Chief Investment Officer at Franklin Templeton's ClearBridge Investments (Calgary), managing over $8B with a 30-year exclusive focus on Canadian equities. Guest on In the Money with Amber Kanwar. Running synthesis of his appearances, with per-transcript breakdowns and a stock index.
Pro pick: collision-repair roll-up down 35% on soft same-store sales (not AI); bought repeatedly through the fall — punished far more than warranted, with an IR/communication problem he thinks is fixable.
Bought into peak rail negativity because "there's nothing structurally broken" — +40% and at 52-week highs after the Union Pacific access deal; still a holder, not yet trimming, but in the later innings of the relative trade.
Go-to Canadian oil name and his biggest energy weight — bought April 2025 with "no catalyst" when the sector was out of favour (+72%); would still add at the margin on an "oil high for longer" view.
Owns it through the "SaaS apocalypse" de-rating; wrong short term but the numbers are still intact and he's "closer to being buyers than sellers" — while discounting management's reassurance.
Core non-bank financial — an "incredibly well-run, high-quality franchise" that lagged the banks; added on the early-2026 swoon and still sees solid return potential despite softening P&C conditions.
Long-held quality compounder trimmed less than Loblaw — predictable profitability and modest growth; not the cheapest name he owns but "the story's not broken" and it still warrants a portfolio role.
Pro pick: 20-year growth-by-acquisition engineering compounder at its lowest since 2023 on a few points of US organic-growth shortfall plus AI fear — "we will make a lot of money from here."
Pro pick: refused it at ~30× EV/EBITDA, buying now at 12–13× after a 60% AI-terminal-risk de-rating — "close to 50 cents on the dollar," a margin of safety wide enough to win even if growth slows.
Owner and Q2 adder — the AI / prediction-market bear case on the exchange is a stretch; TMX is "a pretty entrenched franchise" and erosion of dominance is not in his base case.
One of four banks held but underweight and modestly trimmed each quarter as a source of cash — a high-quality franchise whose forward multiple sits near all-time highs; the concern is price, not fundamentals.
Still "the anchor utility name" and superbly executed, but he agrees with the CIBC downgrade that it's no longer cheap — has been trimming utilities for a year, in hindsight a bit early.
Bore the brunt of his aggressive post-rerate grocer trimming — only a modest position left; nothing broken, purely valuation discipline, and the old food-inflation trade is now a political football.
Initiated May 2024 on the improved free-cash-flow profile; a formidable moat with no disruption visible in the numbers, but he won't argue it's cheap — "if it was cheaper, we would definitely own more."
Held, underweight, trimmed at the margin on valuation — sees "a lot of validity" in the "banks are our AI bubble" case while maintaining the business is fine long term.
Context only — the counterparty to CN's "very constructive" deal: CN dropped its opposition to the UNP/Norfolk Southern merger in exchange for market access to part of UNP's network.
Named as "in the same boat" as Stantec — a Canadian engineering consultancy caught in the same AI-disruption de-rating; a peer reference rather than a rated position.
In one line: Canadian equities are in their golden years — but the returns were made through multiple expansion, so they've been "pulled forward" from the future; the job now is to keep full exposure while recycling out of the crowded winners (banks, utilities) and into high-quality businesses the market is afraid of, with no catalyst required.
"These are the golden years" — and that's the problem. Canadian equities have delivered 15–20% a year for lengthy stretches, well above what the fundamentals justify. The old discount to the US has closed and the index yield now sits below bond yields. "We're borrowing from the future… what that portends is more difficult returns going forward."
Fully invested, so every buy is funded by a trim. He doesn't go to cash — "we are not the market." Instead he ranks holdings by price extremity against their own history and trims the ones at record forward multiples, modestly and repeatedly, to fund the buy list. Currently that means the four banks (BMO, TD, Royal, Scotia) and the utilities.
Quality where the sector is feared, and no catalyst required. The signature move: "at the risk of sounding glib, often we'll say and there is no catalyst — but if the stocks are cheap and the businesses are good, that's when we want to be active." It produced the April-2025 energy call (CNQ, Cenovus; TSX energy +73% since) and now points at the AI-derated cohort.
Structural vs cyclical is the binary that decides everything. "There's nothing structurally broken. They're facing headwinds… that's the time to be more interested in the stock and we'll wait for better days." Whole-industry weakness is cyclical evidence; permanent share loss to a new model would be structural.
Narrative must show up in the numbers. He is "really not in that camp" on AI disruption — but equally refuses the fully bullish AI story and won't claim a five-to-ten-year crystal ball. As a fundamental investor he wants disruption visible in reported results before repricing a business (Shopify, CGI, TMX, Stantec all still pass).
Margin of safety, quantified. He keeps a list of excellent businesses he declined on price and buys them when a shock de-rates them enough — Thomson Reuters from ~30× EV/EBITDA to 12–13×, "close to 50 cents on the dollar." If right, "outsized returns probably for the next decade"; if wrong, the discount still leaves a decent return.
Meet management — then discount them. "Management teams can get too close to their own story… they'll be the last to know when the bad news finally arrives because they can't see the forest for the trees."
Roll-ups are judged on price paid, not deal pace. Private equity has bid up acquisition multiples, so "we don't want to see Stantec or anybody just do acquisitions for the sake of acquisitions. They've got to make the numbers work" — the names must work on organic growth alone.
Energy over banks from here. Oil is harder to handicap, but "I can certainly see scenarios where oil is high for longer, not necessarily higher for longer" — and in that world these stocks "have room to go a fair bit higher."
Transcripts
One dated page per appearance — each has its full stock table, talking points, and the saved transcript. Newest first.
Garey Aitken appearances discovered via the In the Money / Amber Kanwar feed (guest-routed), not yet processed — verify publish dates and resolve the video URL before processing.
Date
Title
Show / channel
Len
Video
2025-APR-22
Prior appearance — pro picks CNQ, CN Rail, Fortis (the "all in on energy" call weeks after liberation day)
In the Money with Amber Kanwar
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— (URL not yet resolved; referenced throughout the 2026-JUL-28 episode)