Are there actually any legit LPs in Canada?

Maybe less so a reflection of Canadian LPs as a whole and moreso a reflection of the Canadian LPs your fund is able to get meetings with if they’re hiring people that post abrasive insults on the internet…

To still answer your question and provide some further color, the pension funds are likely the largest LPs in Canada but these span all the way from CPP and its peers (OTPP, OMERS, etc.) down to the regional / specialized pensions for school districts, police forces, and the like. Canadian pensions are becoming more direct in their investment approach, so are likely to be less geared towards allocating to new funds and will likely focus on re-upping their current GP relationships given the already existing denominator effect and the likelihood that ICs are more likely to primarily approve existing relationships if performance and co-invest opportunities have gone well. There are also a number of successful family offices and FoFs which allocate but don’t they write very large cheques (as you mentioned) but are still familiar with the PE investing model and are probably more concerned about liquidity than the pensions would be (hence wanting evergreen).

I’m frankly surprised that your fund is having to explain PE to potential LPs as this has never been a hurdle for the fund I work at and we’ve raised a meaningful amount from Canadian LPs. This takes me back to the initial paragraph - I think it’s just the meetings your fund has received to date. If your fund is early in its fundraise, it’s also likely that many of the more “legit” non-pension LPs are waiting until after first close as it has also been quite common for us to receive a number of smaller commitments towards the tail-end of a cycle.