17 Stocks Canadians Are Holding for Stability — But Should They Be?

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When growth starts looking softer, Canadian portfolios often drift toward the same familiar names: banks with fortress reputations, pipelines with fat dividends, utilities with regulated cash flow, telecoms with recurring bills, and staple retailers that seem hard to shake. That instinct is understandable. The Bank of Canada’s latest outlook still points to moderate growth, a softer labour market, and lingering inflation pressure, which is exactly the sort of backdrop that makes “stable” stocks feel comforting.

But stability is not the same thing as immunity. This group of 17 stocks includes many businesses with real strengths, yet each also carries a pressure point that can matter more when the economy slows: credit losses, debt, regulation, pricing pressure, weather risk, or simple overreliance on a dependable old narrative. The question is not whether these companies are weak. It is whether the reason they are being held still matches the risk now sitting underneath them.

Royal Bank of Canada

Royal Bank is still the kind of name many Canadians instinctively trust when markets get noisy. That confidence is not hard to understand. It is massive, well-capitalized, and increasingly driven by businesses that can produce fee income beyond plain-vanilla lending. Recent results showed a CET1 ratio of 13.7%, while wealth management and capital markets continue to help diversify earnings. On the surface, that looks like exactly what a stability stock should look like: scale, capital strength, and multiple engines under one roof.

The wrinkle is that large banks do not become defensive by magic. They become defensive only if loan losses stay contained and capital-markets activity remains healthy. RBC’s first-quarter 2026 provisions for credit losses rose year over year, with pressure showing up in personal banking and capital markets. That does not make the bank fragile, but it does mean the old assumption that a blue-chip bank is automatically a low-drama hold deserves a second look. RBC may still be a quality anchor, just not a risk-free one.

Toronto-Dominion Bank

TD has long been one of the default “sleep well at night” names in Canadian portfolios. It has a huge retail footprint, a recognizable brand, and a dividend culture that made it feel almost utility-like in many retirement accounts. Even after a bruising period, that old habit of treating TD as a conservative core holding remains strong. Many investors still see the U.S. business as a source of scale that should smooth results over time.

The problem is that stability depends on trust as much as earnings, and TD is still paying for its anti-money-laundering failures in the United States. The bank has said significant remediation work remains through 2026 and 2027, and it still expects roughly US$500 million in 2026 pre-tax spending tied to that effort. A stock can be large, profitable, and still be less stable than its reputation suggests when management attention, expenses, and regulatory scrutiny are all pulled toward repair work. TD may recover well, but it is no longer the uncomplicated safe haven many still imagine.

Scotiabank

Scotiabank’s appeal has always been a little different from the rest of the Big Six. It offers bank-like familiarity, but with a more international earnings profile that many investors once viewed as an added layer of diversification. In good periods, that exposure can look attractive, especially when wealth management and capital markets are also improving. Its CET1 ratio remained solid at 13.3% in early 2026, and recent segment results showed respectable contributions from international banking and wealth.

Yet international exposure cuts both ways when stability is the goal. Scotiabank has been actively reshaping its footprint, including exiting banking operations in Colombia, Costa Rica, and Panama and recognizing a sizable loss on completion of that sale. Mexico remains strategically important, but it also ties the bank more tightly to a region that can face sharper political, currency, and operating swings than domestic Canadian banking. Scotiabank is not necessarily unstable. It is just less plain and predictable than investors sometimes assume when they file it mentally under “defensive bank.”

Bank of Montreal

BMO still gets treated as a classic Canadian portfolio cornerstone, and there are sound reasons for that. It is large, diversified, and increasingly North American in scope. The bank reported total assets of about $1.5 trillion in its 2025 annual report, and its recent results showed improving performance in wealth, capital markets, and U.S. banking. For investors who want a bank that is more than a domestic mortgage story, BMO continues to look like a sophisticated, broad-based holding.

But the same U.S. reach that gives BMO growth potential also makes the stability story more conditional. Its first-quarter 2026 performance benefited from lower provisions for credit losses and stronger U.S. banking earnings, yet muted loan demand and macro sensitivity still hover in the background. Expansion south of the border can be rewarding, but it also ties the bank more tightly to the U.S. cycle and the execution burden of integrating and optimizing a larger cross-border franchise. BMO can absolutely remain a core holding, though it is better understood as a managed growth bank than as a purely defensive one.

Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce

CIBC often looks like the quietest member of the big-bank group. That image has helped it win a place in portfolios built around dividends, domestic familiarity, and the feeling that boring is beautiful. Recent numbers did little to upset that picture on the surface: first-quarter 2026 provision for credit losses was $568 million, slightly below the year-earlier quarter, and capital-markets activity gave earnings a welcome boost. In a market that rewards calm, CIBC still presents itself well.

What investors sometimes miss is how concentrated that calm can be. CIBC remains more tied to the Canadian consumer and domestic commercial cycle than some peers with broader global fee businesses. Its impaired-loan provisions rose in Canadian commercial banking, wealth management, and personal and business banking even as total provisioning held fairly steady. That is not a crisis signal, but it is a reminder that a bank can look stable because it is familiar, not because its earnings are especially shock-resistant. If the slowdown deepens through households and small business, CIBC’s “safe” image could feel thinner than expected.

Enbridge

Enbridge has probably done more than almost any other Canadian company to cement the idea that yield equals stability. Pipelines, utility assets, and an enormous project network make it easy to see why income investors keep coming back. The company reported a secured backlog of roughly $39 billion and expects about $8 billion of projects to enter service in 2026. Add in the scale of its oil and gas infrastructure and it becomes easy to understand why many portfolios treat Enbridge like a bond with better branding.

Still, Enbridge is not a fixed-income substitute. It is a capital-intensive operator whose stability depends on execution, regulation, and continued access to financing on acceptable terms. Its size protects it, but that same size requires steady reinvestment and makes future returns more dependent on approved growth projects and energy demand trends. Enbridge may remain sturdy through a slowdown, especially relative to producers, yet the stock is less “set it and forget it” than the dividend history can make it seem. It is stable infrastructure, yes, but infrastructure with real leverage, real project risk, and real sensitivity to sentiment.

TC Energy

TC Energy feels reassuring for a similar reason: long-lived assets, contracted cash flow, and a dividend track record that encourages investors to think in decades instead of quarters. The company raised its dividend for the 26th consecutive year and talked about allocating roughly $6 billion of net annual capital expenditures through 2030. For many holders, that sounds like exactly the kind of durable planning that belongs in a stability bucket, particularly now that the company is more focused after reshaping its portfolio.

But the more focused natural-gas profile is also what complicates the defensive label. TC Energy is leaning into rising gas and power demand, which could work well, especially with LNG and data-center-related needs growing. Yet that also makes the future less about plain preservation and more about capital deployment, commercial negotiations, and continued throughput strength. This is not the same as owning a sleepy regulated utility. TC Energy may prove resilient, but it is still tied to large project economics, policy risk, and demand assumptions that can look different in a slower economy than they do in an upbeat investor deck.

Fortis

Fortis has earned its reputation the old-fashioned way. It owns regulated utilities, keeps the story understandable, and continues to point investors toward rate base growth and measured dividend increases rather than dramatic reinvention. Its five-year capital plan now sits at $28.8 billion, with midyear rate base expected to climb from $42.4 billion in 2025 to $57.9 billion by 2030. That is exactly the type of language income-focused investors like to hear, because it suggests visibility rather than surprise.

Even so, Fortis is safer than most equities, not safer than circumstances. Its growth plan still needs supportive regulation, workable financing costs, and execution across multiple jurisdictions. When interest rates stay higher than expected or regulators push back on what utilities can recover from customers, the market tends to remember that even regulated earnings have friction. Fortis remains one of the more genuinely defensive names on this list, but the right question is not whether it is stable. The right question is whether investors are paying a premium for that stability and underestimating the way financing and regulatory decisions can chip away at the old certainty.

Emera

Emera is another name that often gets grouped with Canada’s dependable utility cohort, and not without reason. It ended 2025 with about $45 billion in total assets, roughly 2.7 million customers, and a business mix tied heavily to regulated electric and gas utilities. Its 2025 adjusted net income rose to $1.045 billion, and management extended its average adjusted EPS growth target of 5% to 7% through 2030. Those are the sorts of figures that make a utility stock feel built for turbulent times.

The caution lies in where those results come from and what can interrupt them. Emera’s earnings profile leans meaningfully on Florida through Tampa Electric, while other pieces of the business remain exposed to weather, fuel, and jurisdiction-specific rate outcomes. Even the company’s strong 2025 result came with offsets from lower earnings at Nova Scotia Power and noise tied to asset sales and currency translation. That does not undermine the business, but it does challenge the idea that a utility label alone guarantees smoothness. Emera can still work as a stability holding, though investors should treat it as a regulated operator with regional concentration, not as a pure low-volatility machine.

Hydro One

Hydro One has one of the cleanest stability pitches in the market. It is Ontario’s largest transmission and distribution utility, it serves about 1.5 million customers, and it brought in roughly $9 billion in annual revenue in 2025. It also invested $3.4 billion into its network that year. Those are not speculative-growth numbers. They are the sort of figures that make the stock feel almost infrastructural in the most comforting sense of the word.

Yet Hydro One’s calm depends heavily on the regulatory and political environment surrounding Ontario electricity. Demand for power is rising, which is good for long-term investment needs, but rate recovery and approved returns still matter enormously. A company can be essential and still be boxed in by what regulators allow it to earn. Hydro One’s role in the province gives it a durable moat, but it also ensures that public-policy scrutiny never goes away. For investors seeking stability, Hydro One still belongs in the conversation. The catch is that it is a policy-shaped stability, not a completely market-independent one.

BCE

BCE might be the clearest example of how a “safe stock” story can age badly if investors do not update it. For years, Bell’s combination of recurring telecom revenue and a large dividend gave it near-sacred status in conservative Canadian accounts. That image was damaged in a very public way when the company cut its annualized common dividend for 2025 by 56.1%, reducing it to $1.75 from $3.99. A stock can survive that kind of move, but its old stability aura does not survive intact.

There is still a real business here. BCE generated billions in free cash flow in 2025 and is trying to create new growth avenues, including a major Saskatchewan AI data-centre project. But the operating picture also shows what the old thesis ignored: legacy subscriber erosion, competitive pressure, heavy capital demands, and a balance sheet that needed relief. BCE may eventually become a more disciplined company because of the reset. What it should not be called anymore is an unquestioned safe-income hold. That label belonged to an earlier version of the story.

TELUS

TELUS still looks, at first glance, like the stronger telecom alternative. It has over $20 billion in annual revenue, more than 21 million customer connections, and a broader story than consumer wireless alone thanks to health, agriculture, and digital services. Its leverage ratio improved to 3.4 times from 3.9, which matters in a sector where debt can dominate the whole investment case. On paper, that sounds like a company working its way back toward a more stable footing.

The catch is that telecom stability in Canada is being tested by pricing pressure, capital intensity, and the simple fact that balance-sheet repair can take longer than investors want. TELUS also paused dividend growth in late 2025 while keeping the quarterly dividend unchanged, a prudent move that nevertheless signaled the old formula was under strain. The company is not in the same position as BCE was before its cut, but it is also not the effortless income compounder many investors still picture. TELUS may be the sturdier telecom here, yet even that is a relative judgment, not a guarantee.

Canadian National Railway

CN Rail has all the ingredients of a classic defensive-quality stock: a network that would be almost impossible to replicate, strong operating discipline, and a business woven into the economic life of the country. That is why investors often treat it as a stability name even though it is not high-yielding. When a company owns scarce infrastructure and can move everything from grain to containers, it naturally earns a premium reputation.

What slows the “safe” narrative is the fact that railroads are still economically sensitive. CN’s first-quarter 2026 revenue slipped 1%, while its operating ratio moved higher, reminding investors that industrial demand, trade conditions, and operating costs still matter. A rail stock is often safer than a cyclical manufacturer, but it is not insulated from a weaker freight environment. In a slowdown, CN can remain high quality and still disappoint if shipment volumes soften or margins stop improving. That makes it a durable long-term holding, but not the sort of pure ballast some investors assume they own.

Loblaw Companies

Loblaw feels defensive for obvious reasons: people keep buying groceries, prescriptions, and everyday household items whether the economy is booming or not. The company’s 2025 operating statistics backed that up, with food same-store sales up 2.3% and drug retail same-store sales up 3.9%. Add in the strength of discount banners and the pharmacy business, and the stock can look like one of the safest consumer names available on the TSX.

But slowdown resilience is not the same as immunity from changing consumer behaviour. Loblaw’s fourth-quarter 2025 revenue missed expectations as shoppers grew more cautious, especially outside the most essential categories. That is a revealing detail. It shows the company can benefit when consumers trade down, yet still face pressure if baskets become more selective and discretionary spending fades. Loblaw can absolutely defend earnings better than many retailers, but its stability case depends on value positioning, execution, and public tolerance around food pricing. It is strong, yes, though not as untouchable as a “people always need groceries” slogan can make it sound.

Metro Inc.

Metro rarely gets the same attention as Loblaw, and that quietness is part of the appeal. Its business is simpler, its grocery-and-pharmacy mix is familiar, and the company continues to post the kind of steady growth that conservative investors appreciate. Fiscal 2025 sales reached about $22.0 billion, up 3.7%, with discount and pharmacy helping carry the year. In the latest quarter, food same-store sales rose 1.8% and pharmacy same-store sales climbed 5.1%, while online food sales continued to grow strongly.

That said, Metro’s steadiness is still tied to consumer pressure in a very direct way. Management noted food basket inflation in line with reported store-food CPI, which means part of the sales growth is inflation-driven rather than purely volume-led. In a slowdown, grocers can hold up well, but they can also face margin pressure, promotion intensity, and more selective shopping patterns. Metro remains one of the cleaner defensive stories in Canada, though the real thesis is not “nothing can go wrong.” It is that grocery and pharmacy demand can cushion the business better than most sectors when households get more careful.

Intact Financial

Intact is the kind of stock that often sneaks into “stability” conversations because insurance can look boring in exactly the right way. Premiums recur, underwriting discipline can create durable value, and the company has built a broad platform across Canada, the UK and Ireland, and specialty lines. Its fourth-quarter 2025 combined ratio was an excellent 85.9%, and the annual report showed catastrophe losses were still within expected ranges. Those numbers help explain why investors increasingly see Intact as a high-quality compounder rather than just an insurer.

Still, insurance stability has a climate-shaped asterisk now. Intact itself discussed catastrophe exposure and wildfire concentration risk, and that matters because the sector’s earnings can look wonderfully smooth until a severe loss year reminds everyone what is underneath. Insurance also depends on reserve adequacy, pricing discipline, and investment income, all of which can shift with the environment. Intact may deserve more respect than many so-called defensive stocks, but it should be owned with an understanding that underwriting excellence is what makes it stable, not the insurance label by itself.

Sun Life Financial

Sun Life earns its place in conservative portfolios through a different mix of strengths. It has scale, a large global client base, multiple business lines, and a capital position that remained strong with a 157% LICAT ratio at year-end 2025. Management highlighted progress toward medium-term objectives, including 12% underlying EPS growth and 18.2% underlying ROE. For investors who want something steadier than a pure bank but more dynamic than a utility, that combination can look compelling.

The part worth questioning is what kind of stability investors think they are buying. Sun Life is diversified, but it is not simple. Earnings are influenced by capital markets, asset-management flows, insurance assumptions, and the performance of growth markets such as Asia. That diversification can help, yet it also means results are not insulated from market sentiment or changing product economics. Sun Life remains a quality company, and arguably a sturdier one than many still appreciate. But even here, the right takeaway is nuance: it is stable because the business mix is broad and well-capitalized, not because insurance stocks are automatically calm.

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