Canada, Eh!

[Viking]

1 hour ago, Spooky said:

Nice, a sovereign wealth fund for Canada makes a lot of sense to me.

 

I am sceptical. My understanding is a sovereign wealth fund is created to invest the surplus wealth being generated at the time so it is not squandered and can benefit future generations (like windfall profits from oil). Canada is borrowing $25B to seed the fund - at the same time it has a historically high deficit and spiking total debt levels (and growing interest costs). We are fiscally a mess. 

 

Management: It will likely invest primarily with a strong political lense. Quebec. Atlantic Canada. Return will be an after thought. IMHO, this is not a great set up from a return perspective. 

 

Bottom line, the governments role in the economy continues to expand. This is another brand new department that will need to be staffed... 

 

But it is an interesting idea. We still do not have the specifics... so I remain open minded  

Edited April 28 by Viking

[rogermunibond]

@Viking I think SWFs are mostly to avoid the resource curse that affects most extractive industries.

 

keeping the proceeds separate from the economy, prevents rampant inflation, etc.

[Spooky]

5 minutes ago, rogermunibond said:

@Viking I think SWFs are mostly to avoid the resource curse that affects most extractive industries.

 

keeping the proceeds separate from the economy, prevents rampant inflation, etc.

 

Yes, this is where I think Canada / Alberta made a mistake with the oil sands. The Albertan economy is mostly reliant on Oil and Gas and feels like they are suffering from dutch disease. Look at the success that Norway has had.

 

On the SWF, I too am sceptical on the management. CPPIB has been kind of a bust. But Canada needs some big and bold ideas to get things moving forward again. Even better if the public can have an ownership stake in some of these transformative investments. This is the other issue with the oil sands is that the public bears the cost of the environmental degradation but the profits are privatized. 

 

Probably would be better to: a) give every new Canadian born a trust with some VCN; b) the government pushes forward more public private partnerships and cuts down on regulatory burden; c) the government has a position on the cap table through its share of the taxes on profits and/or partnership interests but lets private industry do the driving.  

[RichardGibbons]

Yeah, I think the challeng

28 minutes ago, Spooky said:

But Canada needs some big and bold ideas to get things moving forward again. Even better if the public can have an ownership stake in some of these transformative investments.

 

Yeah, I think the challenge is that historically, Canada has been driven by resource development, and it's where we have some of the biggest competitive advantages. With the passage of UNDRIP, that's largely finished, but Canada hasn't found a new growth industry. It'll be interesting to see if the sovereign funds invests in things other than the industries crippled by our own regulations, and does venture capital investing as well.

[SharperDingaan]

Every pension fund in the land is professionally managed. All investment opportunities compete, and funds are allocated to the most lucrative first ..... until the capital available has been fully invested. Governments can still do their own pet projects, but if the expected returns aren't competitive; it's their money, not the funds.

 

All investments are about optimising operational efficiencies to maximise return. Most would expect that a new dollar into Canadian resource extraction (o/g, mining, farming, etc.) vs an alternative industry, will produce a higher return on investment, simply because of economies of scale. Most would also expect that the alternative would be primarily defence related industries, as Canada moves towards its 5%/yr NATO commitment. Pretty much what we are actually seeing.

 

Doesn't mean you have to be in one of these industries; your project just has to be as/more lucrative. If you can put large scale greenhouses into arctic communities that can grow veggies/fruits competitively throughout the year; you are probably a very good candidate. We have the technology, and midnight sun for near 6 months a year ... 

 

SD 

[Spekulatius]

On 4/19/2026 at 7:07 PM, Parsad said:

 

Some of that is true...most of it is not.  Before 1940, most unwed/single/divorced mothers were forced to carry the load themselves...there was no social safety net.  They did it themselves with work, odd jobs, family help, friends, community, churches, etc.  The government did not help...the community did.  

 

Then once the unemployment and welfare system was implemented, widespread abuse began over time and continued to permeate the system.  Eventually, it became more accepted for women to work outside of the home and in full-time positions.  It took decades for any sort of equality to develop there, and it still isn't equal in terms of compensation. 

 

But the fracturing of the family unit started to occur because women were actually given a real choice in how they lived their lives, and didn't have to stay within unhappy marriages because they had children, weren't the primary income earner, and the stigma around divorce diminished.

 

Yes, you have fraud in the system, it is abused and the incentives aren't always aligned properly.  But the world is not necessarily worse off after the unemployment/welfare system was created...it's not necessarily better off either because now the onus is on government to support, rather than community.  There is a better system like any thing else...whether politicians have the courage to make those changes always seems to be the main problem when fixing something that has huge lobbyists on both sides!

 

Cheers!

I think the kids are born when their mothers know full well that they get paid for by welfare. the The dads may hang around or not but moms are disincentivized to disclose because that means less welfare.

 

Contraceptives  are easy to get so these kids are mostly planned for.

 

I am prior safety net but welfare tends to destroy those who use over the long run. heaven forbid we aver get UBI - I think it may destroy large parts of the society. Perhaps a negative income tax works out better as it incentivizes continuing to work.

[cwericb]

2 hours ago, TB said:

Canada is now ranking last in primary care access per Canada newspaper

 

https://www.biv.com/news/economy-law-politics/canada-ranks-last-in-primary-health-care-access-among-10-wealthy-countries-report-8489235

 

 

OR...

Canada's FREE  health care access essentially ties USER PAY US primary health care among 10 wealthy countries

[SharperDingaan]

Quite a few would quietly advise that much of this is a health care system badly in need of reform, and a temporary demographic bump in the number of retirees. Too many communities spread too far apart (geography), too many restrictions on who can do what where (the profession), and a lack of industrial policy (same quality of care in each province).

 

• Australia has the Flying Doctor service; similar geography issue, yet Canada doesn't ?
• Both countries have parallel aboriginal/indigenous/first nations medical traditions; and integration remains a problem.
• Practice in remote/rural communities shunned by many; yet student loan forgiveness remain untied to service.
• Too much load on too few, driving burnout; even that minimum wage 'no think' job is now often a better work/life choice.
• Absent national drug addiction policy.

 

A Flying Doctor service across rural and northern Canada, with student loan forgiveness linked to service; could expect to attract young and adventurous pilots and medics, in droves .... particularly if also paired up with fire fighting and Canada's expanded military. Real world, hands on experience; feeding into heath care, aviation, and the military.

 

Simply decriminalising addiction Canada wide, and letting addicts use clean needles/free drugs under supervision, will both save a lot of lives and diminish much or the revolving door. Just throwing more and more money against a problem isn't enough.

 

SD

  

 

   

 

 

  

 

 

Edited May 2 by SharperDingaan

[Parsad]

1 hour ago, SharperDingaan said:

Quite a few would quietly advise that much of this is a health care system badly in need of reform, and a temporary demographic bump in the number of retirees. Too many communities spread too far apart (geography), too many restrictions on who can do what where (the profession), and a lack of industrial policy (same quality of care in each province).

 

• Australia has the Flying Doctor service; similar geography issue, yet Canada doesn't ?
• Both countries have parallel aboriginal/indigenous/first nations medical traditions; and integration remains a problem.
• Practice in remote/rural communities shunned by many; yet student loan forgiveness remain untied to service.
• Too much load on too few, driving burnout; even that minimum wage 'no think' job is now often a better work/life choice.
• Absent national drug addiction policy.

 

A Flying Doctor service across rural and northern Canada, with student loan forgiveness linked to service; could expect to attract young and adventurous pilots and medics, in droves .... particularly if also paired up with fire fighting and Canada's expanded military. Real world, hands on experience; feeding into heath care, aviation, and the military.

 

It's mostly related to demographics and the resistance to any sort of private health care "pressure valve" to alleviate those demographic changes.  

 

When you have more seniors using the system on a daily basis (and I am becoming one of them and using it a shitload more), and you have 1/3rd of the working age taxpayers carrying the same system...you are going to have challenges in government services, particularly healthcare which is by far the largest budget item for every province.  

 

AI will help to some degree...as will robotics...but robotics is well down the road in terms of assisting with nursing/physical services.  AI is already starting to be implemented, especially on the diagnostic and research sides, and early robotics is assisting with very precise surgeries now. 

 

Long-term, technology is the only savior to these problems as birth rates are certainly not going to increase much and that taxpayer ratio isn't going to change for the better any time soon!  There is only so much money to be thrown around to every budget line item.

 

1 hour ago, SharperDingaan said:

 

Simply decriminalising addiction Canada wide, and letting addicts use clean needles/free drugs under supervision, will both save a lot of lives and diminish much or the revolving door. Just throwing more and more money against a problem isn't enough.

 

SD

 

 

We've experimented with this in Vancouver...it has it's own host of problems, especially in such a concentrated area of homeless/drug users like here in Vancouver around Hastings & Main.  It's really ground zero and it was implemented for 3 years with various levels of modest success and failure. 

 

Not enough people were using the clean needle/free drugs service, and even those providing clean drugs were accidentally handing out contaminated drugs bought through the underground market.  The testing was not as good, drugs were decriminalized, and plenty of people were getting sick or dying from these underground drugs that proponents of decriminalization were distributing.  So, there is no easy solution as you are suggesting! 

• When I was first going to Simon Fraser University, my bus travelled daily to SFU through Hastings & Main...the problems were just beginning. 
• 10 years later I was driving through the area daily to get to work...there were maybe 3,000 residents living in poverty, 100 homeless/drug/poor services and businesses were starting to complain. 
• Another 10 years later I was catching the bus to my office downtown, going through there again, and now there were 5,000 people living there, 200 homeless/drug/poor services and businesses were starting to close and move out. 
• Today, there are about 7,500 residents down there, 300 homeless/drug/poor services (the highest concentration by far of any North American city) and the area continues to battle poverty/drugs/homelessness/lack of gentrification/business departures. 

They've tried nearly everything at one point or another and the monster continues to grow!  If there is ever a zombie attack from a virus infecting drug users and spreading across the world, it will start at Hastings & Main in Vancouver!  Not London like 28 Days Later!    Cheers!

[yzstevie]

Yeah it is not really a sovereign wealth fund...

 

 

[bargainman]

29 minutes ago, yzstevie said:

Yeah it is not really a sovereign wealth fund...

 

 

 

Nice I was just about to post this. Basically sounds like a 'we'll backstop all of these investments that private money wouldn't go after on their own cause they aren't willing to take the investment risk, and we'll do it with borrowed money'.  Norway is a totally different situation, that country is crazy rich, got really lucky, and they also made some really smart moves.

 

Here's a quick summary from gemini

 

The primary concerns center on the fact that this initiative differs fundamentally from a traditional sovereign wealth fund.

Key downsides and caveats:

• Funding source (Deficits vs. Wealth): A traditional sovereign wealth fund (like Norway's) is fueled by surplus wealth, often from natural resources. In contrast, Canada is running significant annual deficits (reaching $78.3 billion recently) and high national debt. Critics argue this is essentially a "sovereign debt fund" built with borrowed money rather than surplus capital (2:49-3:53).
• Lack of Diversification: Traditional funds invest globally to maximize returns through compounding. The Canada Strong Fund plans to focus entirely on domestic projects, which limits potential for financial diversification and ignores the investment strategies used by successful institutional investors (4:41-5:36, 11:12-11:35).
• Risk to Taxpayers: The fund is designed to "de-risk" large-scale national projects to attract private investment. If these projects fail or do not generate the projected revenue, the government—and ultimately the Canadian taxpayer—may be left covering the financial losses (6:39-6:53, 8:33-8:52).
• Redundancy and Governance: Critics compare the fund to the Canada Infrastructure Bank, which faced calls for abolition due to concerns about whether its projects were selected based on political optics rather than financial viability. There is widespread skepticism that the new fund will repeat these issues without "ruthless insulation" from political influence (7:33-9:46, 12:45-13:25).
• Conflicting Mandates: The fund aims to achieve two potentially contradictory goals: acting as a national savings vehicle (wealth building) and driving industrial policy (nation building). Experts suggest that these objectives often do not go hand in hand, as projects that are "in the national interest" but ignored by the private sector may not necessarily be the ones that deliver strong financial returns (11:46-12:17).

[yzstevie]

There is no way to avoid conflict of interest, especially if the fund just primarily invests in Canada.  There is a reason Norway doesn't invest a cent in anything in Norway...

[Parsad]

32 minutes ago, bargainman said:

 

Nice I was just about to post this. Basically sounds like a 'we'll backstop all of these investments that private money wouldn't go after on their own cause they aren't willing to take the investment risk, and we'll do it with borrowed money'.  Norway is a totally different situation, that country is crazy rich, got really lucky, and they also made some really smart moves.

 

Here's a quick summary from gemini

 

The primary concerns center on the fact that this initiative differs fundamentally from a traditional sovereign wealth fund.

Key downsides and caveats:

• Funding source (Deficits vs. Wealth): A traditional sovereign wealth fund (like Norway's) is fueled by surplus wealth, often from natural resources. In contrast, Canada is running significant annual deficits (reaching $78.3 billion recently) and high national debt. Critics argue this is essentially a "sovereign debt fund" built with borrowed money rather than surplus capital (2:49-3:53).

This is wrong.  The semi-annual report came out this week and the annual deficit is about $11B lower.  Why you don't rely on AI for everything!  And yes, it is a "sovereign debt fund", but those projects were going to be funded by debt regardless until they have paid for themselves and start generating net profits.

• Lack of Diversification: Traditional funds invest globally to maximize returns through compounding. The Canada Strong Fund plans to focus entirely on domestic projects, which limits potential for financial diversification and ignores the investment strategies used by successful institutional investors (4:41-5:36, 11:12-11:35).

You have plenty of options to invest outside of Canada already at very low cost by owning shares in international companies or low-cost nation ETF's.  This is specifically targeting areas of investment that those entities or private institutions might not have as much access to...sovereign-controlled projects funded by Canada, not public/private markets.  The takeover of the TMX Pipeline by Trudeau looked stupid at the time...total price and cost is about $40B...but looks pretty good going forward now at current prices doing around $18B of increased revenue a year!

• Risk to Taxpayers: The fund is designed to "de-risk" large-scale national projects to attract private investment. If these projects fail or do not generate the projected revenue, the government—and ultimately the Canadian taxpayer—may be left covering the financial losses (6:39-6:53, 8:33-8:52).

Taxpayer is the loser either way...via Canada funding it or them funding it directly through the sovereign fund.  No change really!

• Redundancy and Governance: Critics compare the fund to the Canada Infrastructure Bank, which faced calls for abolition due to concerns about whether its projects were selected based on political optics rather than financial viability. There is widespread skepticism that the new fund will repeat these issues without "ruthless insulation" from political influence (7:33-9:46, 12:45-13:25).

Carney has now created four specific funds/banks to handle major infrastructure/wealth/technology-business/defense-security project development.  These are large scale deka-billion entities to support/develop/fund growth over the next 10-20-30 years plus.  Give it some time...let's see what they can do and how they are managed, governed and what type of results they provide.  It's very easy and typical to simply shoot every government decision in the foot ahead of time.  I'm sure many of Norway's citizens would have preferred tax cuts, refund checks, etc immediately than a government managed wealth fund.  Well it worked!

• Conflicting Mandates: The fund aims to achieve two potentially contradictory goals: acting as a national savings vehicle (wealth building) and driving industrial policy (nation building). Experts suggest that these objectives often do not go hand in hand, as projects that are "in the national interest" but ignored by the private sector may not necessarily be the ones that deliver strong financial returns (11:46-12:17).

How effective it will be can only be judged in hindsight.  We honestly don't know what the future looks like in terms of employment, industry, salaries, pension income, etc.  What if AI is massively disruptive to many facets of life and there is significant unemployment as some are predicting (25-35% or more).  That is going to be a huge problem for existing pension funds, salaries, etc.  It may be that CPP is no longer CPP, but GIF (Guaranteed Income Fund) or something of that nature.  A large percentage of the population will receive guaranteed incomes.  But there will still be areas of industry that are somewhat AI proof...capital intensive industries that aren't completely software based.  These will have to be funded...people will need to invest excess income...these are the types of projects these sovereign funds/banks will be supporting, including the sovereign "debt" fund!  

 

Ok, I'm not saying you guys are wrong...but let's look at the comments...also, does anyone think for themselves these days, or does everyone rely on a compilation by AI?  My replies are in red.  Cheers!

[bargainman]

29 minutes ago, Parsad said:

 

Ok, I'm not saying you guys are wrong...but let's look at the comments...also, does anyone think for themselves these days, or does everyone rely on a compilation by AI?  My replies are in red.  Cheers!

 

 

I had a longer reply but then the site decided it wanted to check if I was human and killed my reply

 

the number for the deficit was from the CBC video, AI just wrote it.

 

The above is a great overview of Norway's history.  Huge luck and advantages, and some good foresite.  Also a small population helps.  They have hydro and wind so pretty different from Canada's situation.

 

[Spooky]

7 hours ago, bargainman said:

They have hydro and wind so pretty different from Canada's situation.

 

We have way more of basically anything Norway has.

[Spekulatius]

10 minutes ago, Spooky said:

 

We have way more of basically anything Norway has.

While this is correct, Norway has only 5.6M people while Canada has 42M (7.5x). Per citizen, the amount of resources that Norway has is incredible.

 

The Norway wealth fund cannot invest much in Norway itself because it would lead to a tremendous surge in their currency which is already overvalued to begin with. The Norwegian economy is just too small relative to the wealth accumulated.

Edited May 3 by Spekulatius

[John Hjorth]

7 hours ago, bargainman said:

... I had a longer reply but then the site decided it wanted to check if I was human and killed my reply  ...

 

<Off-topic>

 

@bargainman,

 

When that happens for you, or anybody else member of CofF&B posting here, you avoid that, by :

• When the board freezes, you have to stay calme, and stop adding to your post by further typing,
• Please don't type anything further more!
• Instead you take a deep breath, and scroll up to the top a topic feed, to grab / go to your forum index, and gradually approaching the topic you were typing in, again, top -> down,
• Then you go to the last page, and place you cursor in the empty posting area / frame.
• Don't type anything there!
• Next, simply just type <enter>,
• -And up pops what the board 'remembers' - from it's cache, of what you may already have written as a draft, and you've actually recovered what you thought you'd lost!

</Off-topic>

[Parsad]

8 hours ago, Spooky said:

 

We have way more of basically anything Norway has.

 

8 hours ago, Spekulatius said:

While this is correct, Norway has only 5.6M people while Canada has 42M (7.5x). Per citizen, the amount of resources that Norway has is incredible.

 

The Norway wealth fund cannot invest much in Norway itself because it would lead to a tremendous surge in their currency which is already overvalued to begin with. The Norwegian economy is just too small relative to the wealth accumulated.

 

Hmmm...we have more trees per capita than those herring in tomato sauce eating freaks!  No one has more trees per capita than Canada.

 

We also have Celine Dion, Jim Carrey, poutine and Santa Claus!  Cheers!

[John Hjorth]

36 minutes ago, Parsad said:

Hmmm...we have more trees per capita than those herring in tomato sauce eating freaks!  No one has more trees per capita than Canada.

 

We also have Celine Dion, Jim Carrey, poutine and Santa Claus!  Cheers!

 

HaHa! ,

 

It's actually worse, much, much, more worse!  -Imagine getting served Herring in Tomato Sauce with roasted potatoes, coffee,  beer and snaps as breakfast!? - Gulb!  - I've been there, done that, after a rough night in town! -Just exactly barely survived, on a knifes edge - it was just so crazy!  The Norwegians are so friggin' wild!

[Parsad]

9 minutes ago, John Hjorth said:

 

HaHa! ,

 

It's actually worse, much, much, more worse!  -Imagine getting served Herring in Tomato Sauce with roasted potatoes, coffee,  beer and snaps as breakfast!? - Gulb!  - I've been there, done that, after a rough night in town! -Just exactly barely survived, on a knifes edge - it was just so crazy!  The Norwegians are so friggin' wild!

 

Norwegians must never be constipated and use a lot of ant-acid!    Cheers!

[Spekulatius]

1 hour ago, Parsad said:

 

 

Hmmm...we have more trees per capita than those herring in tomato sauce eating freaks!  No one has more trees per capita than Canada.

 

We also have Celine Dion, Jim Carrey, poutine and Santa Claus!  Cheers!

And ketchup flavored potato chips.

[bargainman]

3 hours ago, Spekulatius said:

And ketchup flavored potato chips.

 

woaw.  I thought you had roots there but this must mean you live there!??  

 

no one said anything about coffee crips, smarties, and Purdy's Hedgehogs yet!!!

 

We visited Norway and survived.  Although iirc we mostly got stuff from the grocery store and made it, can't remember a lot of out door meals other than the whale at Bergen's outdoor market.

 

It's a beautiful place lots of sunshine in the summer!  Reminds me a lot of the BC pictures you always see.

[bargainman]

12 hours ago, John Hjorth said:

 

<Off-topic>

 

@bargainman,

 

When that happens for you, or anybody else member of CofF&B posting here, you avoid that, by :

• When the board freezes, you have to stay calme, and stop adding to your post by further typing,
• Please don't type anything further more!
• Instead you take a deep breath, and scroll up to the top a topic feed, to grab / go to your forum index, and gradually approaching the topic you were typing in, again, top -> down,
• Then you go to the last page, and place you cursor in the empty posting area / frame.
• Don't type anything there!
• Next, simply just type <enter>,
• -And up pops what the board 'remembers' - from it's cache, of what you may already have written as a draft, and you've actually recovered what you thought you'd lost!

</Off-topic>

I will try to remember this next time.  I'm not sure why it asks me so many times.  It must think I'm robotic...

[Cor]

Hey fellow Canadians, looking for some help with retirement planning for senior family members. Does anyone have recommendations for a portfolio mix? They’ve been advised to do 50-50 bonds/stocks by an advisor. I’m wondering if you were to go through Questrade or IB what would be a good bond fund to buy to satisfy this component? Or are we thinking about this the wrong way?
 

We were also wondering if anyone knows the tax implications of holding in a TFSA while retiring abroad (Portugal in particular)?

[Jaygo]

28 minutes ago, Cor said:

We were also wondering if anyone knows the tax implications of holding in a TFSA while retiring abroad (Portugal in particular)?

 

Sorry I don't have an answer but my recommendation would be to join a Facebook group for Canadian expats in Portugal. The info will likely be more relevant and timely. I am on one for Canadians in Spain and the detailed discussions are pretty amazing.