Posthaste: More Canadian investors are moving their money out of U.S., into Canada

While it’s still early days, Prime Minister Mark Carney’s push for Canadian asset managers to invest at home may already be paying dividends.

More than half of Canada’s asset managers plan to reduce their U.S. equity allocations within the next year, according to Marsh People and Investments Canada’s 2026 Global Asset Owner Barometer — the largest pullback from the U.S. among all of the regions surveyed.

Meanwhile, Canadian investors sold $31 billion in U.S. shares in July, a record tally according to government data.

Carney has long tried to encourage Canadian financial institutions towards homegrown opportunities and last week invited some of the world’s biggest investors to the Canada Investment Summit, with the goal of attracting $1 trillion in new financings.

“The tide is turning,” Greg Taylor, chief investment officer at PenderFund Capital Management, said at the summit. “It could be that Trump has galvanized us, and Canada is going to put money to work.”

During the event, the federal government announced plans to open Canada’s biggest airports to private capital and cut taxes for new business investment to the lowest rate among G7 countries.

When it comes to domestic investment, Canada secured $325 billion from its biggest banks, $50 billion from the Maple Fund and $52.5 billion from BCE Inc. for a data centre in Saskatchewan, to name a few.

Foreign investment is picking up as well. Total foreign inflows to all asset classes over the last year was US$211 billion, amounting to about 8.7 per cent of Canada’s GDP.

“Canada is an attractive market for investment,” Peter Stensgaard Mørch, chief executive officer of PensionDanmark, said at the summit. “The Canadian government demonstrates a strong understanding of what is required to attract additional investment.”

Carney is also looking to kickstart dozens of major infrastructure projects across the country and asset managers are taking notice. Sixty-six per cent of asset owners intend to grow their Canadian infrastructure portfolio, much higher than the 51 per cent global average.

The money managers are drawn to major infrastructure projects as a hedge against inflation and their long-duration returns, the report added.

High inflation also has 41 per cent of money managers looking at inflation-linked assets, such as bonds or bond return ETFs.

Meanwhile, 37.8 per cent of asset owners are ensuring they have more cash on hand to keep their options open, nine per cent more than a year ago.

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