Why the Liberals' 'dangerous' pursuit of Canada's pension billions keeps falling flat

financialpost.com:

Shortly after he was elected Canada’s 23rd prime minister, Justin Trudeau gathered the country’s top pension officials in a conference room in downtown Toronto for a roundtable discussion on infrastructure. To most in attendance that day in November 2016, the government’s intention was clear.

Canada’s major pension plans had prospered and were among the most powerful investors on the planet, in control of hundreds of billions of dollars of investable capital. Many of them had developed an expertise in infrastructure and had been scooping up projects — things like toll roads, ports and power plants  — from South America to Europe to Australia. The Liberals, meanwhile, had stormed back into power with promises to modernize and improve Canada’s aging infrastructure as part of a major undertaking to boost productivity and jobs and lift the Canadian economy.

If, the thinking went, just a little more of the expertise and financial firepower present in that room could be redirected toward projects at home — perhaps ones aligned with government priorities — it might be a win-win, stretching federal dollars further while allowing pensions and the private sector to profit at the same time.

To say those much-touted plans fell flat might be an understatement. The vehicle the government believed would make them a reality, the soon-to-be created Canada Infrastructure Bank, has since gone through multiple iterations without delivering the kind of partnerships originally envisioned. But the desire to court the country’s financial heavy-hitters and leverage their deep pockets for the national interest has persisted, turning into something of quixotic obsession for Trudeau’s Liberals.

The latest episode began with November’s Fall Economic