This article originally appeared in the Financial Post. Below is an excerpt from the article.
By Philip Cross, February 27, 2026
A central pillar of Mark Carney’s plan to restructure and revitalize Canada’s lethargic economy is to revive business investment, which has been slumping since 2015. The first chapter of his government’s November 2025 budget trumpeted how “accelerating major nation-building projects” through the new Major Projects Office was going to help bring a much-needed renaissance of business investment in Canada.
So the government must be disappointed with the results of Statistics Canada’s annual survey of investment intentions. Planned investment growth in Canada has slowed for the third straight year, to 3.7 per cent for this year — and that’s not adjusted for price inflation so in real terms it’s likely to be even less. What’s worse, planned private-sector growth is only 2.8 per cent. The public sector is again carrying the load with a 6.5 per cent hike in capital spending. This has been the pattern in recent years, with public-sector outlays up 28.7 per cent since 2023 versus tepid 5.5 per cent growth in the private sector.
Not surprisingly, private-sector intentions are most bullish in mining, where record-high prices for metals such as gold and copper are spurring investors on. Mining accounts for fully two-thirds of private-sector spending growth. The strength of demand is reflected in how two of the first five “major projects” Ottawa approved last September were copper mines, while three more mines were included in the second tranche of six projects in November.
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Philip Cross is a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.
