Natural Resources Canada counted 504 major resource projects across the country — $633 billion of potential capital spending. ICBA Economics went and counted what's been announced since, and added another hundred billion. Call it three quarters of a trillion dollars sitting on the books. The only question that matters is how much of it actually gets poured.
Episode 26 of ICBA Coffee & Construction — the news that matters to the people who build British Columbia and Alberta, with ICBA's Jordan Bateman. On today's show:
☕ THE BIG ONE: $750 BILLION of resource projects on Canada's books, if they all proceed. ICBA Chief Economist Jock Finlayson on the investment gap standing between announced and built — taxes, regulation, infrastructure bottlenecks, and not enough skilled trades.
🛢️ Natural resources are 16% of Canada's GDP, 1.8 million jobs, and more than half of everything this country sells to the world. More than TWO THIRDS of the people working in it hold a degree, a diploma or a trades ticket.
💸 In 2025, more foreign money came into Canada than left — the first time in a decade. But most of it bought companies and assets that already existed instead of building new capacity. Buying the building isn't the same as building the building.
🏠 B.C. capped 2027 rent increases at 2.2%. Asking rents across the province are already down 4.5%, and down 12.4% in ABBOTSFORD. The cap isn't what's binding — and CMHC has Vancouver housing starts sliding toward the low 20,000s by 2028.
🚧 Where the work is: construction starts on BCIT's $48-MILLION South Campus renewal in Burnaby, the $130-million Highway 7 four-laning between Maple Ridge and Mission is finished, and Ottawa puts $23.5 million into six B.C. airports — Masset, Prince Rupert, Smithers, Bella Coola, Kamloops and Fort Nelson.
🌉 Highway 1 reopened through the Fraser Canyon after 50 DAYS closed. Every load to the Interior went longer and cost more, and every extra kilometre came out of somebody's margin.
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What is ICBA Coffee & Construction?
The news that matters to the people who build British Columbia and Alberta.
ICBA Coffee & Construction is a fast, no-spin briefing for construction and resource business owners — the projects, the politics, and the policy decisions that hit your job site and your bottom line. Hosted by Jordan Bateman of ICBA, Canada's largest construction association, from a free-enterprise point of view.
Inflation, pipelines, megaproject overruns, housing, labour, red tape — we cut through the headlines and tell you what it actually means for your business. Sharp, useful, and under ten minutes.
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Learn more at icba.ca. For the economics behind the headlines, subscribe to ICBA's twice-weekly EconoBot briefing at icba.ca/economics.