Canada is opening the country’s first sovereign wealth fund, Prime Minister Mark Carney announced on Monday.
The “Canada Strong Fund” will invest in Canada’s various nation-building projects, including in trade, energy and critical minerals, transportation, and data industries, according to Carney. The fund will begin with an initial 25 billion Canadian dollar federal contribution over three years.
“These projects will make Canada stronger, more resilient, and more independent. They’ll create good jobs and grow our economy, providing the resources that we need to take care of ourselves and take care of each other. And to make sure that all Canadians can share in these benefits, we’re creating the Canada Strong Fund,” Carney said in an announcement video.
He announced that Canadian residents will be able to invest directly in the fund themselves, describing it as “essentially a national savings and investment account” for the people. He struck a strong patriotic tone while referencing the geopolitical and trade tensions that have made Canada take more of an inward focus in the past year as it argues over tariffs and trade with its southern neighbor, the United States.
Carney noted that the move comes as part of the nation’s goals to rebuild its national strength “with speed and ambition” in response to a changing world order.
“Technological change has accelerated the foundations of the international order, the order which Canada helped to build and from which we have long benefited. That order is crumbling, and many of our former strengths built on our close ties to the United States have become our weaknesses. The U.S. has changed. That’s their right. And we are responding. That is our imperative,” Carney said.
Penn State University Professor Salar Ghahramani, a founder of a boutique sovereign wealth fund, said the admission that the sovereign wealth is in response to changing geopolitical tides stood out to him.
“The Prime Minister’s announcement … and its timing appears to center around geopolitical tensions and trade tensions,” Ghahramani said. “[He] says very clearly that we live in an honest, in an unstable world, and Canada needs to have a level of independence to ensure that Canadians have a sound financial future.”
Another atypical detail about the Canadian fund is that Carney marketed it to civilians. He opened the investment up to any Canadian, the first time something like that has been done, according to Ghahramani.
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“If you have a bit of extra money, we’ll make it easy for you to invest in the fund to help build Canada Strong for all. Canadians are choosing to buy Canadian, to explore Canadian and build Canadian, because it’s our country and we’re building our future together,” Carney said.
The mechanism for how Canadians could do such a thing wasn’t made clear, but Ghahramani proposed the government could create exchange-traded funds, or ETFs, for citizens to invest in.
Following the initial 25 billion Canadian dollar federal contribution, the fund will then grow from its own returns and through subsequent contributions. The fund, which Carney called an “arms-length, independent Crown corporation,” will be largely focused on equity investments.
This opens another issue of transparency, which sovereign wealth funds are not known for. The biggest sovereign wealth funds in the world are largely created using revenue from profitable sectors. For example, funds in Gulf states are largely built using oil industry profits. Where exactly the funding trickles down to isn’t always known. If citizens and private companies become the primary sources contributing to a fund, calls for transparency can be expected to mount — particularly in a democracy.
When asked about how the country will be able to afford the 25 billion Canadian dollar contribution, Carney said that there would be “good news” shared during the minister of finance’s update on Tuesday about how the country has performed against its deficit targets and how it has spent less.
Canada recently recorded a 25.55 billion Canadian dollar budget deficit with one month left in its fiscal 2025-2026, while its year-to-date deficit from the previous fiscal year was 19.27 billion Canadian dollars. Carney assured during Monday’s press conference, however, that his government is “determined to get spending down with a lot of very difficult decisions.”
Adding another layer to the country’s plans is the fact that several Canadian provinces already have existing provincial sovereign wealth funds. The federal government will subsequently need to ensure that the investments do not interfere with or compete with each other.
Ghahramani told the Washington Examiner that “the best model that Canada can use is Australia” when it comes to overlaying federal sovereign wealth funds on top of existing provincial ones.
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New South Wales and Western Australia already had sovereign wealth funds of their own before the federal government launched a national one. Ghahramani said in Australia, “they have not taken competing positions on issues related to shareholder activism,” proving successful for their model.
Ghahramani also noted that it would be interesting to monitor whether the opening of the sovereign wealth fund in Canada triggers a renewed conversation in the United States.
President Donald Trump pushed for a sovereign wealth fund in 2025 as a possible way for the U.S. to ultimately purchase TikTok. But as the deal over the Chinese-owned ByteDance app solidified, conversations over the sovereign wealth fund idea started to quiet down.
“There was no indication that Congress would approve it or would fund it. So, whether the Canadian announcement kind of triggers the conversation yet again, it’d be interesting to see,” Ghahramani said.