OTTAWA – Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s speech to wake up Davos, where hecalled on central governments not to lose out to world “hegemons”,he delivered a message that positioned Canada as an influential convening power.
Now, with billions watching — including during this afternoon’s match between Germany and Côte d’Ivoire in Toronto — the World Cup gives Canada an unprecedented opportunity to capture a global audience taking America’s neighbor more seriously.
“Canada’s global brand is important to our economy, to our position in the world, diplomatically, but also commercially,” Canada’s Secretary of State for Sport and Olympic gold medalist Adam van Koeverden told POLITICO.
“We just want to emphasize that Canada is open for business,” he said. “We are taking advantage of the fact that all eyes will be on Canada for the next several weeks in the FIFA tournament … and we want to continue to strengthen relationships, make new friends (and) meet new corporate partners.”
Canada needs foreign investors to buy into the Carney government’s dreams of building oil pipelines, new railways and port expansions to unlock new wealth for a country that continues to be the target of tariffs and threats of escalation from its closest ally. And US President Donald Trump has only aided Carney in his world travels to attract more foreign investment, selling Canada as a reliable destination for an unreliable US.
The goal of senior Canadian government officials is to use the World Cup to attract high-pocketed spectators to the first Canadian Investment Summit that Carney is hosting in September. The idea is to attract”the biggest investors in the world“adding C$1 trillion over the next five years to tax the economy – Carney’s message to deal with the global “rift” by controlling future economic controls to be put into practice.
That could meanmore money to expand sports infrastructuresuch as stadiums, to host more international sporting events. Toronto Stadium is the smallest stadium in the World Cup among the 16 host cities with a capacity of 43,000 people. But the organizers don’t want people to fix that.
Sharon Bollenbach, executive director of Toronto’s 2026 FIFA World Cup Secretariat, told Forecast the city is leaning heavily on its “world in a city” theme — a nod to the city widely recognized as the world’s most multicultural.
“We speak 250 languages in our city,” he said. “Our cultural diversity is so wide and vibrant … in all our neighborhoods, in food, in culture.” Asked what’s different about Toronto compared to Los Angeles, another city that can claim similar characteristics, Bollenbach suggested that it’s the general optimism in the air that sets the Canadian city apart. “I think we live that every day in a good and strong way which is something we want to show,” he said.
There are hopes that the waterfront images of Toronto’s CN Tower and the mountains of Vancouver’s North Shore in the backdrop of the World Cup stadium will bring a huge yet-unrealized tourism boost to the tournament itself.
Sara Anghel, president and CEO of the Greater Toronto Hotel Association, said one reason for the lower-than-expected demand is that half of the game tickets sold in Toronto are “local” from the city and region. This trend is not unique to Toronto after FIFAcanceling blocks of thousands of hotel rooms in host citiesthis spring in response to dim expectations.
“June is already a very busy month for Toronto, and so as we bring this unprecedented World Cup to our city, we have moved all the meetings and conventions that would normally come to the city,” Anghel said.
“They stay out because of the FIFA games.”
