sign up for our newsletters here.