Canada lags in infrastructure investment: report

Ontario Construction News staff writer

Despite ranking fourth globally in annual infrastructure spending at US$145 billion, Canada invests just 6.6 per cent of GDP on infrastructure, well below the 7.4 per cent invested by peers, according to a new report from PwC Canada. Closing the gap requires an additional US$34 billion a year by 2050, the report says.

The report, Mobilizing Canada’s US$4.7 trillion Infrastructure Opportunity, drawing on a new Oxford Economics forecast, says that how effectively Canada captures the opportunity will depend not just on how much it invests, but on how those investments come together.

According to the report, realizing the opportunity requires a shift from silos to systems, moving from planning roads, power grids, digital networks, and community infrastructure as separate projects to building them as connected systems.

“Canada’s energy strategy, its defence commitments, its critical minerals potential, and its digital ambitions are being treated as separate conversations. They’re not. They’re one infrastructure challenge,” said Johanne Mullen, national leader of real assets at the accounting and consulting firm.

The report identifies three shifts Canada can make:

Capturing the infrastructure value: