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    In a Shakespeare play there is a famous line that says “There’s something rotten in the State of Denmark. There’s also something rotten in the state of Canada and it centres around the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) and the state of investments in Canada.

    CPP is supposed to invest in relatively safe investment so as to get a good return on the CPP funds and to give Canadians a solid pension income for life. The good people will tell you that they invest where they can get the best return for the CPP money.

    In 2005, CPP invested 74 per cent in Canadian stocks, businesses etc. In 2025 it had dropped to 12 percent. Take a guess where 47 percent of the CPP money is invested now? The United States of America.

    To me that is Something Rotten. It’s a crying shame that Canada has such a poor return on investments that our own CPP fund now only invests 12 percent in Canada, 47percent in the US and 41 percent in other parts of the world.

    As a former top Finance Department official, Susan Peterson played a key role years ago in creating the stable Canada Pension Plan that we see today. But even she was surprised by the numbers.

    A few weeks ago, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) revealed that 12 per cent of the CPP’s assets are invested in Canada — its lowest level ever. The largest chunk of its $714-billion fund, 47 percent, is currently invested in the United States — its highest level ever. Peterson doesn’t think she’s the only one surprised. “If Canadians knew out of the $714 billion such a miniscule amount was invested in Canada, I think they would say, whoa, what’s wrong with this picture.”

    Further reading and searching of history shows that investments outside of Canada are far more profitable than ones in Canada. So from a strict investment point of view, it seems that it would make sense to not invest in Canada.

    Somehow that seems so wrong to a Canadian mind like mine. Canada decries that we are so dependent on the US markets but would it not make sense that since Canada depends so heavily on US markets that we create the investment environment so that everybody, including CPP would want to invest in Canada.

    Lately, I have been given to say that “Good enough isn’t good enough.Excellence should be our goal.”

    If our own CPP fund won’t invest in Canada, why would anyone else invest? I welcome comments and insights on this question.

    Disclaimer: The views expressed in this column are the writer’s personal views and are not to be taken as being the view of the newspaper staff.