The head of a Dutch investing giant says he’s hopeful that Canada and the Netherlands could soon agree to mutually eliminate taxes on investments made by pension funds from their respective countries.

Mark Siezen, the CEO of Bouwinvest, was in Ottawa earlier this month for a series of meetings with senior government officials to secure support for the firm’s proposal for the reciprocal elimination of taxes on pension fund investors.

He said in an interview on Thursday that he left those meetings feeling that “things are going to start moving quite quickly,” opening the door for a potential announcement should Dutch Prime Minister Rob Jetten make a rumoured visit to Canada in the coming months.

“I’m actually quite bullish [and] quite positive. There’s been a lot of momentum in the Netherlands since we got a new government in February.”

A Canadian government source offered a more cautious assessment of discussions.

The source, who spoke on the condition of background to share candid details, told iPolitics the government was assessing the proposal from Bouwinvest but it wasn’t at a serious stage, and nothing imminent was expected.

They said the government agreed to discuss the matter because they’re open to hearing out any credible proposals, and that Bouwinvest’s interest shows how attractive of a destination Canada has become for foreign investors.

The Canadian and Dutch governments didn’t immediately respond to questions about a potential visit by Jetten.

Siezen said his firm’s proposal perfectly aligns with Prime Minister Mark Carney’s push to diversify Canada’s trade partners as well as his speech in Davos calling for greater cooperation amongst middle powers.

Much like Canada, the Netherlands has seen home prices surge in recent years, and political leadership in both countries blame limited supply and the slow pace of building new housing.

Siezen said both governments are turning to institutional investors for the necessary capital to move forward with major housing development, something that could be made easier if foreign pension funds faced fewer barriers to invest.

This could also unlock new funding channels for other priorities.

Siezen said he initially focused on housing during his first meetings in Ottawa last fall, but quickly came to realize that Canada is also looking to secure investment in transportation and energy infrastructure, and the defence sector.

“These are typically investments that pension funds like to do as well, because their long-term contracts, they’re stable [and] they give good cash flows,” he said.

“I think there was a realization that this could help.”

On the most recent trip to Ottawa earlier this month, Bouwinvest held several meetings with officials from the Prime Minister’s Office, Finance Canada, the federal housing minister’s office and Natural Resources Canada, according to mandatory public disclosures in the federal lobbyist registry.

Siezen said officials from the Dutch embassy joined him for these meetings.

The Dutch Embassy didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday.

Bouwinvest focuses primarily on real estate and oversees $17.8 billion Euros in assets.

The company has already invested in housing projects in Metro Vancouver but Siezen said Canada could become a more attractive market if it treated the firm like a domestic institutional investor.

Investments made by Canadian pension plans are exempted from income taxes as long as they remain part of the plan.

For foreign institutional investors, Ottawa hits them with a 25 per cent withholding tax, though this depends on the location of the pension fund as some countries have specific tax treaties with Canada that lower this rate.

Silas Xuereb, a policy analyst and economist with the Canadians for Tax Fairness, told iPolitics earlier this week that favouring domestic pension funds makes sense because it encourages them to invest in Canada.

This means that Canadians can “have more control over what we invest in and ensure that pension capital fills the needs of Canadians, as opposed to the interests of foreign capital,” he said in an email.

Xuereb said Canadian pension funds aren’t short on cash — they collectively manage an estimated $4.5 trillion in assets. The problem, he explained, is that they’re not spending in this country, with three-fourths of the investments made by the eight biggest funds located outside of Canada.

“Instead of providing more tax breaks, which are an unproven way to stimulate investment, we should require our own pension funds to invest more within Canada,” he said.

“We can even ask them to invest in needed sectors, such as in affordable housing which is sorely needed to alleviate our housing crisis.”

Xuereb added that the Netherlands is “widely regarded as a tax haven and providing tax breaks through bilateral treaties is known to contribute to the abuse of tax havens.” He urged Canada to instead “negotiate international tax issues through the UN Tax Convention instead of bilateral treaties.”

Siezen said he’s heard the same argument about foreign pension funds at home in the Netherlands and other Western economies, but warned that all require significant capital and should partner with like-minded countries that share their values.

Signing a tax deal with the Netherlands could also pave the way for future deals with other countries in Europe eager to invest in Canada, he added.

“If we get this done, it could be a great blueprint for doing similar type of treaties with other countries as well. There’s Scandinavian money, there’s this German money, there’s Irish money,” Siezen said.

“If we can continue that integration between the middle powers of our investable universe, that’s really going to help.”