TMX Group CEO John McKenzie speaks at the Milken Institute’s Global Dialogues Toronto summit on Monday. He says Canada will need a more attractive tax regime than other markets to compete globally.Sammy Kogan/The Globe and Mail
Top CEOs and finance executives told a room of more than 200 people – including pension fund managers, investors and bankers – that Canada does not lack access to capital, but lacks the measures to create investable projects.
California-based think tank the Milken Institute held in its first conference in Canada on Monday, gathering top senior business leaders in Toronto, before Prime Minister Mark Carney’s global investment summit got under way.
Canada will need to provide streamlined regulatory requirements, less complicated taxation and more efficient approvals processes to convince investors that these projects are worth betting on, speakers at the conference said.
“The difficulty of building stuff in Canada is the reason that you’re not seeing it, rather than the absence of capital,” Fitch Ratings global analytical head Jeremy Carter said.
While companies can manoeuvre around complications that arise, they cannot strategize their way through regulatory uncertainty, he added.
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“It is far easier to kill these things. And there’s far more binary risk on regulatory uncertainty than there is on technical, engineering, market uncertainty – all of the other elements of uncertainty that companies can manage,” Mr. Carter said.
TMX Group chief executive officer John McKenzie, whose company operates the Toronto Stock Exchange, said Canada will need a more attractive tax regime than other markets to compete globally. He cited needed reforms in the tax treatment for capital gains and capital cost allowance to allow companies to invest more money at home.
He also suggested adjusting the country’s savings programs to encourage Canadians and retail investors to take more risk alongside the larger global funds.
Those policy levers “send that signal to the rest of the world that we’re collectively serious about it,” Mr. McKenzie said. “The more we get everyday Canadians involved in those programs, projects or companies that are executing them, they get to share in that success, and that’s what you want to do if you’re rallying the country.”
Separately, at the event, Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne announced a new federal measure to offer “advance tax rulings” for investments of $1-billion or more. That would give investors binding decisions on how Canadian tax law will apply on a transaction before they commit capital, giving them more certainty.
Investors and finance leaders have warned that too many holdups and lengthy approval processes in Canada make closing a big deal uncertain.
“The tone at the top matters a lot,” Mr. Champagne told reporters during a media scrum.
Prime Minister Mark Carney understands that “the time to market really matters,” he said. “We’re trying to fix and change how things are done.”
A commonly cited example is Canada’s Major Projects Office, which was created under Mr. Carney in August, 2025, to help fast-track proposals deemed to be in the national interest.
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TD Securities head Tim Wiggan said the MPO is just one piece of the puzzle. Complexity at a global scale is at historical levels and a key question is how to adapt to the new environment. Answering that will require both policy-makers and capital allocators, including banks, to work together, he said.
“I do think that what you’re seeing this week and leading up to this week needs to involve the entire ecosystem,” Mr. Wiggan said.
“It’s going to take all hands on the board, pulling in the same direction, rather than one single thing that is going to check the box and unlock a change.”
The one-day Milken conference was held as Mr. Carney’s Canada Investor Summit, brings the world’s most powerful investors together in Toronto.
The summit aims to pitch the country as a reliable investment. More than 160 potential projects were circulated to guests by the organizers. Only 15 investment opportunities were described as “shovel-ready” or “fully permitted.”
While the prospectus mostly consists of energy projects and mining ventures, it also included multibillion-dollar data-centre projects in Saint John, N.B., and Redcliff, Alta.
Data centres were top of mind for many of the Milken Institute’s panelists.
Royal Bank of Canada chief executive officer Dave McKay said foreign investors have underinvested in the country for more than a decade because of difficulty getting projects to market. However, that is changing and investors are exploring energy, mining and infrastructure projects, and are showing “lots of interest in data centres.”
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He said he met with an investor from Asia earlier Monday who is interested in projects that boost data centre capacity. States including New York and Pennsylvania are unlikely to build them, prompting investors to look for other sources of electricity, water and other resources, he said.
In July, New York became the first U.S. state to cease construction of large new data centres over concerns that the facilities powering artificial-intelligence are hiking power costs and impacting water supplies.
“Investors need confidence we’re going to get stuff done because the time value of money is really important,” Mr. McKay said. “They don’t have time to waste. There are other opportunities to move on to.”
AI Minister Evan Solomon said if Canada builds the technology wrong, there will be dangers, and communities will not support the social licence to build data centres.
At the same time, “you don’t stop building,” he said. “You build it safer.”
