March 03, 2026— After multiple years spent fighting for scarce volume, Canadian equity trading desks are seeing more turnover, greater buzz and heightened activity.
Following a 12-month period in 2025 that saw nearly 30% market gains, a 36% jump in trading volumes and a 6% increase in commissions earned by brokers on trades of Canadian stocks, buy-side trading desks say the Canadian equity market has now fully re-awakened from its post-pandemic lull.
“Trading desks are again being considered as enablers of alpha rather than cost centers,” says Jesse Forster, Senior Analyst in Market Structure & Technology at Crisil Coalition Greenwich and author of Canadian equity market trends 2025: Comfort is key to provider selection.
Last year’s growth in commissions brought the total amount paid to brokers on trades of Canadian equities to $505 million, the highest level since 2021.
Despite that growth, it appears that institutional investors have not forgotten the hard lessons learned during the pandemic slowdown. Canadian managers remain highly selective in how they allocate commissions among competing brokers. Their approach is pragmatic, extracting maximum value from every dollar spent, with a clear preference for top-tier customer service and advanced trading technologies.
“We continue to see a flight to quality, as funds concentrate flow to a small set of providers that can deliver consistently across prime brokerage, research and corporate access in addition to execution,” says Jesse Forster. “As a result, broker concentration remains high, with the typical institution’s lead broker capturing 20% of trade flows and the top five capturing about 60%.”
Algorithmic Trading: Growth, But Not “Runaway” Growth
After a brief pullback during the pandemic, Canadian institutions have resumed their gradual adoption of algorithmic trading. Algo trading now represents about 27% of Canadian equity trading volume. When choosing an algo provider, institutions are seeking stability and trust, with ease-of-use, reliability, and provider support ranking as the top selection criteria.
Institutions expect algo trading to increase to 30% of volume in the next three years.
“The Canadian market still doesn’t see the runaway electronification occurring in other regions, and some head traders suggest they may be reaching a comfort ceiling at close to a third of overall flows,” says Jesse Forster.
Across all execution channels, Canadian institutions are shifting their focus from broker performance, which might be seen as becoming commoditized, to customization and workflow experience. Broker capital commitment still matters more to institutions in Canada than in the U.S., especially for episodic liquidity and reducing shortfall in tougher names.
Finally, CSA adoption is growing. The share of Canadian institutions employing CSAs increased seven percentage points last year to 70%, enabling payment to a wider vendor ecosystem and sometimes acting as a practical workaround to slow onboarding.
Canadian equity market trends 2025: Comfort is key to provider selection presents the results of the 2025 Canadian Equity Investors Study. The report analyzes how institutions allocate their Canadian equity trading volume across execution channels and brokers, and how institutions select brokers for both high-touch and electronic/algorithmic trades.