Think tank warns Canada Strong Fund may repeat UK fund's shortcomings

A new analysis by the Montreal Economic Institute compares Prime Minister Mark Carney's Canada Strong Fund to the United Kingdom's National Wealth Fund, which the study says has struggled since its 2024 rebranding. Bryan Cheang, the paper's author and a London School of Economics fellow, points to the British fund's near-doubling of losses to £152.2 million and a cumulative return of minus 24.9 percent over two years, as well as its failure to achieve a three-to-one private-to-public investment ratio.

Canada’s fund, unveiled with a $25 billion commitment over three years, will use borrowed money rather than surplus revenues to finance high-risk sectors like green hydrogen, carbon capture and battery gigafactories. The report argues that the lack of the strict guardrails seen in successful sovereign wealth funds, such as Norway’s oil fund, could leave Canada’s abundant resource revenues underutilized or misdirected. Carney has said the fund will let Canadians share directly in the profits of federally catalyzed projects. The think-tank warns that political investment priorities may undermine financial discipline.