To be truly beneficial for the country over the long term, future governments should never be allowed to sell them off to use for budget balancing as so often has happened in the past (eg Highway 407 in Ontario where it was funded by the government -aka citizens- then sold to a company who are raking in the profits).
You’re putting your finger on the exact pressure point.
One of the quiet risks with something like this isn’t just whether the investments succeed, it’s what happens years down the road when a future government is facing budget pressure.
We’ve seen that pattern before, where public assets get built with long-term value in mind and then sold off for short-term fiscal relief.
That’s where the design of this fund really matters.
If it’s going to work as intended, it needs guardrails that make it very difficult to unwind or liquidate for convenience.
Otherwise we risk repeating the same cycle, just at a larger scale.
Another risk is that this fund ends up investing in projects that would otherwise never attract equity or debt capital from traditional markets. I fear it is a way for Carney to fund projects that private markets would consider too risky (a new pipeline being the most obvious example).
There is a great deal we don’t know yet about how this is going to ultimately be shaped and worked. There is great potential for good, but also potentially the opposite. Like so much these days, it is in the wait and see column.
You can add Petro-Canada to that, not to mention the federal government's housing stock, the wheat board, and many others that conservative governments have decided that governments should not be involved in.
There’s definitely a longer history here, and it cuts across different governments and different moments in time.
What’s interesting about this new fund is that it seems to be trying to move back toward public participation in value, after decades where the trend has often been the opposite.
The challenge will be consistency.
It’s one thing to build a structure that allows public ownership.
It’s another to maintain the political will to keep that ownership in place over time.
That’s part of why the governance details matter so much here.
Not just how the fund invests, but how protected those investments are from future policy shifts.
Continuing to blame Conservatives who have been in minority for 11 years now, is weak and tiresome. The Liberal government owns the anemic investment climate in Canada. Not the Conservatives - the Liberal government. Failing to ask basic questions is slowly killing this country. Why are we such a bad place to invest in with all of our resources, and connected to the world’s top economy by far. Why???
I'd like to hear about how this model is different from "rip and ship"... our traditional approach to large projects which require investment up front like mines and pipelines ....is to let large corporations come in, sweetened by govt subsidy, and then the enormous profits go out of communities and even out of Canada. I don't understand why our resources....which everyone says are so valuable... cannot build a sovereign wealth fund like Norways. We need to break away from the idea that only private capital can lead this work.
You’re describing the pattern very clearly, and it’s the one a lot of people are reacting to.
Public support up front, private capital comes in, and the long-term profits tend to flow out rather than staying connected to the communities or even the country.
What this new model is trying to do, at least in design, is change that last part.
Instead of just enabling projects through subsidies or financing, the idea is that the public holds an equity stake. So if the project succeeds, there’s ongoing participation in the returns rather than a one-time benefit.
That’s the key difference on paper.
Where your point still stands is that we haven’t seen how strong that ownership will actually be in practice, or how well it’s protected over time.
On the Norway comparison, they were able to build their fund from resource surpluses after the fact. We’re trying to do something earlier in the cycle, which makes it a bit more complex and a bit more exposed.
So in a way, this is an attempt to move away from the model you’re describing, but it will really depend on how firmly they follow through on the ownership piece.
Once the public investment becomes available, I will certainly consider investing, assuming of course that I am in a condition (alive) to make the investment.
It’s time Canadians stop the Conservative vs.Liberal cheerleading on all of these “announcements”, and start asking some serious questions. What is wrong with Canada that government (taxpayer money) appears to be the main(only?) body to drive building and growth?. The Infrastructure fund, and the subsequent Clean energy fund soaked up billions of Canadian’s money, and delivered very little in measurable results. Another $25 billion of public money, along with $90 billion for high speed rail appear to be desperate attempts to generate economic activity, because private investors have given up on Canada as an investment in major projects.
That’s a thoughtful piece you linked to, and I think it’s pointing at a real issue.
If projects aren’t moving because of regulatory friction or uncertainty, creating new funding vehicles doesn’t fix that on its own.
But I see this as the other side of the same coin.
If government ends up stepping in more directly because private capital won’t take the risk, then the question becomes: how do we structure those public investments so they actually hold long-term value for Canadians?
We’ve seen before that assets get built with public money and then sold off later under pressure.
So for me, it’s not just “should government invest?” it’s also “if it does, how do we design it so we don’t repeat that cycle?”
To be truly beneficial for the country over the long term, future governments should never be allowed to sell them off to use for budget balancing as so often has happened in the past (eg Highway 407 in Ontario where it was funded by the government -aka citizens- then sold to a company who are raking in the profits).
You’re putting your finger on the exact pressure point.
One of the quiet risks with something like this isn’t just whether the investments succeed, it’s what happens years down the road when a future government is facing budget pressure.
We’ve seen that pattern before, where public assets get built with long-term value in mind and then sold off for short-term fiscal relief.
That’s where the design of this fund really matters.
If it’s going to work as intended, it needs guardrails that make it very difficult to unwind or liquidate for convenience.
Otherwise we risk repeating the same cycle, just at a larger scale.
Another risk is that this fund ends up investing in projects that would otherwise never attract equity or debt capital from traditional markets. I fear it is a way for Carney to fund projects that private markets would consider too risky (a new pipeline being the most obvious example).
There is a great deal we don’t know yet about how this is going to ultimately be shaped and worked. There is great potential for good, but also potentially the opposite. Like so much these days, it is in the wait and see column.
You can add Petro-Canada to that, not to mention the federal government's housing stock, the wheat board, and many others that conservative governments have decided that governments should not be involved in.
There’s definitely a longer history here, and it cuts across different governments and different moments in time.
What’s interesting about this new fund is that it seems to be trying to move back toward public participation in value, after decades where the trend has often been the opposite.
The challenge will be consistency.
It’s one thing to build a structure that allows public ownership.
It’s another to maintain the political will to keep that ownership in place over time.
That’s part of why the governance details matter so much here.
Not just how the fund invests, but how protected those investments are from future policy shifts.
Continuing to blame Conservatives who have been in minority for 11 years now, is weak and tiresome. The Liberal government owns the anemic investment climate in Canada. Not the Conservatives - the Liberal government. Failing to ask basic questions is slowly killing this country. Why are we such a bad place to invest in with all of our resources, and connected to the world’s top economy by far. Why???
I think we may be talking past each other a bit.
My focus here isn’t on which party is to blame in the moment, but on the longer pattern across governments.
We’ve seen public assets built, then sold off under pressure, more than once in Canada. That cycle cuts across political stripes.
The real question for me is how we design things this time so they hold their public value over decades, regardless of who’s in power.
I'd like to hear about how this model is different from "rip and ship"... our traditional approach to large projects which require investment up front like mines and pipelines ....is to let large corporations come in, sweetened by govt subsidy, and then the enormous profits go out of communities and even out of Canada. I don't understand why our resources....which everyone says are so valuable... cannot build a sovereign wealth fund like Norways. We need to break away from the idea that only private capital can lead this work.
You’re describing the pattern very clearly, and it’s the one a lot of people are reacting to.
Public support up front, private capital comes in, and the long-term profits tend to flow out rather than staying connected to the communities or even the country.
What this new model is trying to do, at least in design, is change that last part.
Instead of just enabling projects through subsidies or financing, the idea is that the public holds an equity stake. So if the project succeeds, there’s ongoing participation in the returns rather than a one-time benefit.
That’s the key difference on paper.
Where your point still stands is that we haven’t seen how strong that ownership will actually be in practice, or how well it’s protected over time.
On the Norway comparison, they were able to build their fund from resource surpluses after the fact. We’re trying to do something earlier in the cycle, which makes it a bit more complex and a bit more exposed.
So in a way, this is an attempt to move away from the model you’re describing, but it will really depend on how firmly they follow through on the ownership piece.
Once the public investment becomes available, I will certainly consider investing, assuming of course that I am in a condition (alive) to make the investment.
I suspect you won’t be alone in that.
There’s something appealing about the idea of investing in projects that are actually building out the country.
I’m curious to see what the fine print looks like though.
“Protected capital with upside” sounds great, but the details of how that works will matter quite a bit.
It’s time Canadians stop the Conservative vs.Liberal cheerleading on all of these “announcements”, and start asking some serious questions. What is wrong with Canada that government (taxpayer money) appears to be the main(only?) body to drive building and growth?. The Infrastructure fund, and the subsequent Clean energy fund soaked up billions of Canadian’s money, and delivered very little in measurable results. Another $25 billion of public money, along with $90 billion for high speed rail appear to be desperate attempts to generate economic activity, because private investors have given up on Canada as an investment in major projects.
https://theline.substack.com/p/matt-gurney-another-fund-or-agency?r=x5pfu&utm_medium=ios
That’s a thoughtful piece you linked to, and I think it’s pointing at a real issue.
If projects aren’t moving because of regulatory friction or uncertainty, creating new funding vehicles doesn’t fix that on its own.
But I see this as the other side of the same coin.
If government ends up stepping in more directly because private capital won’t take the risk, then the question becomes: how do we structure those public investments so they actually hold long-term value for Canadians?
We’ve seen before that assets get built with public money and then sold off later under pressure.
So for me, it’s not just “should government invest?” it’s also “if it does, how do we design it so we don’t repeat that cycle?”