Speech
Mark Carney  ·  2026-09-13 22:13

LIVE: Canada has what the world wants. • EN DIRECT : Le Canada possède ce que le monde recherche.

Prime Minister, Ambassador Wiseman, John, colleagues and friends, thank you for coming tonight. This week, Canada is hosting an unprecedented gathering of global investors responsible for managing over a hundred trillion dollars of capital. But before those conversations begin, we wanted to gather the people in this room together. The summit has attracted international attention. But Canada has never been our story has never been written by others. It's been written by Canadians who built companies, who've invested capital, and who've turned ideas into opportunities. That's why tonight matters. Over the past year, many of us have spoken about Canada's potential. We've spoken about our competitive advantages, our resources, our innovation economy, and our sophisticated financial institutions. But as global investors, we know that potential alone is not enough. As John says, capital flows like water. It rushes to up where opportunities are clear, where there are good risk-adjusted returns, and where ambition can be translated into execution. When we began organizing this summit, John, Mark Wiseman and I drew heavily on our experiences at other international summits. And we intentionally designed this this summit uh in concentric circles with a focused nucleus around international investors. And we are absolutely thrilled by the broader ecosystem that has developed around that focused nucleus. The summit is not a single day for a select few. It's a week-long event of activities starting tonight. And your opportunity as Canadian leaders is to leverage this moment. To make new connections, to turn curiosity into interest, and to make this week the catalyst for future action. On a personal note, when I left Toronto, where I was born and raised, to work in investment banking, I was struck by the power of optimism. By the ability to achieve when one starts not only with a can-do, but even a can-win attitude. And that's what we have here today in Canada. I'm very proud of that. And I'm looking forward to be in being inspired by all of you and what you do with this week. Working together, I believe we can win. Merci pour votre engagement. Speaking of commitment and inspiration, Prime Minister, thank you for joining us. The floor is yours. >> Thank you. Thank you, Deb. Merci tout le monde. Bonsoir. Thank you, Deb. Thank I got distracted. There's so much here at ROM. There's so much here in this room. I want to begin by thanking Deb, Aritha, and John Graham uh for their leadership, for their hard work, and beyond this event, really for the decades. I'm sorry, I'm aging you, but for the decades that you have both put in uh and contributed to Canada's success. Thank you. >> [applause] >> It is I'm absolutely delighted to be here with all of you this evening at the Royal Ontario Museum. Beautiful building, a great institution. An institution, I would note, that was founded by a banker, a Canadian banker who returned home from New York, no less. Sir Edmund Walker saw that great museums, he viewed them as shop windows through which Canadians and visitors to Canada could grasp our nation's true potential. He had an ambitious vision for this institution and an ambitious vision for our country. And while he was a very capable financier, he understood that great things require a great team. So, he partnered with the provincial government. He worked with the University of Ontario. He persuaded other business leaders to join him. He brought on philanthropists, scientists, citizens to work towards a common goal. To say that those great Canadians succeeded does an injustice to their legacy. It's work that changed this city, this province, our nation. If you seek their monument, you will only find it around you. Now, brings me to today. Once again, Canadians are coming together. Once again, our ambition is catching up with our potential. Something's changed over the past year in our country. Canadians, we all know what I'm talking about. We feel it everywhere. Canadians are standing united, buying Canadian, confidently choosing a Canadian future. The federal government, the provinces, I'd like to salute the premiers here this evening for being here this evening and for what they've been doing the past 18 months. >> [applause] >> The federal government and the provinces have been working in full partnership with First Nations, with Inuit and Métis as allies in developing projects and as owners in the projects that will shape our future. Canadian and businesses and pension funds are now putting more Canadian capital behind that Canadian ambition. In the last week alone, a number of them, and I'm not going to name them, because I suspect there are a few more announcements coming. A number of them have announced plans already to put hundreds of billions of dollars of additional capital to work here in Canada. Thank you. And what we're doing, and when I say we, I mean we. I mean the federal government and the provinces and territories. What we're doing is looking to match that level of ambition abroad. Not Daniel Accord. Not Daniel Accord commercial. Concluded with the Emirates Arab United by the Minister of International Exchange. International. Thank you, Manny. Set the cord I say finalize on top record of 47 days. 47 days for a trade deal with the UAE. And as this room knows, it's not just trade, it's also Mr. Chartrand, thank you, President Chartrand, for being here. As this room knows, it's not just about trade, it's also about investment. So, we're shifting how we approach investment into Canada. We're relaunching Invest in Canada under new leadership with our new CEO, Gurinder Grewal. If you don't know him, you will very soon. And our new board chaired by Dominic Barton. Invest in Canada now has a clear mission to bring the world's capital here to support Canadian projects, Canadian businesses, Canadian workers. Canadian workers who are turning our ambition into reality because our economic transformation is happening on the construction sites and it's being built by the builders and unions themselves. These are all acts of solidarity. Some very large, some very small, but they're being repeated millions of times proving that together we can give ourselves far more than any one could ever take away. And these acts of solidarity are making a statement to the world that this is a new, powerful, and confident United Canada. Look around this room. Yeah. >> [applause] >> This is a great room. Look around this room. We come from different regions, the East Coast, the West Coast, the Prairies, Quebec, the Far North, Ontario, even. Federal, provincial, indigenous governments, business, labor, Canadians from every background, every generation. Now, we're will not always agree. We don't need to always agree, but we do agree on something fundamental, where we are going. There is a new consensus in this country. From Iqaluit to Victoria to Quebec City and St. John's, and that consensus is that Canada is taking control of our future. We will build more. We will trade more with each other, we will trade more with the world, and we will create sustainable prosperity here at home. Now, tomorrow, as you know, a number of you have made this happen. Tomorrow, something remarkable will happen. The world's largest investors, managing over 120 trillion dollars of assets, will come to peer into our shop window because the world is looking at Canada differently. And I'd suggest we should look at ourselves differently, too. It's not about who we aren't, but who we are. It's not about what's lost, but it's what we have, and what we can create. We are a kind, generous, hard-working, and ambitious people. We have what the world wants. The energy, the resources, the talent, the technology, the capital. And our greatest strength is something that can't be found on any balance sheet. Trust. At all, this is our country. This is our future. We are building it together. That's Team Canada. That is Canada strong. Thank you very much. Merci beaucoup. >> All right. I will just quickly close this off. All right. All right. I will uh I got the coveted role of following the Prime Minister. So, anyway, thank you, Prime Minister. Thank you, Deb. And most importantly, thank you to everybody in this room. I can't think of a better group of people to kick off the Canada investment