Canada’s pathway to net zero GHG emissions by 2050 will require an energy transformation along with changes to transportation, building, industry, information and computing technologies, and agriculture. An estimate of the cost of this effort made by the RBC is $2 trillion. Many of the projected initiatives, including carbon capture and storage facilities, pipelines, transmission lines, hydroelectric projects, nuclear projects, and grid scale storage and renewables, can be classified as megaprojects.
Canadian engineering and construction firms have a lot of experience with megaprojects. Well-known examples are the Alberta oil sands, the Ontario nuclear plants, Québec’s hydroelectric system and many more. Each of these projects created many jobs and resulted in labour mobility on a national scale.
What makes the net zero by 2050 challenge different is that it will require many concurrent megaprojects in all regions of the country over and above the current baseline of megaprojects for transportation, hospitals, etc., that are straining the resources of our firms.
The CAE Megaproject Program is seeking to address the question of whether Canada has the capacity to deliver $2 trillion of projects by 2050, on-time, on-budget, and to specification.
On March 6, 2024, the CAE hosted the Megaproject Leadership Forum. On June 3 and 4, 2024, the CAE partnered with the NAE (US), RAEng (UK) and ATSE (Australia) to hold an inter-academy workshop on large projects. Links to outputs from these events are listed here:
