TD CEO: Canada has lost some of its appeal for foreign investors

The chief executive of Toronto-Dominion Bank says Canada has work to do to improve its appeal to international investors.

“We’ve lost a bit of our brand value over the past few years,” TD CEO Bharat Masrani told BNN Bloomberg’s Amanda Lang in an interview on Thursday.

“At one point we were the darling of the world, this was where everyone wanted to invest. So, we’ve lost a bit of that. But these things go in cycles. We’re a developed economy, this morning we had the bank’s annual meeting and I talked about problems, real problems that need to be fixed.”

Masrani outlined some of the issues he sees as most crucial for Canada to fix at the bank’s annual general meeting on Thursday, among them reducing interprovincial trade barriers, increasing housing supply and accelerating approval for “much-needed infrastructure projects.”

However, during the interview Masrani pointed to some reasons for optimism that Canada can win back investors' attention, especially the nation’s status as a hotbed for emerging tech talent.

“We have lots of strengths in Canada as well,” Masrani said. “Look at our education system, look at the number of tech jobs we’re attracting, the best people around the world want to come to Canada and work here.”

“My urging to policy makers is: Can we replicate those strengths and start solving some of these problems? Because we do have problems that need to be fixed.”