Infrastructure: Doing Business in Canada 2026
This chapter is part of our Doing Business in Canada guide, designed to help global investors navigate the legal, regulatory and strategic considerations that affect investment decisions, execution, and long-term success in Canada.
The information in this chapter is current as of September 2026.
Infrastructure
Canadian governments use a range of delivery models to procure and deliver infrastructure projects and services that support public service commitments and broader economic development priorities.
The Canadian infrastructure market is characterized by an established framework for procurement, financing, and delivery, supported by both public and private sector participants.
Canada has a well-developed public-private partnership (P3) market, with projects across a range of sectors, including light rail and other mass transit, roads, bridges, hospitals and health care, justice and corrections, schools, recreation and culture, water and wastewater, airports and civil aviation, ports, energy, universities, government services, property management, data centres, defence, and communications.
Over the last 20 years, experience and expertise in P3 projects have expanded across procurement authorities, investor groups, construction companies, and service providers, contributing to a relatively sophisticated market for the development and delivery of major infrastructure projects.
In addition to the continued use of P3s, the market is evolving through greater use of collaborative delivery models, increased participation by institutional investors and public financing entities, and a growing emphasis on domestic supply chains, Indigenous participation, and construction payment and dispute resolution reforms. These developments reflect the need to respond to project complexity, delivery pressures, supply chain constraints, and changing public policy priorities.
Recent federal policy developments reinforce these trends. In Budget 2025, the federal government described its fiscal approach as an investment-oriented strategy focused on infrastructure, housing and industrial development. Budget 2025 provides for approximately $115 billion in infrastructure spending over five years, and the federal government has stated that these measures are intended to enable significant additional private investment.
The following sections provide an overview of funding and investment structures, key trends, project delivery models, procurement frameworks and applicable legal considerations.
Funding and Investment
Private Sector Participation
The Canadian infrastructure market is highly competitive and includes both domestic and international constructors, service providers, equity providers, and lenders. Infrastructure projects are typically financed through a combination of private equity, bank debt, private placements, broadly marketed bonds and, in some cases, public-sector funding, or credit support. Federal funding is increasingly structured to attract private capital participation, including through co‑investment and private financing requirements.
The composition of the lending market has evolved over time. International banks were major participants in P3 infrastructure financing prior to 2008, but their high level of participation has declined, and they have been replaced by a combination of primarily Canadian banks with a smaller number of international banks (providing debt financing primarily during construction) together with an active private placement and broadly marketed bond market in Canada and the U.S. (providing primarily longer-term debt).
Institutional investors also play an important role in the Canadian infrastructure market. Large pension funds and private equity firms increasingly target infrastructure projects suited to long-term investment, particularly where construction, delivery, and revenue risks can be clearly assessed and allocated. In some cases, these investors have also promoted projects to government, as illustrated by CDPQ Infra’s development of the Réseau express métropolitain (REM), a high-frequency light rail network in the Greater Montréal area.
Moreover, the scale of institutional and financial sector interest in Canadian infrastructure and related strategic assets continues to grow. At the Canada Investment Summit in September 2026, Canadian pension funds, insurers and financial institutions announced significant commitments and financing capacity directed toward infrastructure, transportation, energy, critical minerals, digital and other strategic sectors, highlighting the depth of private capital available for major projects in Canada.
Government Involvement
Government involvement in infrastructure projects in Canada spans the federal and provincial levels. It can be grouped broadly into three areas: procurement and delivery, project coordination and regulatory oversight, and funding and financial support.
Procurement and Project Delivery Agencies
At the provincial level, dedicated infrastructure agencies such as Infrastructure Ontario, Infrastructure BC and the Société québécoise des infrastructures (SQI) play a central role in the procurement and management of major public infrastructure projects. These agencies develop procurement strategies, manage competitive bidding processes and oversee project delivery. Their experience with P3s and other delivery models has shaped procurement approaches and project execution in a number of provinces.
Project Coordination and Regulatory Oversight
At the federal level, the Major Projects Office has been positioned as a central coordinating body for major infrastructure and resource projects, with a mandate to help accelerate permitting and improve coordination across departments and project participants. Budget 2025 indicates that the office is intended to support a more streamlined review process for projects identified as nationally significant, although the scope of its role and the implementation of related reforms will continue to develop.
Funding and Financial Support
At the federal level, several agencies and programs support infrastructure financing. The Canada Infrastructure Bank, a Crown corporation operating at arm’s length from government, partners with public and private sector entities to finance projects in sectors such as public transit, clean energy, and transportation networks. Budget 2025 proposes increasing the Canada Infrastructure Bank’s total funding to $45 billion and expanding its role in relation to a broader set of nation-building projects, including AI-related infrastructure. In addition to the Canada Infrastructure Bank, the federal government is moving toward a more coordinated approach to infrastructure financing across Crown corporations and agencies, including Export Development Canada, the Canada Growth Fund, and the Canada Indigenous Loan Guarantee Corporation. This approach is intended to deploy capital more strategically across priority projects and sectors and to combine public financing tools with private investment where appropriate.
The federal government also uses tax policy and targeted funding programs to support infrastructure investment, including clean economy investment tax credits, accelerated depreciation measures and sector-specific initiatives. Building on the Productivity Super-Deduction introduced in Budget 2025, the federal government announced a proposed Productivity Mega Deduction in September 2026 that would expand immediate expensing to a broader range of capital assets, including certain infrastructure-related investments, with the stated objective of encouraging private sector capital deployment. Other significant federal programs include the Investing in Canada Plan and the National Trade Corridors Fund, which support projects intended to modernize infrastructure and improve trade and transportation networks.
Provincial governments also play a significant role in infrastructure funding, although the structure and scale of provincial programs and entities vary. In Ontario, Infrastructure Ontario manages procurement for major public projects and provides long-term financing through its loan program to municipalities, universities, and other eligible public sector borrowers, while the Building Ontario Fund, an arm’s-length Crown agency continued under the Building Ontario Fund Act, 2024, is intended to attract institutional and Indigenous investment into revenue-generating infrastructure projects in priority sectors. In British Columbia, agencies such as Infrastructure BC support procurement and delivery of complex capital projects, alongside targeted funding programs such as the Community, Culture and Recreation Infrastructure Program and the CleanBC Communities Fund.
In Québec, the Plan québécois des infrastructures is a multi-year capital plan for priority projects in transportation, health care, education, and other sectors, and the Société québécoise des infrastructures plays a central role in supporting and delivering many public infrastructure projects under that framework. Other provinces also use specialized entities and programs to support project delivery or participation in infrastructure development, including Indigenous financing vehicles such as the Alberta Indigenous Opportunities Corporation. Provinces also maintain targeted funding streams relating to rural and northern infrastructure, housing-enabling infrastructure, affordable housing, and climate resilience, often in combination with federal programs.
Indigenous Participation
There is a growing emphasis on Indigenous participation in Canadian infrastructure projects, including participation as equity investors, development partners, contractors and counterparties to project agreements. Governments and project sponsors are increasingly focused on facilitating meaningful Indigenous involvement, particularly for projects located on or affecting Indigenous lands, and Indigenous participation is becoming a more visible consideration in procurement processes and project structuring.
This trend should be understood in two related but distinct dimensions. First, projects may engage constitutional and regulatory duties relating to Indigenous consultation, accommodation and rights, which arise independently of any commercial arrangement. Second, Indigenous groups are increasingly participating commercially through equity ownership, procurement opportunities and negotiated project arrangements. Recent federal measures, including the Canada Indigenous Loan Guarantee Corporation and subsequent expansion of the Indigenous Loan Guarantee Program to additional sectors, are intended to support increased Indigenous equity participation in major infrastructure, transportation and energy projects.
In some jurisdictions and procurements, Indigenous participation may also be reflected through evaluation criteria, community benefit commitments or project-specific participation requirements. Provincial Indigenous loan guarantee programs and related policy initiatives have further supported this shift, particularly in the energy and natural resources sectors, and similar approaches are increasingly relevant to broader infrastructure development.
Key Trends
The Canadian infrastructure market is evolving across several dimensions, including project delivery models, procurement approaches, policy priorities, and capital allocation. These changes are being shaped by project size and complexity, pressure to accelerate approvals and delivery, labour and supply chain constraints, climate and energy transition objectives, and increased interest in domestic economic resilience and Indigenous participation. Against that backdrop, governments continue to rely on both established and emerging delivery models to procure and deliver infrastructure projects and related public services.
Federal Major Projects Office
One significant recent development is the creation of the Major Projects Office, which has been described as a single-window process intended to identify, prioritize and help accelerate approvals for major infrastructure and resource projects of national importance. Budget materials and related commentary indicate that the office is also expected to play a role in coordinating project financing and regulatory processes across federal departments and agencies. Its practical effect will depend on how the associated legislative, regulatory and administrative changes are implemented.
More broadly, infrastructure investment is increasingly shaped by federal policy and regulatory priorities, including Canada’s trade diversification strategy, which has driven significant funding for ports, railways, airports, and northern transportation corridors designed to expand access to overseas markets.
Federal policy also identifies a number of sectors for large-scale investment, including:
- liquefied natural gas (LNG) export infrastructure;
- nuclear energy and small modular reactor projects;
- critical minerals and mining developments;
- carbon capture, utilization and storage infrastructure;
- large-scale renewable energy, including offshore wind;
- major transportation and trade corridor infrastructure, including ports and rail.
Provincial Legislative and Commercial Frameworks
Liens
Every province in Canada has enacted construction lien legislation, commonly referred to as builders’ lien or construction lien statutes. These statutes create a right for contractors, subcontractors, suppliers of materials and equipment, and others who have contributed labour, services, or materials to an improvement of real property to register a charge against the owner’s land as security for unpaid amounts. In Québec, which operates under a civil law regime, an analogous mechanism exists in the form of the legal construction hypothec under articles 2726 et seq. of the Civil Code of Québec, which secures the increase in value conferred on an immovable by those who have participated in its construction or renovation. Owners are required to retain a statutory holdback from each progress payment as a fund available to satisfy valid lien claims, although Québec does not impose a comparable statutory holdback obligation. The specific rules differ across jurisdictions, and the legislation has been modernized in a number of provinces in recent years, with further amendments under consideration in others.
Prompt Payment, Statutory Adjudication, and Dispute Resolution
A significant development in Canadian construction law has been the introduction of prompt payment regimes, which impose mandatory timelines on payment obligations flowing from owners to contractors and through the subcontract chain. Ontario led this shift through amendments to the Construction Act that came into force beginning in 2018 and 2019, and several other provinces have since enacted similar legislation, while others are considering or awaiting the coming into force of comparable regimes.
At the federal level, the Federal Prompt Payment for Construction Work Act establishes a comparable framework, although it permits provincial legislation to apply in place of the federal regime in certain circumstances and allows project-specific exemptions. As a result, prompt payment and adjudication remain jurisdiction-specific and continue to evolve across Canada.
Most provinces that have enacted prompt payment legislation have also introduced statutory adjudication as a rapid interim dispute resolution mechanism. Either party may refer defined disputes, most commonly payment disputes, to a qualified adjudicator for a binding determination on an expedited timeline, generally within weeks of referral. An adjudicator’s decision, including where payment is ordered, must be complied with promptly, but it remains interim in nature: the parties retain their rights to litigate or arbitrate the same dispute, and a final determination may displace the adjudicator’s decision. The purpose of adjudication is to keep funds flowing on active projects while preserving the parties’ rights to a final determination on the merits, if necessary.
The Canadian infrastructure sector has also seen continued use of arbitration as a mechanism for final resolution of disputes under major project agreements, although practice varies by jurisdiction, project type and public-sector counterparty. Arbitration is often viewed as attractive in this context because it allows parties to appoint decision-makers with relevant industry expertise, preserve confidentiality and use established procedural rules that can be tailored to complex construction and infrastructure disputes.
Where arbitration is adopted, dispute resolution provisions are often negotiated to reflect the nature and scale of the project. On larger and more complex projects, particularly in Ontario, combined dispute boards have also emerged as a project-level tool for resolving disputes during construction through expedited processes. Parties generally retain the right to pursue disputes further through arbitration or litigation, depending on the terms of the applicable dispute resolution framework.
Taken together, reforms to lien, prompt payment, and dispute resolution regimes reflect a market that is continuing to develop more formal mechanisms to manage payment risk, preserve project cash flow, and resolve disputes efficiently during project delivery, while leaving room for final determination through arbitration or litigation where required.
Project Delivery Models
Infrastructure projects in Canada are delivered through a range of established and evolving models. P3s remain important, but they are increasingly complemented by collaborative delivery structures, including alliance, integrated project delivery and progressive design-build. Novel structures for private operation of existing publicly-owned infrastructure assets also continue to be developed.
There are several forms of P3 used in Canada, including build-finance, design‑build‑finance, design‑build‑finance‑maintain (DBFM), and concessions, under which the project company is compensated through milestone payments, availability payments, project revenue or a combination of them.
In a typical DBFM P3:
- a private project company (typically a consortium of one or more equity providers together with a construction contractor and/or a service provider) and the public-sector counterparty enter into a single project agreement under which the project company accepts responsibility to design, build, finance and maintain the infrastructure asset;
- the project is delivered by the project company, which contracts with a construction contractor to design and build the infrastructure, and with a service provider to operate and maintain the infrastructure asset;
- the operation and maintenance obligation extends over a long period (usually 25 to 35 years) with predefined hand-back conditions;
- operating and maintenance requirements are performance based;
- construction costs are primarily financed by debt and equity, and payment from the public-sector counterparty begins upon completion of construction and extends over the operation and maintenance term (with interim payments during construction in many cases); and
- payments from the public-sector counterparty are subject to deductions for failures in service delivery.
The emerging progressive DBFM model modifies the typical DBFM P3 structure by introducing a development phase during which the public sector counterparty and private sector participants agree to work collaboratively for a defined period to advance the design and identify and price key construction and delivery risks. That development phase precedes execution of the DBFM project agreement.
The alliance model is also increasingly used for large, complex projects. Under this model, the public-sector counterparty, constructor(s), designer(s), and key subcontractors enter into a single contract, share project risks and develop a target price, with cost overruns and savings shared among participants. More broadly, collaborative delivery models such as alliance, integrated project delivery, and progressive design-build are being used where public-sector counterparties seek earlier contractor involvement, greater flexibility in risk allocation and a more integrated approach to project development and execution. Compared with more traditional fixed-price P3 structures, these models may be better suited to projects with incomplete scope definition, interface complexity, constrained schedules or higher uncertainty around site, design or market conditions.
Recent federal policy announcements also suggest increasing interest in concession-based models for existing infrastructure assets. In September 2026, the federal government announced plans to seek private investment in the operation of Canada’s largest airports through long-term concession arrangements while retaining public ownership of the underlying land and assets, illustrating the continued evolution of public-private approaches beyond traditional greenfield P3 projects.
Procurement
Each province has its own legislative and regulatory procurement requirements, but there are significant similarities in process and documentation across Canadian jurisdictions. Jurisdictions that use P3s and other established delivery models generally seek efficient, standardized procurement processes followed by relatively short closing periods. Procurement is typically administered by experienced public authorities that routinely publish RFP documents, project agreements and value-for-money reports. Processes are intended to be transparent and may be subject to oversight by a fairness monitor.
Each procurement authority tends to use its own standard RFP process and bid requirements across project types, including common bid submission documents, defined negotiation processes, and established closing protocols.
Bid submissions for P3s are generally required to be fixed-price and to include committed or underwritten financing. Evaluation criteria are increasingly broader than price alone and may include technical approach, deliverability, Indigenous participation, domestic supply chain considerations, and other policy objectives, depending on the project and jurisdiction. For more complex procurements, procurement authorities may also use interactive processes, commercially confidential meetings, and stipends or honoraria for unsuccessful proponents, particularly where bid costs are high.
There is an increasing emphasis on Canadian content or domestic supply chains, particularly on federally funded or strategically sensitive projects. This is reflected in “Buy Canadian” procurement initiatives that prioritize Canadian suppliers or require Canadian content where feasible, typically implemented through evaluation preferences, minimum content thresholds or supply‑chain disclosure obligations, while remaining consistent with Canada’s trade agreement commitments.
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