At the end of April Prime Minister Mark Carney announced the Canada Strong Fund as “Canada’s first national sovereign wealth fund,” the centrepiece of the Spring Economic Update tabled the following day by Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne. The federal government will provide $25 billion over three years, on a cash basis, to seed the Fund. It will be housed in a new arm’s-length Crown corporation, reporting through the Minister of Finance, with an independent CEO and a qualified board of directors. A Canada Strong Fund Transition Office will consult with market participants and regulators on governance, the investment mandate, and the retail investment product, with further details to follow in the coming months. There has been a fair degree of scepticism amongst commentators and analysts about this Fund, so this week Ken Boessenkool and Ben Woodfinden offer their own somewhat sceptical takes.
