VAUGHAN, ONT. — The Vaughan Chamber of Commerce’s recently released 2025 Infrastructure Report warns Ontario’s infrastructure challenge has evolved from a funding gap into a delivery-capacity crisis.
According to a release, the province currently faces approximately $56 billion annually in congestion-related economic and social costs.
“Without a shift in how projects are approved, tendered, and built, those annual costs are projected to rise to $108 billion by 2044 if congestion levels remain unchanged,” the release notes.
The findings identified “servicing capacity”, specifically water and wastewater systems, as the non-negotiable ceiling on housing starts.
“As demonstrated by the recent servicing moratorium in Waterloo Region, underinvestment and misaligned sequencing in core infrastructure can result in a pause in housing and employment growth even where planning approvals exist,” the release adds.
Key recommendations stemming from the report include:
- Standardize municipal construction specifications across the GTHA to eliminate inefficiency and reduce risk pricing.
- Institutionalize early tendering, with a majority of awards completed by Q4 or early Q1.
- Shift to parallel permit processing and implement “one-window” visibility into permit status and timelines to reduce sequential delay.
- Re-focus development charges exclusively on core growth-enabling infrastructure and introduce mandatory province-wide transparency standards for development charge background studies.
The findings also highlight the importance of continued alignment at the municipal level in construction standards, approvals and development charge administration, alongside alignment of federal infrastructure funding programs with local servicing capacity and growth priorities.
“The era of performative planning is over. Our data is clear: Ontario is facing a delivery-capacity crisis that is costing us $56 billion today,” said Abdus Samad, vice-president of government affairs and strategic initiatives at the Vaughan Chamber, in a statement. “We have shovel-ready housing and trade projects stalled by the ‘inefficiency incarnate’ of fragmented local rules and slow approvals. We need to treat infrastructure as a foundation for competitiveness, not an administrative afterthought. We need action. Now.”
The report is available at vaughanchamber.ca
