One of Canada’s largest pension funds expects to boost investments in Canada by 30 per cent to 40 per cent over the next few years, bringing its total assets invested at home above the $100 billion level.
The Public Sector Pension Investment Board’s target stems from a more uncertain global landscape alongside new opportunities at home, said Deb Orida, chief executive of PSP, which has $320.6 billion under management and is a co-host of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s global summit, which will bring together top investors from more than two dozen countries across Asia-Pacific, Europe and the Middle East in Toronto next week.
“We’ve been looking for opportunities to leverage our home ice advantage,” she said, adding that the fund already boosted Canadian investments by $10 billion in its most recent fiscal year through a combination of direct private investments and equities.
“As we think about the opportunity going forward, we think that we will likely cross the $100-billion threshold in Canada over the next few years.”
Infrastructure is among the areas where Orida sees more avenues to invest.
PSP has accumulated a $32-billion infrastructure portfolio that generated a 15 per cent return over the past five years and new deals could include equity stakes or infrastructure debt and investment-grade private credit, she said, adding that she has directed the pension fund’s infrastructure and private credit teams to collaborate.
“We are typically looking at it across both and assessing where in the capital structure we think the best risk-adjusted returns are,” she said.
Orida said PSP would also pursue airport investments should Ottawa decide to unload major ownership stakes to generate funds for priority government projects.
“We feel very well positioned to participate in things like airports if they were to become available because PSP has an airport operating platform that operates seven airports,” she said. “It’s an area that we know well and that we’ve made some great investments in.”
New investment opportunities over the next few years could also come through PSP’s management of another pool of capital: the Canada Growth Fund.
“The Canada Growth Fund often will do the early investing, (but) as some of these projects mature, there will be more opportunities for PSP, the pension, in areas like nuclear, critical minerals, other areas of energy infrastructure,” Orida said. “I think (those will be) good investments for our pension mandate.”
Ottawa has struggled for more than a decade to persuade Canada’s large pensions to invest more at home. Some members of the business community have joined the chorus, but there has been pushback from pension fund managers whose mandates require them to base investment decisions on generating returns for their beneficiaries without taking undue risks.
Among the arguments is that Canadian funds are already overweight at home, in part because their domestic holdings exceed the country’s share of global gross domestic product.
But in “a new investing regime,” as Orida described it, that features increasing global uncertainty and tensions with the United States, PSP isn’t alone in turning an eye to Canada, where greater efforts are being made to find ways to align investments with pension mandates.
For example, the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (OMERS) invested $1 billion in Canadian equities in the first half of 2026 and has pledged to add at least $10 billion in new investments in Canada to its portfolio over the next five years.
“While we continue to maintain a geographically diversified portfolio to meet our long-term pension obligations, the current environment in Canada has considerable potential and we look forward to exploring those opportunities that align with our strategy,” Blake Hutchinson, chief executive of OMERS, said in August.
bshecter@postmedia.com