FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Carney’s “Canada Strong Fund” Is a Debt-Fuelled Slush Fund – Deficit Spending Is Not a Sovereign Wealth Fund

April 27, 2026, Ottawa, ON – The National Citizens Coalition today slammed Prime Minister Mark Carney’s announcement of the so-called "Canada Strong Fund" – marketed as Canada’s first sovereign wealth fund – as nothing more than a $25-billion debt-financed slush fund that borrows from future generations to let Ottawa bureaucrats pick winners and losers.

"This is not a sovereign wealth fund. It is a sovereign debt fund," said National Citizens Coalition President Peter Coleman, echoing warnings from leading economists and policy experts. The $25 billion is borrowed after a November budget update projected a $78-billion federal deficit – the highest outside a recession in decades. "A real wealth fund requires wealth, not more red ink."

True sovereign wealth funds exist in countries that actually produce wealth – Norway, Saudi Arabia – because they draw from revenues and surpluses generated by successful oil and gas industries. Norway built its $2.2-trillion fund from petroleum royalties and state oil stakes. Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and Abu Dhabi’s fund were capitalized by oil export windfalls. Alaska’s Permanent Fund is funded by dedicated resource royalties. Canada’s version will be funded by borrowing, printing, and taxing Canadians deeper, because successive Liberal governments – with Carney’s ideological backing – have deliberately sabotaged the very resource industries that could have created genuine national wealth.

Canada’s oil and gas sector still produces the cleanest, most ethical energy on earth – yet Ottawa has spent years trying to strangle it with de-growth policies, carbon taxes, the Impact Assessment Act, tanker bans, revoked pipelines, and net-zero mandates.

"You cannot block $670 billion in resource projects, drive out $1 trillion in capital investment, and then claim to have created a 'wealth fund' by borrowing money to rebrand the wreckage," Coleman continued.

This is classic Ottawa cronyism: three overlapping arm’s-length funds (the Canada Strong Fund, the underperforming Canada Infrastructure Bank, and the Canada Growth Fund) with no clear distinction, picking politically favoured green projects, habitual infrastructure-handout recipients, and insiders. The winners will be the usual suspects. The losers will be every Canadian family saddled with higher taxes, higher debt interest, and the economic fallout from sabotaged energy abundance.

The National Citizens Coalition calls on all Canadians who still believe in fiscal responsibility and energy abundance to reconcile with the fact this is debt-funded fantasy, masquerading as success. Real wealth is created by free markets and responsible resource development – not by another layer of Liberal government picking favourites with borrowed money.

Canada deserves better than Carney’s deficit-spending charade.

For more information, or for comment: [email protected]

About the National Citizens Coalition: The NCC is Canada’s pioneer in third-party conservative advocacy, dedicated to defending free enterprise, lower taxes, and more accountable government for all Canadians.

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