Toronto Hosts Canada Investment Summit as Markham's Tech Economy Watches for Capital and Jobs

On 14 and 15 September 2026, Toronto hosts the first Canada Investment Summit, a federal gathering with CPP Investments and PSP Investments aimed at accelerating long-horizon capital into Canada.

According to the Government of Canada campaign page, the Summit brings together leading global investors, Canadian CEOs, and public-sector representatives for a two-day forum focused on commercial opportunity and productive assets that strengthen growth and resilience. It is hosted by the Prime Minister of Canada in partnership with the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments) and the Public Sector Pension Investment Board (PSP Investments), two of Canada’s largest institutional investors. The federal plan named on the page is ambitious: catalyse $1 trillion in total investment in Canada over the next five years, while helping move projects forward, create high-quality jobs, and deepen supply-chain integration.

Markham sits inside that story. Our city is a dense innovation and technology centre in the Greater Toronto Area, with employers and talent across advanced manufacturing, automotive technology, semiconductors, software, and related research. When global capital looks seriously at Canadian industry, communities like ours are where new investment can turn into labs, product teams, and career ladders that keep skilled people building here rather than leaving for opportunities elsewhere.

Francis Wang, a professor focused on long-term innovation, makes a related point in his note The Trillion-Dollar Question. He welcomes the Summit’s emphasis on long-horizon capital and productive assets, and argues that the harder test is not only how much money is attracted, but whether patient capital funds ventures that can survive the long years between a start and a mature payoff, and whether the intellectual property, licensing value, and strategic upside stay owned in Canada. Attraction and retention are different problems. For a technology city like Markham, that framing matters: jobs and labs are one measure; keeping the durable value of what we invent is another.

What this means for our community

• Jobs and innovation capacity close to home. The Summit is framed around high-quality jobs and long-term productive investment, including new technologies and artificial intelligence among the sectors Ottawa has highlighted. For Markham, an influx of serious capital interest can support companies that scale locally, hire locally, and deepen the innovation base residents already recognise as part of daily economic life.
• Keeping Canadian talent in Canada. Young engineers, researchers, and founders decide where to put down roots based on whether ambitious work is available nearby. Stronger domestic investment pathways make it more practical for that talent to stay in the GTA and build careers in Canadian firms, rather than treating home as a temporary stop.
• Patient capital for long-horizon work. Drawing on Professor Wang’s long-term innovation lens, the Summit’s language of long-horizon capital is useful only if the money is patient in practice. Ventures aimed at structural payoffs often struggle in the dry years before results arrive. Pension-scale investors who can hold through those years are better matched to that work than capital priced only for speed and quick exits.
• Retention of value, not attraction alone. Strong foreign investment is welcome. Residents should also ask whether the IP, the rents from what we invent, and the strategic upside remain here. A trillion invested is not automatically a trillion retained. Markham’s stake includes both new hiring and the chance to keep compounding Canadian-owned innovation.
• Long-horizon capital and retirement institutions. CPP Investments and PSP Investments are co-hosts. That is not a promise of a personal return from any single event. It is a clear signal that pension-scale, long-term capital sits at the centre of Canada’s pitch. A more competitive, investable Canadian economy matters to the institutions that steward retirement savings for contributors and beneficiaries across the country, including residents here.
• Watching decade-scale outcomes, not slogans. Summits create introductions. As Professor Wang notes, the right outcomes will show up over years in companies that scaled here, IP that stayed here, and talent that found a reason to build here. My office will continue to track federal and regional economic updates that affect Markham employers and households, and report back as concrete developments become known.

This note does not offer personal financial advice, and it does not claim that any local firm or resident will receive a specific investment outcome from the Summit. It reports what Ottawa has announced, situates Markham inside the opportunity, and points readers to Professor Wang’s published analysis of the retention and patience questions that sit underneath the trillion-dollar headline. If your business is preparing for new investment conversations, or if you have questions about how federal economic initiatives touch local employment, write to my office and we will help you find a clear answer.