CPP Investments research finds 94% of global institutional investors plan to hold or grow Canadian exposure, yet a deployment gap persists
Global investors trust Canada. The harder task is giving them enough to buy.
That is the central finding of two complementary reports published September 8, 2026 by the CPP Investments Insights Institute, the research arm of Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPP Investments) in Toronto.
The reports - Competing for Capital: How Global Investors Choose Markets and Trusted, But Untapped: Canada's Next Competitive Advantage Is Investibility - draw on interviews with 65 senior investment professionals across 20 countries, collectively overseeing approximately $65 trillion in assets under management, or roughly one-third of estimated global AUM.
The research was published in the lead-up to the Canada Investment Summit, scheduled for September 14 and 15, 2026 in Toronto, where global institutional investors, business leaders and public-sector representatives are set to advance commercial conversations around Canadian investment opportunities.
What global investors actually want
The research lays out a clear hierarchy of what drives capital allocation decisions.
Market opportunity tops the list, cited by 80 per cent of respondents, according to the CPP Investments Insights Institute. Regulatory efficiency and predictability ranked second at 72 per cent, followed by policy stability at 69 per cent. The leading barriers to investment include unattractive risk-adjusted returns, fear of policy reversal and regulatory uncertainty.
The findings reinforce that perception of political stability is as important as economic fundamentals when assessing cross-border exposure.
Thematically, digital and AI infrastructure has emerged as the dominant global investment category, cited by 65 per cent of respondents.
Energy followed at 43 per cent, technology and semiconductors at 42 per cent, and defence at 35 per cent. The report notes that investors are increasingly treating these sectors as interconnected - data centres need reliable electricity, electricity grids require critical minerals, and all of it depends on permitting and financing frameworks.
"Global capital is looking for opportunity, but opportunity alone does not make a market investible," said Naomi Powell, Director of the Insights Institute at CPP Investments. "Trust and predictable rules build confidence, but capital ultimately moves to opportunities with sufficient scale, profitable structures and a credible path to execution."
Where Canada stands
Among eight major developed markets assessed in the companion Canada-focused report, Canada posted the strongest investor retention profile of any country surveyed.
Some 94 per cent of respondents said they expect to maintain or increase their Canadian exposure over the next three years. That figure placed Canada well ahead of Japan at 82 per cent and the United States at 77 per cent, according to the CPP Investments research.
Canada's advantages are well established: policy stability, openness to foreign capital and a regulatory environment that institutional investors regard as predictable.
The country also ranks second only to the United States for access to sophisticated local investment partners, a factor that carries significant weight for large pension funds and sovereign wealth funds structuring complex deals. Canada's natural resource base, energy sector and critical minerals supply chains further align with the themes drawing the most global capital right now.
That investor confidence is not purely theoretical. Foreign investors committed an unprecedented $100.6 billion to Canadian markets in the second quarter of 2026, according to Statistics Canada data, capping a record quarter driven largely by demand for federal government debt.
Canada has also overtaken both Germany and the United States to rank first in infrastructure investment attractiveness for the first time, according to the Global Infrastructure Investor Association's latest bi-annual Pulse Survey, conducted by Alvarez & Marsal.
The CPP Investments reports, however, make clear that strong sentiment has not yet translated into proportional capital deployment.
The gap between investor confidence and actual investment reflects a structural challenge around scale, bankability and execution capacity. Investors consistently flagged the absence of deal flow at institutional scale, revenue certainty and sufficient risk-sharing mechanisms as obstacles to converting interest into committed capital.
The investibility gap
The reports argue that Canada's competitive advantage lies in its ability to package existing strengths - energy, critical minerals and infrastructure - into investible opportunities that meet the requirements of large institutional mandates.
That means clear project pipelines, predictable regulatory timelines, attractive risk-adjusted structures and the kind of institutional-scale deal flow that major pension funds and sovereign wealth vehicles can absorb.
"Canada has already earned something increasingly valuable: the trust of global investors," Powell said. "The opportunity now is to turn that confidence into profitable investments. Connecting Canada's strengths in energy, critical minerals and infrastructure to AI and other emerging themes can position the country for the next wave of global capital."
Clients with allocations to infrastructure, private equity or global real assets are operating in a market where Canada's relative attractiveness is measurably improving, but where the depth and variety of available opportunities may not yet match the scale of institutional demand.
That demand-supply tension is visible across asset classes. Canadian venture capital funding fell 12 per cent in the first half of 2026 as global investors pulled back from private markets, even as early-stage companies absorbed 57 per cent of all capital deployed during the period, according to data reviewed by Wealth Professional.
The CPP Investments Insights Institute noted that investibility can be strengthened through a combination of policy and market structure improvements: clearer project pipelines, predictable regulation, revenue certainty, effective risk-sharing and investment structures built to institutional scale.
The fund itself, which totalled C$863.6 billion as at June 30, 2026, operates across more than 60 countries and deploys capital in public equities, private equity, real estate, infrastructure, fixed income and alternative strategies, giving its research arm a direct view of how competitive markets attract and retain large pools of long-term capital.
The Canada Investment Summit will test whether those conditions can be advanced through direct engagement between policymakers, business leaders and the global investor community.
