Investors from all over the world were in Toronto this week for the first-ever Canada Investment Summit. The event boasted “investors from nearly 30 countries, managing more than $100 trillion in assets,” and, according to the federal government, it resulted in “nearly $500 billion in new investment commitments to Canada.” (The Logic called this number “generous.”)
The sheer novelty of Canada's summit makes it loom large in the eyes of supporters and critics alike. But although it’s new to us, the summit is not the first of its kind: In France, President Emmanuel Macron has hosted 'Choose France' summits since 2018 in an effort to help the country ‘reindustrialize’ and boost economic growth.
Macron's summits have brought significant cash into French projects, but they have a bit of an optics problem – not impossible to overcome, if not for the fact that many people feel Macron has failed to deliver the booming economy he envisioned when he was first elected a decade ago. If there’s a lesson for Canada, it’s that hosting the investment summit was the easy part; the hard part will be translating those investments into recognizable gains for Canadians.
Over the past nine years, investors have poured tens of billions of euros into France. In 2019, the country officially became the European country to attract the most foreign investment, and has maintained its spot at the top of the list into 2026. And the French government seems to be following through on these projects. Since 2017, Choose France summits have reportedly led to 178 project announcements, of which only “10 did not materialize.” The country's seen other signs of economic growth during Macron’s presidency as well: According to reporting from CNBC, there were only three companies in France worth over US$1 billion in 2016; by 2025, that number had climbed to 30.
But many have questioned how much Macron’s summits are really helping the French economy. France’s debt-to-GDP ratio has surged under Macron, with GDP growth stalled below the European average. France’s unemployment rate is rising again, and it's tough to defend the youth unemployment rate of over 20%. There are, of course, a variety of factors impacting these numbers – from the COVID-19 pandemic to geopolitics – but together, they don’t suggest the thriving, stimulated economy that Macron has been trying to achieve.
Hosting the investment summit was the easy part; the hard part will be translating those investments into recognizable gains for Canadians.
Then there’s the fact that the Choose France Summits are hosted in the Palace of Versailles. At a time when the French wealth gap is widening, Macron hosts summits each year in France’s most famous monument to opulence. A HuffPost piece from 2018 (the first year of Macron’s summit) argued that his investor summits will cement his image as the “president of the rich.” Years later, that label has stuck.
Macron’s summits undoubtedly brought money into the country, kickstarted projects, and led to the creation of jobs. But, as growth stalls and unemployment creeps up again, the Choose France summits are increasingly viewed in the context of the president’s overall economic record, which one expert recently called a “major disappointment.”
In Canada, the energy at Carney’s summit was said to be infectious. The event took place in Yorkville, one of Toronto’s wealthiest neighbourhoods, at the Four Seasons Hotel – it’s no Versailles, but not bad, either.
Globe and Mail reporter Tim Kiladze wrote that “there was a palpable pulse in the rooms” and that conference attendees, especially Canadians, embodied “an excitement that verged on giddiness.” Plagued by sovereignty threads and the economic volatility of the ongoing trade war from the US, not to mention more than two decades of lagging productivity, Canada has a lot of pent-up energy. For many in the business world, the Investment Summit was something of a release valve, as it “dangled the prospect of growth again.”
But business leaders aren’t the only ones who felt energized by the summit. More than 1,000 protesters gathered Monday night near the Art Gallery of Ontario, where the summit's opening gala was being held. Everyday people, too, have been impacted by Canada’s economic woes, manifesting in high rates of youth unemployment and the rising cost of living. Many viewed the summit, with its glamorous setting and its friendly demeanor towards American CEOs, as part of the problem and not the solution. Activists gathered under the banner of “The Many vs The Money,” with the movement advocating against “auction[ing] off Canadian public resources and infrastructure” to “finance destructive megaprojects” such as pipelines.
Years from now, when we look back on Carney’s first Canada Investment Summit, one of these narratives will have won out. What we should learn from France is that the summit’s success won’t be fully decided by investment dollars; Macron had no trouble bringing in cash. The more difficult, and more defining, metric for success will be whether Canadians will see the point of any of it.
