Canada’s Maple 8 Pensions: Never A Dull Moment

By: Neil Hrab

Canada’s large “Maple 8” pensions, like popular Hollywood celebrities, seem to be perpetually in the news. The last few weeks have included a number of developments worth noting, which I have summarized as below:

• The CEOs of two of the Maple 8 pensions – the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) and the Public Sector Pension Investment Board (PSP) – joined Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney as co-hosts of the much-ballyhooed September Canada Investment Summit.

  That summit drew dozens of large international private investment funds, sovereign wealth funds and other institutional investors (including pensions) to Toronto, as the organizers highlighted a thick playbook of investment-ready opportunities across this vast country.

  On one level, the two pensions’ CEOs’ roles as co-hosts makes perfect sense, since CPPIB and PSP have considerable overseas investments, and would be well-known to many of the invited participants.

  That said, the appearance of the nominally-politically-independent leadership of these institutions at a high-visibility, international gathering orchestrated directly through the Prime Minister’s Office marks a sharp departure from tradition.

  Generally, the pensions have maintained a certain distance from Canada’s political sphere. One event by itself does not mean the definitive end of that tradition, but it does suggest, as Bob Dylan once sang, that “the times they are-a-changin’…”

• During the Canada Investment Summit, the current federal government announced its willingness to make room for private investments to flow into Canada’s four busiest airports…subject to various guardrails.

  There have been numerous hints that Canada’s federal government hopes for the country’s large pensions to take a piece of any such transaction, especially given how experienced several of them are as investors in foreign airports.

  How much of a piece that turns out to be and how the pensions’ investment will be structured – all those details remain to be worked out.

• Also timed with the September all-Canada investment gathering, a number of the Maple 8 pensions announced commitments to increase the Canadian portion of their assets under management.

  This includes the aforementioned PSP and CPPIB, as well as Ontario Teachers (OTPP). The HOOPP pension has increased its support for venture capital-type investments in Canada.

  Despite these commitments, according to some critics, the Maple Eight need to do more to stimulate Canada’s economy.

  Interestingly, the pensions are boosting their Canadian asset totals just as Canada’s large banks make similar commitments on the financing/lending side.

  Some may see these commitments as the pensions’ individually responding to the powerful “rally ‘round the flag” effect that has washed over Canada following the rise of the cross-border tariff tensions with the US.

  That’s a bit of a misreading of the situation, and ignores a relevant longer-term dynamic that is quietly but visibly at play; I refer to how government decision-makers have, as noted here, been looking at ways to boost the Maple 8’s domestic investment role since 2024.

Neil Hrab worked in the Canadian pension sector for 12 years. His views are his own.