While called a sovereign wealth fund, the Canada Strong Fund will use debt, rather than surplus revenues or resource wealth, to finance its activities.
Coincidentally, Carney was formerly part of a “Green Finance” task force that advised Britain’s Labour government on its National Wealth Fund, a public finance institution created in 2024.
The fund absorbed the former UK Infrastructure Bank, created in 2021, and was given £7.3 billion (C$13.7 billion) to invest in wealth-generating projects. This includes investments in high-risk industries like green hydrogen, carbon capture and battery gigafactories.
Officials said at the time that the fund would attract three pounds of private money for every one pound from the public purse.
The study reports that the National Wealth Fund’s losses have nearly doubled since the 2024 rebranding, reaching £152.2 million (C$288 million) last year. It has delivered a cumulative return of minus 24.9 per cent in two years of operation. It has also fallen short of the three-to-one private-to-public funding ratio it promised Britons.
Notably, the fund led a massive bailout of rural broadband provider Gigaclear earlier this year, costing taxpayers nearly £100 million (C$188 million).