EDITORIAL: Carney is the CEO of Canada Inc.

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Everything Prime Minister Mark Carney is doing now to turn around our economy after a decade of decline under his Liberal predecessor, Justin Trudeau, has potential risks and rewards.

The way he's doing it is consistent with who he is — a global capitalist, who thinks of himself more as the CEO of Canada, than its prime minister.

A CEO who has little regard for Parliament — which is still shuttered — and whose government seems to prefer informing the American media about what it's planning, rather than Canada's.

One Carney plan is a closer economic link with the European Union as part of reducing our economic reliance on the U.S.

Another is his two-day investment summit in Toronto ending Tuesday, where Carney, premiers and other politicians are meeting privately with global investors and asset managers to promote investing in Canada.

The potential reward is reversing the economic drain under Trudeau, during which a trillion dollars more of direct foreign investment left Canada, compared to what came in.

That caused Canada's productivity — the ability of an economy to transform raw materials and other inputs into goods and services — to decline and real GDP per capita, a measure of our standard of living, to fall far behind the U.S.

Carney says improvements are already happening, part of his goal of increasing business investment in Canada by $1 trillion within five years, using taxpayer money to "catalyze" private sector investments into major Canadian infrastructure projects.

The cost could be a loss of our sovereignty.

The EU, for example, has strict rules about what countries its members can trade with, one reason Carney said he walked away from trade negotiations with the U.S., because they wanted similar control.

(Carney denied a Wall Street Journal report that he wants "associate member" status with the EU, describing it instead as a "unique alliance".)

As for attracting more foreign investment into Canada — which would obviously include more U.S. investment — many Canadians view that as an inherent loss of sovereignty as well.

They worry Carney will make too many concessions to global corporations by lowering business taxes and reducing government regulations meant to protect the public.

We believe increased foreign investment, mindful of where it's coming from, is key to Canadian prosperity.

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