Say hello to Canada Inc.
‘Carney’s agenda of nation-building economic nationalism is, ironically, being floated on a rising tide of private foreign investment in Canada’, writes Ken Polk.
When asked what quality he valued most in his military commanders, Napoleon is said to have replied: “I would rather have a general who was lucky than one who was good.”
Canadians might express the same sentiment about their Prime Ministers. It is easier, for instance, to judge whether a leader is lucky or not, than, say, the wisdom of their fiscal, economic, and foreign policies. No amount of cogent argument or defence can save a Prime Minister when the tide of events, often beyond their immediate control, runs against them, especially on the economy.
In Mark Carney, Canadians have a Prime Minister who, on the face of it, has been among the luckiest in our history. His march to power was immeasurably assisted by the alarming re-election of President Donald Trump, whom Canadians loathed, and then further by Trump’s headlong, tariff-driven assault against the global economy, and against Canada in particular.
In the 2025 general election, Carney then faced, in Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, a polarizing figure whose relentless partisanship and Trump-lite flourishes lent themselves to easy caricature as the work of an inconsequential political sloganeer unready to be Prime Minister at a most consequential time.
The Carney foreign investment wave
Once elected, Carney’s agenda of nation-building economic nationalism is, ironically, being floated on a rising tide of private foreign investment in Canada, most of it from the United States, Europe, and the Persian Gulf.
Better yet for the Prime Minister, this wave began in early 2025, a coincidence that political opportunists among us (See: the Liberal Party of Canada) may soon start calling: “The Carney Wave.”
A wave, indeed. According to some calculations, in 2025 Canada experienced the strongest period of foreign direct investment (FDI) since the 2008 financial crisis, totaling $96.8 billion. It has featured, among others, planned investments by Microsoft, Siemens, the United Arab Emirates Sovereign Wealth Fund, and Anglo-American mining.
An impartial observer could argue that much of the investment in critical minerals and energy would have occurred with or without Carney in office — the inevitable flight of capital at a time of wrenching geopolitical uncertainty to Canada’s political and financial stability, and, ironically, to our tenuously secure access to the U.S. market.
The flow of AI investment, too, could be viewed as an inevitable by-product of a revolution sweeping the globe, much as the rise of the internet in the 1990s drove global economic growth and investment.
But just as the governments and Prime Ministers get too much blame for bad economic news, they get too much credit for good news. Carney will be happy to take the credit, fairly or not.
Equal parts lucky and good
But apart from the more or less natural gravitational pull of Canada to investors as a port in the global storm, he is certainly making the most of it, something that can't simply be written off to luck. Indeed, unlike the preferred general of Napoleon’s musings, Carney has been both lucky and good.
Rather more like General Sherman on his march through Georgia, the Prime Minister can be said to be waging total war on the hide-bound habits and clotted structures of federal bureaucracy.
Former investment bankers are in charge of key priority files: Tim Hodgson as Minister of Natural Resources; Doug Guzman as the CEO of the new Defence Investment Agency; and Tim Wiseman as Canadian Ambassador to the United States. The Major Projects Office is led by another proven private-sector performer. Dawn Farrell.
And there can be no doubt that Carney's chosen Clerk of the Privy Council, another import from the private sector, Michael Sabia, was the driving force behind the recent release of a discussion paper on accelerating major project approvals in Canada. The paper’s legislative and regulatory proposals, which, if enacted, will have legions of federal regulators looking over their shoulders and updating their resumes. All of this on top of the backtracking on, or at least refining of, key components of the Trudeau-era clean energy agenda.
And if the bureaucracy is facing historic pressure to conform to Carney agendas, so too will businesses in key sectors like telecommunications and banking, to mention two that have enjoyed limited competition under existing federal regulations.
And to top it off, Carney has also made it clear that public assets, such as airports, could be sold off if the proceeds help fund new infrastructure.
Certainly, the Prime Minister is prepared to sustain record deficits to prime the nation-building pump. But he also knows that this is mere chump change compared to the hundreds of billions of dollars in private investment needed to achieve his once-in-a-generation objectives.
That is why everything else he says and does is a Valentine to investors.
Say hello to Canada Inc.
It is difficult to overstate the significance of the rightward shift implied — or outright stated — in the Prime Minister's agenda.
Indeed, its mix of attracting foreign investment, AI transformation, paring back the regulatory state, increasing domestic competition, and selling government assets indicates not a series of tactical political choices to win an election. Rather, it speaks to what seems to be a systematic underlying philosophy of smaller, but — hopefully — smarter government, where wealth creation is prioritized over new measures of wealth redistribution, a la Trudeau.
If this agenda sounds familiar to Canadians, that is not surprising. It has the aroma of what Pierre Poilievre and his Conservatives offered up last spring, minus the Trumpian flourishes, plus the huge deficits.
Call it “Canada Strong.” Call it “neoliberalism”. Call it “grand larceny” if you are our once-and-future Leader of the Official Opposition. Call it “crony capitalism” if you are NDP leader Avi Lewis. Call it a reason to be restive or downright afraid if you are a member of the rather large progressive remnant in the Liberal Caucus.
Call it what you will. But the result could very well be a different Canada.
No doubt still “Canada the Good.” Certainly not “Canada the woke.” Rather, say hello to Canada Inc.
And our CEO Prime Minister, is in full command.
