Carney Convenes Global Investors in Toronto as Harper Set to Close Summit
Prime Minister Mark Carney is hosting the first-ever Canada Investment Summit in Toronto, Ontario, on September 14-15, 2026, with business leaders from around the world in attendance. The Globe and Mail The event was announced in April as a dedicated federal pitch to international capital. Prime Minister's Office
Tuesday, September 15 programming includes an opening keynote address by Carney followed by a fireside chat. That fireside chat is scheduled to pair Carney with Deborah Orida.
Ahead of the summit, Carney met separately with BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, Macquarie Group CEO Shemara Wikramanayake, Blackstone president and COO Jonathan Gray, and Kuwait Investment Authority managing director Sheikh Saoud Salem Abdulaziz Al-Sabah. The sequence is deliberate. Private bilaterals first, public program second.
Former prime minister Stephen Harper is scheduled to address the summit and close the proceedings. PBS NewsHour His speech is titled "Capturing Canada's Moment."
The pairing carries institutional history. In 2007, then-prime minister Harper appointed Carney as governor of the Bank of Canada. A Liberal prime minister now gives the closing platform to a former Conservative prime minister before an investor audience.
Carney told the summit audience the world had come to Canada that week "to see what Canada can do, what it can build and to partner with Canada." The line frames the summit as project-centred rather than policy-centred.
The first project announcement tied to the summit week came from the provinces. BCE Inc. plans to quadruple the capacity of its artificial-intelligence data centre operations in Saskatchewan. The company aims to provide as much as 1.2 gigawatts of compute power across three new facilities, with investments that could top $5-billion.
The expansion was announced at the Invest in Saskatchewan Forum in Toronto with BCE CEO Mirko Bibic, Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe and Carney on stage together. The federal-provincial-corporate format matters in Ottawa. Energy, land use and permitting sit with the province. Trade promotion, foreign investment review and national infrastructure funding sit with Ottawa. Both orders of government wanted to be seen backing the same build.
Carney had earlier said he looked forward to welcoming Saudi investors to the Investment Summit in Toronto in September 2026. That commitment was made in a July joint statement with the Crown Prince and prime minister of Saudi Arabia.
The broader context here is how Ottawa is structuring investment attraction. The summit centralizes the pitch in Toronto but distributes the announcements through provincial forums. Saskatchewan gets AI compute. Other provinces will expect equivalent visibility for their own resource and industrial priorities. For practitioners, the test is not attendance. It is conversion from memorandum to final investment decision.
Looking at what this means for political management, the Harper booking does specific work. It signals policy continuity to long-horizon allocators across changes of government. It also gives Carney cover on two fronts. To domestic critics, the summit is bipartisan. To foreign capital, Canada presents a stable centre. Short sentences help. The guest list is the message. Execution will decide the return.
