The main course is still to come, but you could say there is some serious snacking underway at Canada’s Investment Summit.
What happened: The federal government’s investment summit really gets into the swing of things today, but there were some significant announcements that at least coincided with yesterday’s programming.
Bell Canada said it would spend as much as $5 billion to quadruple the capacity of its data centres in Saskatchewan.
Brookfield and CPPIB announced a new $50 billion “Maple Fund” to cut big cheques for projects in strategic sectors over the next five years.
Arlene Dickinson (noted Water Cooler alum) announced a $500 million fund to invest in Canadian agriculture firms scaling their operations in Southeast Asia.
A subsidiary of Carlyle, a U.S. private equity company, announced it is buying Parallax Energy Operating Inc., an Alberta oil patch producer. Carlyle is attending the summit, but this was not a project listed on the prospectus circulated by organizers.
Also: Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne took the opportunity to announce that anyone investing $1 billion or more in Canada could get a binding advance ruling from the CRA on how the deal will be treated for tax purposes, giving us a definitive answer on exactly how much you have to spend to get faster service from our tax collectors.
Why it matters: The slew of new capital commitments in the lead-up to the investment summit suggests that Ottawa’s push to juice investment may be bearing fruit. One TD honcho went so far as to predict an “investment supercycle” for Canada, with at least $1 trillion committed through 2035.
Yes, but: Saying you’re going to invest and actually doing it are two very different things. Most of these recent commitments are not binding (aside from the embarrassment of going back on them), and it’s possible that, while being announced now, many would have happened anyway.
What’s next: The meat and potatoes of the summit are slated for today, so there could be more announcements on deck, but we’ll likely be waiting longer to find out if big talk turns into big bucks.
