From the Editor: Is Canada ready to build?

This letter was written on September 16, 2026, for publication in Heavy Equipment Guide's October 2026 issue. "Canada has what the world wants." That bold statement introduces the 66-page, 167-project document, the Canada Investment Summit Prospectus, presented to global investors, Canadian CEOs, and public sector representatives attending the Canada Investment Summit held in Toronto on September 14 and 15. The event was hosted by Prime Minister Mark Carney in partnership with the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and Public Sector Pension Investment Board. This is the first time that Canada has hosted an international summit to welcome global investors at this scale, and participants from nearly 30 countries represented more than $100 trillion in assets. Prime Minister Carney is seeking $1 trillion in investment over the next five years as part of a major push to strengthen Canada's economic resilience. In the Canada Investment Summit Prospectus, an enticing buffet of projects is presented, covering conventional energy, clean energy, data centres, power and utilities, transportation infrastructure, port expansions, and more. It's a geographically and sectorally diverse set of projects that clearly communicates the abundance of opportunity in Canada — and the majority of these projects rely on the construction industry and construction equipment. They range from conceptual and early stages of development to fully permitted and shovel-ready or under active construction. On September 15, the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) announced that $500 billion had been committed during the summit. This includes major new investment funds created by Canada's top five banks and Canada's leading pension funds, insurers, and institutional investors. The PMO also announced a new Productivity Mega Deduction. This significant increase in tax deductions, which builds on the Productivity Super-Deduction announced in late 2025, covers up to roughly two-thirds of new capital investments — including equipment — and those investments can be expensed immediately, further sweetening the case for investing in Canadian businesses and building in Canada. There is a lot of uncertainty in today's geopolitical climate, and the impressive international interest in the Canada Investment Summit is a boon for the Canadian construction industry. However, the real win only comes when shovels hit the ground. That requires cleaning up Canada's reputation for foot-dragging over project approvals. To that end, over the past year and a half the Government of Canada has been developing a framework to ensure that the approvals process for major projects is more efficient going forward. The Major Projects Office (MPO) was formed in April 2025 with a mandate to serve as a single point of contact to get nation-building projects built faster. The MPO's "one project, one review" approach is intended to consolidate different layers of the regulatory approval process while maintaining rigorous environmental standards and upholding the rights of Indigenous Peoples. The federal government now intends to condense the approvals process down to one year by introducing legislation that would ensure federal impact assessments and permit reviews happen at the same time instead of one after the other. If the legislation passes and these changes unfold as intended, the green light — or the "no" — will be given more quickly, reducing regulatory uncertainty and making investment more appealing. In recent weeks, there have been signs of confidence in Canada from within the equipment manufacturing industry as well. At the end of August, LiuGong announced the formation of a new Canadian subsidiary, LiuGong Canada, citing opportunity in Canada's construction, industrial manufacturing, mining, recycling, agriculture, and forestry industries. Komatsu is also expanding its Canadian operations with a new Edmonton parts distribution centre. All of this is good news, but only if we can shed our reputation for being slow to build and establish a track record of progressing projects in a timely manner while maintaining the transparent, rigorous standards for approval that Canadians and Indigenous Peoples in Canada expect. That's a big ask, but shoring up Canada's image as a dependable, stable, and efficient country to invest and build in is vital to our economic resilience — and construction is the foundation on which Canadian opportunity flourishes. This article originally appeared in the October 2026 issue of Heavy Equipment Guide.