BNN Bloomberg Sep 18, 2026
With Jeremy Kronick, President and CEO of the C.D. Howe Institute · John Graham, President and CEO of CPPIB
Canada set up the Canada Infrastructure Bank and the Canada Growth Fund to pull private money into infrastructure. Private sector investment in Canadian infrastructure has fallen since 2015.
The policy answer now on the table is selling stakes in assets the state already owns, which the government calls asset recycling. Jeremy Kronick backs it, but not primarily for the proceeds: he treats the sale as an advertisement rather than a transaction.
"So I understand the hesitation around opening up these public assets, if you will, to further private investment, but there's a bigger play here — it's about saying to the world that Canada is open to investment."
Kronick runs the C.D. Howe Institute, which publishes on Canadian productivity and regulation; the segment also carried part of the host's separate podcast interview with John Graham, who runs the manager of the Canada Pension Plan's assets and co-hosted the investment summit the segment is about.
The full segment is covered here so you can skip it.
Here are the 7 takeaways that matter.
Key Takeaways
Private sector infrastructure investment has fallen since 2015, after two federal vehicles were created to raise it
More than 70% of Canadian infrastructure is publicly owned, and 95% of that sits with provinces and municipalities rather than Ottawa
Kronick reads asset recycling as a signal to global investors rather than a way to raise money
The fast-track office covers seven or eight projects, and he says the rest of the pipeline is the actual problem
There is a bit of a social license for privatization now, though he expects continued government ownership alongside private capital
Graham says there is no real safe harbor anywhere, which is what makes Canada look good on a relative basis
The public market is the path of least resistance into Canada, not a megaproject
Graham says investing stopped being about profit maximization, because national security and industrial policy now shape where capital goes
1. What the Show Counted
The segment opened with the show's own research on infrastructure as an asset class, before either guest spoke.
The case for the asset class
Investment in infrastructure is a growing asset class, and for good reason.
A host
Between 2004 and 2023, the show said, private infrastructure beat public equities and bonds on a risk-adjusted basis measured by the Sharpe ratio, which is return per unit of volatility. Higher interest rates cut into that unless a contract carries indexation or escalators, the clauses that raise payments in line with inflation.
Most of it is not Ottawa's to sell
More than 70% of infrastructure in Canada is publicly owned — that includes roads and ports and airports.
A host
Of that publicly owned stock, 95% belongs to provinces and municipalities. The federal vehicles built to attract private capital have not worked, on the show's account.
The two federal vehicles went the wrong way
private sector investment in infrastructure has fallen since 2015.
A host
The entities named were the Canada Infrastructure Bank and the Canada Growth Fund. On what could be sold, the show cited a Deloitte estimate valuing Canada's airports at $50 billion, and put the replacement value of the country's core public infrastructure at $2.3 trillion, of which it said "16% of it is in poor or very poor condition". Some of the rest, such as storm water systems, it said is not attractive to investors.
The term, and the question under it
Asset recycling is the term that the government is using, meaning the sale of part of our airports, possibly ports or other infrastructure, that could of course attract big dollars, but does that spur new growth in the economy?
A host
2. Asset Recycling Is Right
Asked whether the principle is sound, Kronick said yes, and put productivity rather than proceeds at the center of the answer.
He backs it on productivity grounds
I think it is the right principle, to involve as much as possible private investment that can boost the productivity of the country in general, and airports are part of that.
Jeremy Kronick
He acknowledged the objection to opening public assets to private buyers, and then argued the sale is not the point.
The sale is a signal, not a fundraising
So I understand the hesitation around opening up these public assets, if you will, to further private investment, but there's a bigger play here — it's about saying to the world that Canada is open to investment.
Jeremy Kronick
What he wants out of it is investment, jobs and productivity, which he described as the things the country has been lacking. He also allowed that the airport specifics are contested.
3. Execution Is the Risk
The host put it to him that the tone is good and the capital is looking for destinations, but that regulation and a patchwork of provincial rules still give investors pause, and asked whether the smoothing is happening fast enough.
The fast-track office was the first step
So, obviously the major projects office in the Building Canada Act was a first step in that direction, to fast-track some of the regulatory burdens and barriers that this country has had for a long time.
Jeremy Kronick
His problem with it is the scope. A fast-track lane that handles a handful of named projects leaves everything else where it was.
Seven or eight projects is not a pipeline
But the question is, how do we do that in a broader sense, right, because the major projects office is choosing seven or eight projects and allow those to fast-track, but then what about all the other projects that we could be doing in this country?
Jeremy Kronick
He read a signal at the summit that the lane will widen
And there was some indication yesterday that there's a realization that that needs to happen, and there'll be an exploration towards expanding that fast-tracking to other areas of the economy, which I think is a good sign and a necessary sign to move in that direction
Jeremy Kronick
He listed what was impressive about the summit — who was in the room, how much money they manage between them, and the bipartisan mix — and then said "the execution really is the key".
4. How Deep Privatization Goes
The host noted that most of the assets that could be sold belong to other levels of government, raised the LCBO in Ontario as a perennial example, and asked whether the old political calculations still apply.
There is some permission now that did not exist before
Yeah, I think there's a bit of a social license right now in Canada to allow for more than there has been in the past, but I'm not sure — you can already see the protests that were around the summit and some of the commentary around the summit, on not selling Canada's assets completely to foreign investment.
Jeremy Kronick
He said he thinks that objection is somewhat overplayed. What he does expect is a structure that keeps the state involved rather than a clean sale.
The likely outcome is mixed ownership
I think it probably entails there's still going to be a fair amount of Canadian government involvement, but they'll be opening it up for private investment, wherever that private investment might come from.
Jeremy Kronick
5. No Safe Harbor Anywhere
The host then played part of her podcast conversation with John Graham, whose starting point is that a country attracting capital is competing, not being assessed on its own terms.
Capital allocation is a relative exercise
And you think about capital and the competition for capital — it's really a relative value discussion. And one of the things a country has to be is, in some ways, the path of least resistance to attract that capital.
John Graham
His argument for Canada is not that its problems are small but that nobody's are.
Every destination gives an investor pause
We look around the world right now, and we've said this before, there's no real safe harbor. You can get yourself a little bit nervous about almost any investment destination.
John Graham
Measured against the field, Canada screens well
And if you compare some of the investment attributes of Canada right now, it actually looks pretty good — it looks pretty good compared to many other geographies, many other countries around the world.
John Graham
And it owns what buyers currently want
Not only that, Canada has a lot of the assets around energy and critical minerals that the world wants and investors want to invest in.
John Graham
Canadians focus internally on the negatives, he said, while global investors weighing every country's drawbacks see enough positives to bring money.
6. Buy the Public Market
Graham's second point was that the summit's focus on announceable projects misrepresents how most money would actually enter the country.
The megaproject is not the easy route in
For sure it's great to see the ambition and the drive to build these big infrastructure projects, but sometimes the path of least resistance to invest in the country is through the public markets.
John Graham
The market infrastructure is already there
And back to the first question, Canada has pretty robust capital markets — Toronto is a financial hub.
John Graham
He was explicit that the United States is doing better on this measure, and still called Canada's capital markets robust. The practical list he gave has three routes.
Three ways foreign capital can arrive
I think about attracting investment into all the different ways — it could be investing into a major project, it could be a JV with a Canadian partner, or it could be investing in the equity.
John Graham
A JV is a joint venture, a company jointly owned with a local partner. What the summit is for, on his account, is recognition rather than any single deal.
The objective is being considered at all
Right now, Canada's not necessarily top of mind as an investment destination, and we need to get Canada just more top of mind.
John Graham
7. The End of Profit Maximizing
Asked about how thinking on trade and investment has changed, Graham described a talk he gave to chambers of commerce four years ago and the thesis he brought to it.
What investing used to be
the premise of the talk, the thesis of the talk, was that for a long time investing was about following the money — it was about profit maximization, and because the world had wired itself to lowest-cost production, capital and goods flowed largely freely around the world
John Graham
Even four years ago, he told that audience, it had stopped being true.
National security and industrial policy now set the map
We're not in a profit-maximizing world anymore, because there's considerations around domestic supply, there's considerations around industrial policy that are going to influence the global economy.
John Graham
He named Europe and other countries as doing the same thing, and said some have been doing it for a long time: deciding what to build at home, what to import, where a comparative advantage exists and where something is simply a strategic interest.
His fund's job is not to have an opinion about it
And what we always talk about here at CPP Investments, it's not our place to lament what's happening, it's just our job to try to figure out what's happening and invest in it.
John Graham
The obligation this puts on Canada
But I don't think this is a Canadian phenomenon, I think it's a global phenomenon, and I think Canada's got to actually figure some of this stuff out.
John Graham
Bonus Insights
Not everything is sellable
The show's own point about storm water systems is the limit on the whole idea: an asset can be in poor condition and still have no buyer, because the revenue is not there. The saleable list it named was airports, and possibly ports.
The host thought the term was odd
The host called asset recycling "sort of a funny term" while introducing it, and translated it in her question as unlocking value in assets that are in government hands. Kronick did not defend the wording, only the policy.
The two of them land in the same place from different directions: Kronick says the value of selling stakes in Canadian infrastructure is the signal it sends rather than the proceeds it raises, and Graham says a country competing for capital in a world with no safe destinations wins by being the easiest place to put money, which is more often a stock listing than a construction project.
Products, Companies & Tools Mentioned
C.D. Howe Institute (Kronick's institute, which publishes on Canadian productivity and regulatory barriers)
CPP Investments (Graham's fund, whose stated job is to work out what is happening rather than to lament it; he co-hosted the investment summit)
Canada Infrastructure Bank (Created to spur private infrastructure investment; the show says investment has fallen since 2015 instead)
Canada Growth Fund (Named alongside the Infrastructure Bank as having had the opposite of the intended effect)
Deloitte (Source of the $50B valuation the show cited for Canada's airports)
LCBO (The host's standing example of a provincially owned asset that comes up whenever privatization does)
Books & Resources Mentioned
The Building Canada Act and its major projects office (The fast-track mechanism Kronick calls a first step, currently covering seven or eight projects)
Watch the full episode:
More Jeremy Kronick interviews and podcast appearances
If this was worth your time, send it to someone closer to the industry than you are.
Get the latest market chatter as it happens: