Trillion-dollar nation-building project needs policy help
Where will the money come from to allow this country to revive its economic fortunes and, as prime minister Mark Carney promised: “build at a speed, scope and scale not seen in generations.”
An RBC Thought Leadership paper released April 14 sees a $1.8 trillion investment opportunity over 10 years to build the energy infrastructure, manufacturers, mines, processors, agricultural muscle and defence capability to re-establish Canada’s place in the world economy and indeed become the G-7’s growth leader.
The ambitious scenario sees Canada becoming an energy leader with more oil pipelines, liquified natural gas export terminals, increased oil production and carbon sequestration.
That comes with a price tag of $705 billion.
An industrially competitive net zero electricity grid costs $605 billion to double generation with nuclear and renewable power and an expanded “smart” grid.
The agriculture and food scenario sees $205 billion spent on productivity gains through new technology, research and greater processing. Canada regains its position as the world’s fifth largest food exporter.
Mining sees a $200 billion investment.
The buildup of defence manufacturing has a $19 billion cost and space/communications $12 billion.
The scope of the investment is far beyond the funding capability of the government, that is, the Canadian taxpayer.
The task requires hundreds of billions of dollars in private money each year, and that means there must be an environment of taxation, regulation and laws that encourages and rewards domestic and foreign investment, from global wealth management entities to pension funds, from banks to credit unions, from sovereign wealth funds and billionaires to everyday workers.
Initiatives in the Liberal government’s November budget, RBC argued, would enable $1 trillion in total investments in Canada over five years.
Carney has travelled the world to talk up the opportunities in this nation-building project.
And on April 17 he announced the “Canada Investment Summit,” which will invite investors, chief executive officers and business leaders from around the world to Toronto this fall.
It is hard to comprehend numbers that start with a “T.” A trillion is 1,000 billion.
However, note that this gargantuan amount is the proposed accumulated investment over years. In the RBC paper, the $1.8 trillion is over 10 years, so averaged out that is $180 billion a year.
RBC says that amount of money is accessible with the right policies.
“Between pension funds and asset managers, Canada is sitting on nearly US$10 trillion in capital,” the paper notes, adding that the global capital pool sits somewhere between $150 to $200 trillion.
“Simply put: there is more than enough capital to power the country’s growth ambitions.”
There is modest hope in noting that last year, for the first time since 2015, there was nearly $100 billion in direct foreign investment in Canada.
RBC notes lots of countries want to reorient their economies, and global competition for capital is intense.
“But (Canada) does have all the traits of an economic leader: a deep talent pool, abundant natural resources, political stability and the rule of law,” RBC said.
Its paper sets out two growth scenarios.
The first forecasts capital needs if Canada stays with current policies and investment pattern.
In that scenario, we stay at close to $100 billion a year, with a sum over 10 years of $1.1 trillion.
It calls the other scenario the “step change,” with a total investment of $1.8 trillion thanks to purposeful national strategy, federal-provincial co-ordination and targeted investment.
RBC’s agri-food vision has less specific goals than oil and gas with its pipelines and LNG terminals.
It talks broadly of more investment in research and technology adoption.
For more detail, it refers to another RBC paper from February 2025 that can be found here.
That paper notes Canada fell from the number five world food exporter around 2000 to number seven now, bumped down by China and Brazil.
A paper by MLT Aikins, which can be found here, dives deeper into the unique investment needs of agri-food projects.
For example, food processing startups reach pilot plant status but then can’t find the tens of millions need for commercial production.
They need tailored regulatory frameworks and specific sector knowledgeable investment expertise to get to the next stage.
The paper says that a first step in this direction is Farm Credit Canada’s convening of a coalition of more than 20 investment organizations prepared to deploy up to $5 billion into agriculture and food by 2030. That is on top of $2 billion FCC has.
