Where does rural and northern Canada fit into the investment story?
UNSPLASH PHOTO
The inaugural Canada Investment Summit was built around an ambitious goal: to attract hundreds of billions of dollars in new investment and turn that capital into jobs, infrastructure, productivity and long-term economic growth.
There is plenty to celebrate.
The summit brought governments and business leaders together in Toronto to showcase projects in critical minerals, energy, artificial intelligence, infrastructure and agriculture. The federal government presented a prospectus containing 167 projects, while provinces promoted their own investment opportunities. By the summit’s conclusion, the federal government said it had secured commitments representing nearly $500 billion in new investment.
Those are significant numbers. They suggest there is considerable interest in Canada's economic potential.
But there is another question worth asking: where does rural and northern Canada fit into this investment story?
As former Alberta MLA Donna Kennedy-Glans noted in an op-ed, the summit has forgotten areas like Sudbury, in Northern Ontario. Nine operating mines and two smelters operate within the city, with ore transported by truck to processing facilities. The community is helping support industries that are central to Canada's critical minerals strategy, yet it still faces the everyday costs of maintaining roads and addressing other local challenges.
"If Canada wants the minerals, it can decide whether the city that already has the mines, the smelters and the muscle memory is a partner — or just the struggling host city that keeps the roads open while the resource revenue leaves town," she writes.
The summit did not ignore rural economic opportunities altogether.
Agriculture was represented through projects promoted by several provinces. Manitoba highlighted a $ 205-million greenhouse expansion, a proposed soybean crushing facility and a sustainable aviation fuel project. Ontario promoted the proposed Martison Phosphate Project near Hearst, which could contribute to fertilizer, industrial phosphate and battery-mineral supply chains. Saskatchewan and Alberta also emphasized agriculture, agri-food and value-added processing.
These projects are important because they demonstrate what rural investment can look like when Canada moves beyond simply producing raw commodities and focuses on adding value.
A soybean crop can support processing jobs. Agricultural production can feed food-processing industries. Phosphate can contribute to fertilizer supply chains. Renewable and agricultural products can become inputs into new energy industries.
That is good news for rural Canada.
But it also highlights what may be missing from the national conversation.
Investment announcements are only part of the equation. A new mine requires roads. A processing facility needs electricity, water and transportation. Agricultural expansion depends on transportation networks, energy infrastructure and access to markets. New industrial projects can also place additional pressure on housing and municipal services.
These costs are often experienced locally, even when the economic benefits extend across the country.
If Canada wants to attract capital on the scale envisioned by the summit, it also needs to ensure that the communities hosting these investments have the capacity to support them.
The real test of the summit's success will be what actually gets built, where it gets built, who benefits and whether the surrounding communities are equipped to sustain that growth.
Rural and northern Canada should not be viewed simply as places where resources happen to be located. They are partners in the national economy.
The Canada Investment Summit has made an important statement to the world: Canada is open for investment and prepared to build.
The next step should be making sure the investment story reaches beyond the boardroom.
Canada's economic future will certainly be shaped in financial markets and corporate offices. But it will also be shaped on rural roads, at farm gates, in northern mines and at the processing plants that keep the country's economy moving.
If the summit succeeds in bringing more capital into Canada, that is good news.
Making sure rural and northern communities are positioned to benefit from and support that investment is equally integral to Canada's future economic growth.
