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Written by: Yves Engler

Playing to one’s strengths is generally smart, but Mark Carney may come to regret convening the world’s wealthiest bankers in downtown Toronto. The Canadian prime minister’s upcoming CEO summit is a prime opportunity to paint the former banker as an agent of the global rich.

On September 14 and 15, Carney “will convene the world’s largest investors, including top CEOs, entrepreneurs, and prominent global business leaders” at a luxurious hotel. The CEOs of financial behemoths Blackstone, BlackRock and Barclays, as well as representatives of the UAE and Saudi Arabian investment funds, are confirmed for the first ever Canada Investment Summit. Executives of organizations that collectively manage more than $100 trillion are expected to attend Davos in downtown Toronto.

The prime minister is pitching the summit as a way to “catalyse $1 trillion in total investment in Canada over the next five years.” A purported motivation is the economic instability caused by Donald Trump or what the government release about the summit cryptically describes as “a time of unprecedented trade disruption.”

The summit offers Carney an opportunity to showcase his strength. The former banker has extensive connections at the upper echelons of global finance with the Wall Street Journal reporting recently that he maintains his previous UK phone number to communicate with European bankers and officials. In a Report on Business article headlined “The 24 hours that could change Canada’s economic trajectory”, the Globe and Mail reported, “part of the summit’s draw is Mr. Carney, who built his reputation as a central banker and businessman, and personally sent invitation letters to many of the summit’s guests.”

After thirteen years with Goldman Sachs, Carney joined the Bank of Canada. He led Canada’s central bank for five years and was then governor of the Bank of England for seven more. Afterwards he chaired Bloomberg and co-chaired the World Bank’s private sector investment lab. Before becoming prime minister, Carney was vice-chair of Brookfield Asset Management, which is among the largest foreign investors in the Middle East and was once known as “the Canadian octopus” since its tentacles reached into so many areas of Brazil’s economy.

International capital is bullish on Carney. Last week Bloomberg Editor-In Chief Matt Winkler, noted that “Canada, since Mark Carney became Prime Minister in March, 2025, has outperformed everyone in America, the Eurozone and anywhere else in the world.”

Carney turned to the corporate world for a slew of positions in his government such as former Goldman Sachs Canada CEO, Tim Hodgson, as energy minister, Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec CEO Michael Sabia as Clerk of the Privy Council, Trans Mountain chair, Dawn Farrell, as CEO of the Major Projects Office and BlackRock executive Mark Wiseman as ambassador to the US. He has also reintroduced former Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s practice of regularly holding informal meetings with Bay Street CEOs when in Toronto.

Immediately upon taking office Carney cancelled a scheduled increase to the capital gains inclusion rate. Instead of paying tax on two thirds of the gains derived from their wealth, the reduction means capitalists only pay tax on half the money they’ve made. Those who make their income through labour still pay tax on 100 per cent of their earnings.

In another early sop to wealth holders, Carney scrapped a small Digital Services Tax. As a result, the world’s largest internet giants will save a billion dollars annually.

Carney has instigated a series of other measures that lower the tax burden on large enterprises. Concurrently, the Liberals have crafted legislation to overrule science in the service of corporate profits. They passed a bill granting cabinet the power to authorize the use of pesticides Health Canada has already deemed unsafe.

Most significantly, Carney’s Build Canada Act tramples on indigenous rights and weakens environmental oversight for large corporate projects in energy and critical minerals. Under the Build Canada Act, projects “of national interest” receive a special fast-track status that allows them to bypass certain regulations and consultations. Amidst unprecedented forest fires, the prime minister recently announced plans to fast track a pipeline that can carry a million barrels a day of high carbon emitting tar sands oil from Alberta to the BC coast.

The largest militarization in three quarters of a century is also driving an upwards concentration of wealth. Arms production is notoriously capital, not labour, intensive. Additionally, through a new Canadian-based NATO “war bank” and other measures Carney is working to marry high finance with arms production.

Tightening the ties between major financial institutions and arms producers is on the agenda at Carney’s CEO summit. So is the selloff of public assets. Reports suggest Carney plans to announce details on the privatization of Canada’s airports. Recently the Financial Post quoted an executive director of Australia’s $250 billion IFM Investors fund, Gian-Carlo Peressutti, saying he expected the summit would be where Carney lays out his roadmap to privatize Canada’s major airports.

As the global rich gather next month in Toronto, we’ll be protesting Carney’s pro-corporate, anti-indigenous and ecocidal agenda. On the Saturday before the summit kicks off Naomi Klein will be speaking and there will be a full day conference on the Sunday. That evening there’ll also be a “Carnival Against Capitalism” forum and protest on the first day of the Summit.

As part of building momentum for the counter protest, a public letter was recently released signed by broadcaster David Suzuki, author Yann Martel, musician Roger Waters, indigenous activist Ellen Gabriel and 1,000 other authors, artists, academics and activists. “Confront Carney’s CEO Summit” notes: “The Canada Investment Summit provides an opportunity for environmental, labour, Indigenous, housing, peace and social justice movements to come together in opposition to the government’s pro-corporate, militarist and anti-ecological agenda.”

Amidst a spiralling inequality crisis, Canada’s prime minister is bringing together some of the world’s wealthiest to the centre of the nation’s biggest city to shape the country’s future. Only a former banker would have the hubris to believe he could host Davos in downtown Toronto without mass protests.

Yves Engler is author of 13 books, including Stand on Guard for Whom? A People's History of the Canadian Military

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