November 6, 2026 The Honourable David Piccini Minister of Infrastructure 438 University Ave., Toronto, ON M5G 2K8 RE: Building the Infrastructure Ontario Needs to Grow Dear Minister Piccini, Congratulations on your appointment as Ontario’s Minister of Infrastructure. The Ontario Chamber of Commerce (OCC) looks forward to working with you to advance inclusive, sustainable growth. I am writing on behalf of the OCC’s Infrastructure Policy Council. It brings together leaders from Ontario’s construction, engineering, telecommunications, transportation, energy and municipal sectors to advance practical solutions to the province’s infrastructure challenges. Ontario’s economic growth and competitiveness depend on infrastructure keeping pace with demand. Housing, industry and emerging technologies need reliable capacity, but fragmented planning, uncertain funding and delays constrain investment. Tariffs are estimated to add $1.04 billion, or about 2.1 per cent, to Ontario municipalities’ planned capital spending through March 2027. Our Council recommends action in three areas: 1. Coordinate infrastructure planning and project delivery. Projects are often planned in isolation across sectors and jurisdictions. This creates delays, raises costs and misses opportunities to coordinate investment. We recommend: •
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Create an integrated planning framework for housing, employment lands, energy, transportation and utilities, ensuring infrastructure capacity keeps pace with residential and industrial growth while building in climate resilience from the outset. Expand qualifications-based procurement and standardize digital asset data for Infrastructure Ontario projects. Set clear expectations for schedules, early market engagement, risk allocation and lifecycle management.
2. Align infrastructure investment with housing and trade needs. Ontario must invest ahead of growth. Municipalities need predictable funding for resilient, housing-enabling infrastructure, while businesses need reliable routes to market. This includes: •
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Providing turnkey design, procurement and data support to smaller and lower-tier municipalities delivering housing-enabling infrastructure, where limited asset bases and staff capacity slow projects. Work with the federal government to co-invest in ports, airports, and their road and rail connections, prioritizing projects that relieve bottlenecks, improve the movement of goods and people, and diversify routes to market to strengthen Ontario’s supply chains and economic resilience.
3. Strengthen Ontario’s digital infrastructure and readiness. Broadband, data infrastructure and computing capacity are essential to Ontario’s competitiveness, and to enabling all regions to participate in and benefit from the modern economy. Their development requires coordinated access to electricity, land, connectivity and municipal services. Ontario must plan for these needs before capacity becomes a barrier. We recommend: •
Integrating data centre demand for land, water and connectivity into provincial infrastructure planning, so the final Data Centre Playbook is supported by servicing capacity that does not compete with housing and industry.
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Connecting remaining unserved rural and northern communities faster by standardizing municipal permits, Ontario Dig Authority/Ontario One Call Dedicated Locator program, resolving utility-pole access, including enforceable make-ready timelines and clear cost-sharing for pole replacements, and coordinating broadband with other infrastructure projects.
Our Council also sees opportunities to streamline approvals, improve utility coordination through shared mapping and “dig once” approaches, and support resilient infrastructure through investments in flood protection, stormwater systems and natural infrastructure.
Ontario’s competitiveness depends on delivering the right infrastructure in the right place at the right time. We would welcome a meeting to discuss these recommendations and how the OCC and its Infrastructure Policy Council can support implementation. Sincerely,
Daniel Tisch, APR, FCPRS, ICD.D President and CEO Ontario Chamber of Commerce CC: Edward McDonnell, Chair, Infrastructure Policy Council, CEO, Greenbelt Foundation