Does investing locally matter to Canadians amid tariff war?

A Vancouver-based company hopes Canadians look to keep some of their investment dollars local and create an impact — even as the trend of money flowing south of the border looks set to continue into 2026.

In 2025, the “Buy Canadian” movement took off amid the ongoing tariff war and U.S. President Donald Trump’s public threats to make the country the 51st state.

But despite the surge in interest in Canadian products, the country’s investors steadfastly continued to park their financial assets offshore this year — with much of it in the U.S.

One financial adviser says that just like buying Canadian, the idea of investing domestically may have cooled off since the beginning of 2025.

Daisy Mak, a certified financial planner at Vancouver Financial Planners, said a broad swath of her clients came to her looking to invest Canadian assets when Trump was re-elected.

“My advice was just to point out, ‘OK, so how do you think we’re gonna do this?’” Mak said.

“We can’t 100 per cent divest away from the U.S.,” she added. “It’s just not practical and it’s not realistic.”

Mak said that despite Canada’s banking and insurance sectors continuing to be a wise investment decision, the country still has to catch up in other sectors like technology or pharmaceuticals.

While investing in Canada should be a part of your portfolio, she explained it should be a smaller part of a diversified portfolio that takes other countries into account.

“It’s one thing to say, ‘I’m gonna go all Canadian,’ but … I feel like you’re cutting off your nose to spite your face,” the financial planner said.

Hopes for local investments

Statistics Canada recently revealed U.S. financial assets accounted for $111 billion of the foreign securities acquired by Canadians in the first three quarters of 2025.

That works out to be 92 per cent of the total, with Canada recording a net outflow of $61.9 billion from January to September when it came to securities transactions.

Despite the overwhelming trends, Blake Bunting, the Vancouver-based co-founder of GoParity Canada, says his online investment platform felt the surge in Canadian patriotism this year.

“A lot of folks want to be investing, and making a return on their investment, but knowing that money actually is doing something positive for the community,” he said.

GoParity calls itself a “community capital” or crowd-lending platform, where Bunting says users usually chip in between $1,500 and $2,500 to help community projects with loans.

The investors then earn money on the interest from the loans, with projects as diverse as clean energy on Vancouver Island or an Indigenous-run daycare in Stephenville, N.S.

“It’s not moving all of your assets into supporting small businesses, it’s a portion of that — to know that … you can have a really outsized impact compared to, say, the majority of your portfolio,” Bunting said.

Responsible investing still valued

A Nov. 25 report from the Responsible Investment Association found that for wealth managers, it remained important that investments are well-certified through an environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) framework.

Over 80 Canadian asset and investment managers indicated in the survey that greenhouse gas emissions and climate change mitigation remained amongst the top considerations when making their organization’s investment decisions, despite a pushback championed by Trump on net zero policies.

But the report notes “negative media coverage” of responsible investment from other jurisdictions is the top factor that could deter the growth of responsible investing.

“This isn’t necessarily a surprise given the myriad of anti-ESG headlines witnessed over the last year,” the report shared.

“Mistrust/concerns about greenwashing was surpassed by negative media coverage and is now much less of a concern.”

WATCH | How to tell if your investments are really green:

How to keep your investments fossil-fuel free

Investors may be keen to put their money in greener portfolios, but a lack of standardization in the financial industry can make it difficult. Nisha Patel explains how to tell if those investments are really green.

For Bunting, his platform offers more than a way for investors to feel like they’re supporting environmentally-sustainable projects, like a rooftop solar project in Port Hardy.

He says offering small businesses smaller-scale funding options like GoParity means they can get help at a time when money is tight.

“There’s no shortage of businesses that are looking for financing that don’t quite meet the bank’s criteria,” he said.

“This is a market that is growing fast in Canada, and it continues to grow,” he added. “And … it’s not even really competing against banks, we’re filling gaps where the banks aren’t.”