Paul Desmarais III said he wants to “stay far out of” the debate over whether Canadian pension funds should invest more in Canadian companies. But at a Canadian Club event in downtown Toronto on Tuesday, Desmarais—the CEO of Power Corporation-linked alternative asset-management firm Sagard and scion of the influential Desmarais family—said a requirement to invest a certain percentage of assets in Canada could “really hurt all Canadians” in the absence of policies to create homegrown investment opportunities.

“A no-brainer”: Desmarais said “there’s just not that many” large investments to make in Canada. One way to address that, he said, would be to privatize infrastructure such as airports. “That feels to me like a bit of a no-brainer. But somehow, that doesn’t happen,” he said. “If you want the large pools of capital to invest in Canada, you need to make accessible large investment opportunities.” The comments stand in contrast to those more than 100 of his peers in the business community made in a March 6 open letter calling on the government to encourage pension funds to put more money into Canadian companies.

A whole new world: Like everyone else in the business world, Desmarais has his eye on artificial intelligence. Through Sagard and its affiliated firm Portage, which Desmarais co-founded, Power Corp. has holdings in some of Canada’s highest-profile fintechs, including Koho, Clearco and Borrowell. Desmarais said “one vision that inspires me” is the possibility that AI-powered large language models could drive the cost of customer service down to zero. He said there’s “a big gap” in AI adoption between fintechs and incumbent financial institutions that gives the likes of Wealthsimple an advantage.

More like slow-pen banking, folks: Canada has been “very slow on the trigger” in implementing open banking, a long-delayed set of rules that would let people securely share their financial data with approved third parties such as fintechs and loan providers. “That ultimately harms consumers,” he said. Desmarais said he’s not spending his time leaning on politicians over the file, however: “I view any form of politics… as a huge distraction.”

PDIII to be you and me: Desmarais opened up about life as a key figure in one of Canada’s highest-profile family businesses. He said his parents instilled in him the importance of humility and hard work at a young age, sending him to build barbed-wire fences in Alberta as a teenager and to a factory in France to make roof tiles. (His own four children, the oldest of whom is 13, have not yet been sent to the tile shop, he said.) Desmarais said the nickname “PDIII” has been gaining popularity among his contacts in Toronto, which his father, former Power Corp. CEO Paul Desmarais Jr., finds very amusing. “My dad was making fun of me” about it, the younger Desmarais said.