# Canada’s investment problem isn’t money, investors warn

> At Milken’s Toronto event, investors say Canada has the capital — but too few financeable projects, slow approvals and regulatory drag ahead of a $1-trillion Investment Summit pitch.

- Desk: TIC Staff
- Published: 2026-09-14
- Section: Markets
- Canonical: https://trueinflation.ca/article/canada-investment-problem-not-lack-of-money

TORONTO — Canada is pitching more than $1 trillion in opportunities to global capital this week, but investors at the Milken Institute’s Global Dialogues Toronto said Monday the bottleneck is not a shortage of cash — it is regulatory uncertainty, slow approvals and too few projects ready to finance.

Franklin Templeton CEO Jenny Johnson said Canada has “so many tailwinds” and must “get rid of some of the headwinds,” warning that rules that slow business and raise costs push capital elsewhere. Fitch’s Jeremy Carter said the country has ample domestic and international capital yet lacks enough financeable projects, and that speeding a handful of marquee developments will not fix it — Canada needs thousands of viable projects, not a few nationally significant ones. Data centres, he added, are one area where Canada has fallen well behind the U.S. despite energy and other advantages.

TMX Group CEO John McKenzie called for the equivalent of a “minor projects office,” saying smaller firms face the same complex approvals as billion-dollar deals. He noted annual energy-sector financing through public markets has fallen from nearly $20 billion more than a decade ago to less than $1 billion, while listed energy companies dropped from roughly 400 to fewer than 200. Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne previewed more tax certainty for investments over $1 billion, saying capital goes where time to market is fast, as TD unveiled $150 billion in new domestic financing over five years ahead of Tuesday’s Investment Summit deal book of 167 projects.

Idle capital and stalled permits are a productivity tax: slower build-out of energy, AI and infrastructure keeps unit costs high and feeds through to what households and firms ultimately pay.

Source: Milken Institute / Global Dialogues Toronto­