By the end of the Canada Investment Summit this week, the number attached to Canada’s latest investment push had climbed to nearly $500B.

Adam Jacobs was looking somewhere else: the map.

“I think we might see some legitimately new markets emerge,” the head of research in Canada at Colliers told Connect.

The federal figure is not $500B of construction spending. It includes investment commitments and lending capacity across infrastructure, energy, critical minerals, defence and artificial intelligence. It also arrived just days after Colliers published a report examining what the broader push could mean for commercial real estate.

One number helps explain Jacobs’ focus. The Northwest Territories, Yukon and Nunavut are home to just 0.3% of Canada’s population but accounted for 35% of the major projects examined.

For an industry accustomed to concentrating capital in a handful of large cities, that points to a different geography.

Jacobs said the clearest near-term impact is likely to be industrial.

“Logistics and warehousing is where we’re going to see a big impact,” he said.

More trade with Europe and Asia could push additional freight through ports such as Vancouver and Halifax, creating demand for warehouses, trucking infrastructure and outdoor storage nearby.

More unusual opportunities could emerge farther from established industrial hubs. Projects in the territories, northern Ontario and Saskatchewan could require housing, storage, services and logistics in communities that have seen little large-scale commercial development.

“If we’re kind of going into those places with a blank slate, then there needs to be housing and truck stops and restaurants and grocery stores and storage facilities,” Jacobs said.

The demand may also arrive before the projects are finished. High-speed rail, highways and transmission lines require staging land, storage and worker accommodation during construction.

“Maybe the impact is a little bit more what happens in the interim,” Jacobs said.

Defence Looks To Existing Industrial Capacity

Defence spending could create another source of industrial demand.

Jacobs said the unanswered question is where a Canadian defence manufacturing cluster develops. Ottawa has federal procurement, Montreal has aerospace expertise and southern Ontario has a large manufacturing base, including automotive properties facing uncertain futures.

That possibility is already visible in Brampton.

Stellantis has signed a preliminary agreement to potentially sell its idled 2.95M-SF assembly plant to Roshel, a Brampton-based armoured-vehicle manufacturer. The 269-acre property at 2000 Williams Parkway E. has been inactive since 2023.

Jacobs expects defence-related activity to cluster rather than be evenly distributed across the country.

The Brampton deal offers an early example of how industrial capacity built for one sector could find a new use as defence spending rises.

Data Centres Have A Power Problem

Data centres present a different challenge.

Demand is strong, but Jacobs said power availability, financing and municipal politics can create a wide gap between announcing a project and building it.

Bell Canada and Saskatchewan this week outlined plans for a 1.2-gigawatt AI infrastructure hub representing more than $50B of investment.

“You have seen Alberta and some provinces say, okay, we’re open for business. We want data centres here,” Jacobs said. “They need all of your energy for the whole city. We’re not set up for that.”

Data centres can also consume large amounts of land, electricity and infrastructure while employing relatively few people once construction ends.

The longer-term effect may come from the infrastructure surrounding these projects. New roads, rail connections, ports and power systems can make previously isolated land viable for development and change the economics of properties already there.

“You can’t move the building,” Jacobs said. “But the building is massively improved in value and in ability to be leased if there’s better transportation to it.”