Ottawa, ON – The Hon. Michael Chong, Conservative Shadow Minister for Finance, released the following statement on the Liberal government’s Canada Investment Summit:
“This week, the Liberals will gather executives and investors and make big claims about business investment surging into Canada. Conservatives support all efforts to make this a reality. But a year and a half after becoming Prime Minister, Mr. Carney has yet to deliver results on business investment.
“Forty seven per cent of foreign direct investment (FDI) in 2025 came in the form of mergers and acquisitions, well above the ten-year rolling average of 33 per cent. Not only does this often move ownership, control and head offices out of Canada, it also fails to bring the investment in new facilities or equipment that workers need to prosper and grow.
“And beyond FDI are the overall figures, both foreign and domestic.
“To date, Statistics Canada data shows that overall business investment has remained weak during Mr. Carney’s tenure, declining in four of the last five quarters.
“Business capital investment formation is up one tenth of one per cent from Q1 2025 to Q2 2026: essentially unchanged from when Mr. Carney took office.
“Between 2015 and 2024, the Liberals stood by as their policies drove more than $1 trillion of investment out of the country.
“RBC recently noted that, a year and a half into Mr Carney’s tenure, Canada ‘remains an underinvested jurisdiction’, finding that we have just $125,000 of capital stock per worker (compared with $337,000 in the United States), while domestic capital expenditures amount to only 15 per cent of GDP: near the bottom of comparable advanced economies.
“But for all that, this past summer the government’s own Major Projects Office told an Emirati delegation with $70 billion to invest that there were no projects ready for investment.
“Canadian businesses are warning that the problem is only getting worse. A recent KPMG survey found that 57 per cent of Canadian manufacturers have paused, reduced or cancelled capital investment projects.
“It’s time for results. Canada has everything it needs to be the best place in the world to build and grow, and Conservatives want to see real capital investment for Canadian factories, jobs, equipment and technology. That starts not with summits, announcements, or MOUs, but with real changes to the policies that hold our country back.
“Conservatives support the effort to make Canada the top destination for new business investment. That starts with serious reforms here at home to attract that investment, such as fixing a broken tax and regulatory system.”