The same buyer can qualify for the high WTO threshold and still be measured on a lower, differently-calculated figure, because of who controls it, not how much of it they own.
Short answer
Yes — a state-owned enterprise is tested on asset value, not enterprise value, even when it would otherwise qualify as a WTO or trade agreement investor. Section 14.1(1.1) of the Investment Canada Act carves state-owned enterprises out of the ordinary enterprise-value test in s.14.1(1) and measures them instead against a separate, asset-value figure — and the Act's own definition of “state-owned enterprise” in s.3 reaches well past majority government ownership.
Section 3 defines a state-owned enterprise as “(a) the government of a foreign state, whether federal, state or local, or an agency of such a government; (b) an entity that is controlled or influenced, directly or indirectly, by a government or agency referred to in paragraph (a); or (c) an individual who is acting under the direction of a government or agency … or who is acting under the influence, directly or indirectly, of such a government or agency.” “Influenced” is doing real work in that definition — a fund manager's governance rights over how a sovereign investor's capital is deployed can be enough on its own, with no ownership percentage required.
Section 14.1(1.1) states: “Despite the limits set out in subsection 14(3), an investment described in paragraph 14(1)(a) or (b) by a WTO investor that is a state-owned enterprise … is reviewable under section 14 only if the value calculated in the manner prescribed, of the assets described in paragraph 14(3)(a) or (b) … is equal to or greater than the applicable amount determined under subsection (2).” That routes the SOE test back to an asset-value calculation and its own indexed figure, entirely separate from the enterprise-value number an equivalent private buyer would be measured against under s.14.1(1).
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