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1. Overview
The infrastructure market continues to be robust in Canada with all three levels of government — federal, provincial/territorial and municipal — engaged in infrastructure development and implementation. Each level of government utilizes various affiliated entities for public service delivery in addition to the direct delivery of such services. Large-scale and high-value capital projects for public infrastructure development are the focus of this review.
The federal government, most of the provinces and many urban municipalities have committed substantial resources to upgrading Canada’s infrastructure through a combination of traditional delivery models, project financed delivery (through public-private partnerships (P3s)) and collaborative contracting models.
Many provincial governments in Canada have established dedicated agencies to execute major capital projects. The most active provincial agencies are Infrastructure Ontario, Infrastructure BC, Alberta Infrastructure and the Société Québécoise des Infrastructures (SQI).
The federal government established the Canada Infrastructure Bank (CIB) in June 2017. Its purpose is to invest C$35-billion of federal funding in revenue-generating infrastructure projects that are in the public interest and attract private capital. The CIB has broad powers, allowing it to pursue potentially innovative funding solutions for public infrastructure projects. Priority sectors of focus for the CIB include green infrastructure, clean power, public transit, trade and transportation and enhanced broadband infrastructure, with a mandate to provide advisory services to project sponsors from the early stages of project development to maximize its potential. To date, the CIB has approved over C$18-billion in investments across Canada for projects such as the new hybrid ferries in British Columbia, the Montréal-Trudeau International Airport transformation, the Réseau express métropolitain, the Darlington Small Modular Reactor and a number of municipal zero-emission bus initiatives.
The P3 procurement methodology has been adopted in Canada for roads, bridges, rail (including rapid transit), hospitals, courthouses, schools, hydroelectric power generation facilities, organics and water/wastewater projects for long-term concessions. Historically, a wide range of accommodation and other public facilities have also been built, based on design-build (DB), design-build-operation (DBO), design-build-finance (DBF), design-build-finance-maintain (DBFM) and related transaction structures.
More recently, the Canadian market has seen the adoption — in certain sectors — of collaborative contracting models such as alliance contracts, integrated project delivery (IPD) structures and progressive design-build contracts. These collaborative delivery models have been gaining popularity, particularly in transit and healthcare projects in Alberta, British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec.
Several Canadian provinces, as well as the federal government, have enacted prompt payment and mandatory adjudication legislation that applies to public infrastructure projects. Prompt payment legislation has also been introduced, but has not yet come into force in the following Canadian jurisdictions:
- In British Columbia, the Construction Prompt Payment Act (Bill 20) received Royal Assent on November 27, 2025, but has not yet come into force.
- In New Brunswick, the Construction Prompt Payment and Adjudication Act received Royal Assent on June 16, 2023, but has yet to come into force.
- Nova Scotia has passed Bills 119 and 211, introducing prompt payment and adjudication, both of which received Royal Assent but have not yet been proclaimed into force.
Note that Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Labrador, the Yukon and Nunavut have not introduced any prompt payment legislation to date.
In most major public sector infrastructure projects in Canada, whether procured through a P3 delivery model or an alternative delivery model, the public sector retains risks related to discriminatory or industry-specific changes in law, costs of insurance, uninsurable events and risk related to pre-existing but undiscoverable environmental conditions. Force majeure event risk is typically shared between private-sector and public-sector parties. The COVID-19 pandemic saw the introduction in various jurisdictions of contractual provisions allocating the risk not only of additional costs and delays related to COVID-19 specifically, but also of future epidemics and pandemics more generally.
The manner in which private participants manage risk varies with the delivery models and how the contract is negotiated with the public sector, how the private sector entity organizes itself and allocates risks among its participants, how the payment model is structured and the availability of insurance. In recent years, the public sector has adopted alternatives to fixed-price contract models, including target price models with painshare and gainshare, as part of the diversification of contract models and in response to market forces.
2. Current State of the Public Infrastructure Market
The P3 market in Canada is now mature, as a number of early P3 projects have now been successfully completed and are in operation, many projects have been sold to long-term investors in the secondary market. In addition, as projects mature, many are being sold or refinanced for the first time, and gainshare mechanics between public authorities and the private sector related to increased efficiencies in financing solutions and gains on sale are being tested. In addition, public sector procuring authorities are increasingly turning to alternative contract models, such as collaborative contracting and a return to more traditional contract models, in the procurement of major projects.
Funding for public infrastructure remains robust and increasingly diversified.
Starting with the federal government, the Government of Canada’s over C$33-billion Investing in Canada Infrastructure Program is being delivered through bilateral agreements with provinces and territories. It is interesting to note, however, that the funds available through the Investing in Canada Plan are dwarfed by the publicly stated spending requirements of Canada’s major population centres. Accordingly, other sources will be required to fund Canada’s transit infrastructure needs, most notably from the provinces and municipalities. The Government of Canada has enacted new legislation to reduce regulatory burdens, accelerate decision-making and support investment in major projects. The Building Canada Act (the One Canadian Economy Act) came into force on June 26, 2025, and allows the federal government to prioritize certain projects of national interest by providing a more streamlined regulatory process overseen by the new Federal Major Projects Office. The Free Trade and Labour Mobility Act and its accompanying regulations came into force on January 1, 2026, and are aimed at reducing federal barriers to interprovincial and territorial trade and labour mobility.
The Ontario government, for example, has planned investments over the next 10 years, totalling over C$210-billion, with C$37-billion committed in 2026 to 2027. These investments include C$31-billion to support the planning and/or construction of highway expansion and rehabilitation projects, C$63-billion for public transit, including the province’s priority subway projects (the Ontario Line, the Scarborough Subway Extension, the Yonge North Subway Extension, the Eglinton Crosstown West Extension and the proposed Sheppard Subway Extension), nearly C$64-billion in health infrastructure, C$5.5-billion in the postsecondary education sector and C$30-billion, including C$22-billion in capital grants, to support the renewal and expansion of school infrastructure and child care projects.
Alberta’s Budget 2026 Capital Plan proposes to invest C$28.3-billion over the next three years, including C$7.1-billion for municipal infrastructure, C$4.9-billion for health facilities and C$2.7-billion for roads and bridges. The Budget 2026 Capital Plan also includes C$4.2-billion of investment over three years for capital maintenance and renewal of existing buildings, roads, bridges and more.
In British Columbia, Budget 2026 includes capital spending on health, transportation, housing and education totalling C$37.7-billion over the three-year fiscal plan period, with C$13.8-billion in transportation investments and C$11.1-billion in healthcare.
In Quebec, the budget allocated to public infrastructure is C$167-billion for the 2026–2036 period.
In addition, there has been a diversification of asset classes to include data centres and other digital infrastructure, power generation and storage facilities, zero-emission vehicles and charging networks, high-speed telecommunications lines and others, which provide more opportunities for new domestic and international entrants with depth of specialized experience. With the support of Canada’s federal and provincial governments, new infrastructure investments are also being made in First Nations, Inuit and Métis communities, including the Atlin Hydroelectric Expansion, the Georgina Island Fixed Link, the Kahkewistahaw Landing Infrastructure project, the Wataynikaneyap Power Transmission Project, the Kivalliq Hydro-Fibre Link and the Tshiuetin Rail project.
Furthermore, recent investments in energy transition have seen a heightened focus on clean hydrogen energy as a service and waste-to-energy projects. Examples include the Niagara Hydrogen Centre and the Toronto Western Hospital Raw Wastewater Energy Project in Ontario, as well as the Canada Infrastructure Bank’s Building Retrofits Initiative.