Canada

The largest heritage restoration ever undertaken in Canada aims to squeeze more than 100 additional members of Parliament into the House of Commons in Ottawa—without compromising the structure’s architectural integrity. The CA$4.2 billion multibuilding project also includes bringing current accommodations into the 21st century, and ensuring facilities meet accessibility and safety standards. The rehabbed West Block reopened in January 2019, and construction in and around the Centre and East Blocks is currently underway.

The CA$12.6 billion project will add about 980 kilometers (600 miles) to expand an existing pipeline that stretches from Alberta to the west coast of Canada, more than doubling the system’s capacity to carry refined and crude oil. Canadian courts cleared the way for project progress in February 2020, after ruling against First Nations groups concerned about the environmental risks posed by the pipeline.

A former shopping mall in Vancouver, British Columbia is being reimagined as a 28.5-acre (11.5-hectare) mixed-use development. Construction began last year and, upon completion in 2025, the US$4.6 billion project will feature 13 residential towers and 9 acres (4 hectares) of park space, along with retail and office space, a community center, a library and a performing arts academy.

Canada became the second nation in the world to legalize recreational marijuana in 2018, but complications with its original system threatened to hamstring cannabis retailers. In an effort to save the budding industry, the Ontario government launched a project last year to create a new licensing system and eliminated its cap on the number of cannabis stores allowed in the province.

Oxford Properties Group, the developer of the Hudson Yards transformation in New York, New York, USA, is at it again, launching one of Canada’s largest real estate projects. Announced in June 2019, the CA$3.5 billion skyline-transforming Union Park Toronto megadevelopment would comprise a 2-acre (0.8-hectare) park and four towers including 399,483 square meters (4.3 million square feet) of mixed-use space.

Construction is slated to begin this year on a new 400-megawatt project which, upon completion in 2021, would become the largest operating solar energy facility in the country. Developed by Greengate Power Corp., the CA$500 million project in Vulcan County, Alberta is expected to provide enough electricity for over 100,000 homes, as well as a boost to the local economy.

Built on a tight, three-and-a-half-year timeline, the expansive new Champlain Bridge links commuters to Montreal and facilitates freight transport between Canada and the United States. Designed by architect Poul Ove Jensen, the CA$4.2 billion project was completed last year under a public-private partnership between the Government of Canada and Signature on the Saint Lawrence Group.

For more than a century, Hamilton has been known as Canada’s steel capital. That industrial legacy left Randle Reef and an area around it in Lake Ontario with a 60-hectare (148-acre) floating blob of industrial waste. A CA$139 million restoration project, which entered its final phase in January, seeks to bury the worst of the contaminants underwater, with the construction of a steel box the size of six city blocks.

This 230-kilovolt transmission line will wind 450 kilometers (280 miles) along the Lake Superior shoreline, providing electrical power—and sparking economic growth—from Thunder Bay to Wawa. Construction on the CA$777 million project began in September 2019, with NextBridge Infrastructure at the helm.

Part of Ottawa, Ontario’s O-Train light rail system, the first phase of the Confederation Line began operating in September 2019. With a budget of CA$2.1 billion, it ranked as the largest infrastructure project in the city’s history. And then along came the line’s CA$2.6 billion extension, which began construction last year and is expected to be complete by 2025.