Prime Minister Mark Carney is pitching 200 of the world's top financial executives in Toronto next week a simple plan: invest one per cent more in Canada as a hedge against Donald Trump's volatility. The investor summit, hosting a C$120tn pool of global capital, attempts to invigorate the former Goldman Sachs executive's effort to decouple Canada from the US amid unrelenting hostility from the US president. Carney said at a time of unprecedented trade disruption, the bold mission to unlock $1tn in new capital will create growth, good jobs and long-term prosperity.

Deborah Orida, chief executive of the Public Sector Pension Investment Board, which has C$320.6bn worth of assets under management, said international investors are underweight on Canada relative to other jurisdictions. We actually expect to increase our investments in Canada and will cross the C$100bn threshold over the next few years, which is an increase of 30 to 40 per cent from where we are today, Orida told the FT. Carney is wooing groups from Wall Street to the Dangote Group, run by Africa's richest man Aliko Dangote, and the China Investment Corporation fund that oversees $1.57tn.

The summit is pivotal to Carney's plan to unite the world's middle powers as an alternative to the old US-centric world order, which he claimed at Davos was undergoing a rupture, not a transition. That tension erupted last month after trade talks collapsed with Washington. Carney had declared that you're at war when you're attacked, and we got attacked, adding Trump signed deals in pencil.

Now Ottawa is promoting its triple A credit ratings, a mark of outstanding fiscal credibility and near-zero default risk, as a strategy to make Canada the strongest economy in the G7 as a safe bet against Trump turmoil. However, business leaders say while Carney looks abroad for foreign support, serious work at home needs to be done to lure investment. David Rawlings, chief executive of JPMorgan Canada, said more capital will flow when Ottawa lowers taxes, shortens permitting timelines, incentivises investment and improves the regulatory landscape.