Geopolitics, infrastructure investment and mid-sized fund access dominate the agenda as ACPM's sold-out conference opens in Montreal this week
The Association of Canadian Pension Management (ACPM) could have spent its 50th anniversary looking backward, celebrating all the work the pension industry has achieved so far. Instead, its organizers have built the entire 2026 conference around a forward-facing question: what happens next?
As Hubert Tremblay, partner and senior wealth advisor at Marsh and member of the ACPM National Planning Committee explains, this year’s conference theme of "Toward the Future" was a deliberate choice in a year marked by geopolitical friction, trade disruption, and mounting pressure on institutional investors to participate in national infrastructure.
The three-day conference, which begins September 22 in Montreal, is structured to address those forces head-on across three plenaries, 12 workshops and a "spotlight session" with former deputy prime minister and premier of Québec, Jean Charest.
"We've been there for fifty years, but what we have in mind is the next 50 years because we know there's so many brutal events happening everywhere," said Tremblay. "It would have been easy to look back at all the accomplishments of the industry, of the organization, partners of the organization and all that but we really wanted to consider how we will face these realities," he said.
Korinne Collins, CEO of ACPM, echoed Tremblay’s view, noting the scale of what the pension industry still has in front of it.
"To think of any industry that needs to look into the future, pensions is probably one of the biggest as far as looking at the demographics," she said. "This industry does not do well by looking in the rearview mirror. We've taken care of a lot of members in the past 50 years, but we have a lot to take care of 50 years and going forward."
Investment access tops the agenda
To that end, Tremblay suggests the larger question facing the industry is access to investment and the timing of ACPM’s conference is notably ironic, given Prime Minister Mark Carney's recent Canada Investment Summit, which took place September 15-16. While Canada's biggest pension funds have already been drawn into national interest infrastructure projects, he argued the real challenge is whether mid-sized plans can follow the same path.
"For me, that's something really important, and that's why one of the sessions will be looking at the experience from very large investors in these types of projects and one aspect will be how can this flow to midsize investors?" said Tremblay, adding he anticipates these discussions to run through both the formal sessions and the informal conversations on the conference floor.
To that end, the second day of the conference will open with a plenary on this topic, which will pair senior representatives from La Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec and the Canada Infrastructure Bank, two institutions that collaborate on some fronts but weigh risk differently, noted Tremblay. He also expects investment to be the dominant theme across the entire conference this year, given the current geopolitical and trade climate.
The geopolitical session leads off the conference and Collins said the planning committee gave speakers a clear directive.
"We said, 'Don't do a ton of slides because you might need to talk about what happened the week before.' Anyone on our plenary needs to be able to pivot," she noted.
How sessions are structured
According to Tremblay, the conference operates on three distinct levels. The plenaries set the tone with broad, strategic ideas while the 12 workshops sit a tier below - still focused on significant themes but more targeted, with government representatives present in some sessions, giving delegates a sense that they can shape policy direction.
A third layer is more technical, offering practical, real-time information that attendees can apply to the day-to-day management of their plans. He sees that structure as deliberate where delegates can think at scale, engage on issues where they have influence, and walk away with concrete actions for their own environments.
What's new at this year’s conference
Beyond the formal agenda, the conference introduces a few firsts. ACPM has launched an Emerging Leaders in Pensions Award, with three winners receiving complimentary conference passes and dedicated networking time over breakfast. Meanwhile, a new Pension Academy, a full-day trustee education program, runs the day before the main event.
Tremblay pointed to a less visible but significant operational change, noting AI-powered live translation will be included across all sessions.
"It allows us to have French-speaking or English-speaking speakers during the conference and they can deliver their message in the language they want, and they will be heard by everybody through the AI automatic translation," he said. "We have sessions on use of AI for the pension industry so I feel like we're showing a good example ourselves."
Collaboration over competition
Meanwhile, Collins said the pension industry's collaborative nature is what makes the networking at ACPM events as valuable as the sessions themselves. Unlike sectors where participants are direct competitors, delegates at ACPM tend to share openly, whether it's actuaries working through new mortality rate projections or provincial groups comparing notes on jurisdictional issues.
"I find the industry to be quite collaborative. For the most part, we don't compete with one another," she said. "The networking and the relationships in the room are very key and the working together."
Tremblay agreed, adding attendees "appreciate this quite a lot because they hear things in the sessions and then they can exchange on this in the networking portion, and they can even share their own experience one with the other," he said.
While Collins acknowledged the conference is built first around substance for senior tenures, she noted the 50th anniversary warrants some celebration too, particularly as the venue sits at the edge of Old Montreal, with the back of the building along Rue Saint-Jacques.
"That is really where Canadian financial services started," she said. "So we do want to give a nod to the location we're in and the uniqueness of Montreal and the history that it brings."
According to Tremblay and Collins, the conference has officially sold out, reaching its highest-ever registration count of 470 delegates, even surpassing last year’s record. Collins said the aim has always been to make the event as accessible as possible across the industry, rather than create scarcity, adding that a waitlist is still active.
"It was a great challenge for the organization committee this year to make it even bigger than last year. We had some good backwind with us because the 50th anniversary of an organization is quite something," said Tremblay.
"I think the number of registrations demonstrates that we were successful in building a good lineup, good speakers, good topics. People will be really enthusiastic about the conference and being together. I can't wait to see this crowd all together this week," he added.
