Canada’s Infrastructure Shift
Canada is undergoing a significant shift in infrastructure, affecting every level of government. Driven by public funding and long-term capital plans across provinces and territories, governments are moving away from one off projects and toward multiple largescale initiatives delivered at the same time. This shift is reshaping how projects are planned, staffed, financed, and managed.
In August 2025, the Government of Canada launched the Major Projects Office (MPO), a new agency designed to help move large building projects forward. With a presence across the nation, the MPO is meant to cut through complexity and keep major projects on track. Its focus is simple: strengthen connections across the economy, diversify industries and trade, create good paying jobs, and do so while protecting the environment and advancing the interests of Indigenous Peoples.
At the same time, the private sector is stepping up. Canadian companies are investing to bring resources to market, develop new assets, and expand the infrastructure needed to reach a broader range of global customers.
As with any major shift, new challenges come with it. Infrastructure is complex by nature, involving many interest holders and spanning large geographic areas. And at the centre of it all: the communities these projects are meant to serve. Planning, building, and bringing large projects into operation can take years, which raises an important question: How do you build and maintain support from funders and communities over time?
That’s why relationships are becoming just as important as the projects themselves.
New Leadership Challenges
As these shifts happen and new challenges emerge, the demands of leaders are changing too. Let’s start with collaboration and partnership. With more interest holders involved, leaders need to align these needs around what’s best for the project. For collaboration to work, it has to be embedded in organizational culture, and that requires communication that is open, transparent, and clear.
Leaders also need to rethink how risks and rewards are balanced, assigning risk to the partners who are best equipped to manage it, and strengthening how risk is shared and managed across organizations.
The third major leadership challenge isn’t new, but it has evolved: innovation. Innovation now goes beyond technology itself. It’s about how technology can improve quality and outcomes in what we build, while also reshaping how we manage the work. That includes modernizing management practices, attracting the right skills, supporting diversity, improving decision‑making, and rethinking core business processes.
Phelps’ Expanded Infrastructure Practice
Phelps is expanding its infrastructure sector practice to better support organizations navigating this evolving landscape. Our focus is on helping clients identify and develop leaders with the capabilities of today’s infrastructure environment demands. We bring a long history of partnering with infrastructure owners across the public and broader public sectors, building strong leadership teams, and strengthening leadership capacity. Now, we’re extending that experience across the wider infrastructure marketplace, reflecting just how much the sector has changed over the past decade.
As part of this expansion, Phelps is pleased to welcome Bruce McCuaig as Strategic Lead, Infrastructure. Bruce brings deep experience across Ontario’s infrastructure ecosystem and adds significant strength to Phelps’ ability to support infrastructure leadership needs.
Bruce brings a rare, end‑to‑end perspective. Over his career, he has worked as an owner, a funder, and on the delivery side, giving him a deep appreciation for all sides to the equation.
Collaboration has been central to his work. Delivering complex infrastructure, particularly transit, requires alignment across all orders of government, service providers, and communities. Bruce has a strong track record of building those partnerships and delivering results.
He also brings valuable insight from working across a range of delivery models, with a clear understanding of their respective strengths and limitations. Just as important, Bruce has built a trusted national network across the public and private sectors.
At a time where relationships are critical and leadership demands are evolving; the right people make all the difference.
Phelps is uniquely positioned, with the experience, insight, and network, to help organizations identify leaders who can guide them through this defining moment for infrastructure in Canada.
