Weekend Listen: What did Carney gain with his Investment Summit?

Frequency podcast network. Stories that matter. Podcasts that resonate. It's a first of its kind. Prime Minister Mark Carney hosted the first ever investment summit in Toronto in the search for $1 trillion of new public and private investment in the next five years. It's all part of Carney's plan to diversify Canada's trade, to rely less on the U.S. Now, the event got a lot of headlines, created some buzz, and even prompted some protests.

But there are also a lot of questions now about what comes next. I'm Chris McCusker, and in this episode of In This Economy, we speak to Jim Stanford, economist and director of the Centre for Future Work in Vancouver. Hoover. Thank you so much for joining us, Jim.

My pleasure, Chris. I always enjoyed listening to you, and it's a privilege to be part of the show. Oh, that's very kind. I'm interested in your take on this investment summit. How do you see this?

You know, I think it was mostly theatre, and that's not to, you know, dismiss its importance. Theatre can be important in this particular moment in world history. You know, he was putting on a show for first of all all these international investment bigwigs to come to Canada and see all the things that are happening here. I think Mr.

Carney was putting on a show for Mr. Trump. He wants to show the American side in this trade war that Canada is not frightened, that Canada is moving ahead, that Canada has got lots of opportunities, that Canada has got lots of other dance partners. And obviously putting a show on for Canadians that you

You know, this Build Canada Strong plan that Mr. Carney's been talking about has got real momentum and real money behind it. So in all those ways, I think it was successful, whether it actually translates into money actually showing up in real new investment projects, new capital, new structures, new

machinery, new technology, new jobs in Canada. We won't know that for a while. sending a signal to the world, to Mr. Trump and to Canadians. It was quite successful.

Do you think that, like I'm interested in the theater designation, because, I mean, the bottom line is Canada needs to do some trade with the US, correct? Absolutely, and we will, even with Mr. Trump. Strangely enough, the last quarter's economic data showed our exports to the US went up.

And that was one of the good things happening in our overall GDP. So geography and the intertwined supply chains that we have make it inevitable. We will continue to trade with the US, yes. OK, so having said that, this is sort of like expanding on our partnerships.

I guess I wonder if, I mean, can it be theater and also legit courting at the same time? Oh, for sure, yeah. And remember, there were Americans in the audience as well,

right, it wasn't everyone but America. American investment types and pension types were invited to come. And what they were doing was showcasing,

you know, the range of opportunities that exist in Canada as we try to, you know, pivot our economy. So investments in all kinds of projects, in all kinds of sectors, obviously resources,

but also infrastructure and manufacturing and technology and other industries. So showing people who manage investment funds or who place investments in actual undertakings

that Canada has a lot of opportunity and that we're interested in attracting diversifying investment in Canada, that means something. So that's what I say. It's theatre, but not in a dismissive way. It was kind of like a road show. You know how the big companies,

they send their CEOs on a road show every few months to go to Wall Street and go to Boston and go to London and sort of show off the story behind their company. This was kind of like a road show presentation for Canada, where we invited everyone to come here instead of going to them. I also wonder as well if the Prime Minister, and I'm not sure that he would have had the foresight

for this, but the timing is interesting, that maybe there was a bit of an investment opportunity just because the U.S. to a degree is somewhat chaotic right now. If there are investors looking to put money into North America, maybe this might convince them to swing a little bit further north than they normally would.

I think in a way the timing was fortuitous. It is a funny coincidence that the summit happened the very day that Trump's latest tranche of 50% tariffs came into effect. I know it's hard to keep track of them.

He's imposed 50% tariffs so many times, but the latest one came into effect on a small range of products. It's not going to have any major impact on Canada, but the same day that Trump was doing Here we were talking about building things instead of tearing them down.

And of course the news for Mr. Trump economically just goes from bad to worse. There's all kinds of things happening and of course with the US midterms looming. So you've got inflation, now you've got an interest rate hike from the US Federal Reserve that Mr. Trump will be furious about. You've got growing pressure in the bond market,

You're seeing yields on private long-term bonds, a 10-year bonds above 5% now. That's only happened a couple of times in recent history. You've got lots of uncertainty on the investment side.

Even things like manufacturing. You know, Mr. Trump has posed bringing jobs home to America as if America has a right to all the jobs in these industries like auto or steel, that's nonsense.

But he said bringing them home is his motivation. And the more evidence comes in, the more that's not happening. Investment in new manufacturing facilities in America is falling and falling fast. Manufacturing employment in America is falling. They've

lost more manufacturing jobs than Canada has, and we're the target of his tariffs. So this is, you know, really adding up to a very negative story. Economically, Mr. Trump's economic credibility with voters is way, way down, you know, with the midterms looming. So at a time to say Canada is looking forward, Canada is constructive, Canada is competent,

Canada is reliable, the contrast couldn't be clearer in fact.