Non-residential capital spending expected to hit record high in ‘22
Public sector spending is expected to push capital investments in non-residential construction to its highest-ever level in 2022, says Statistics Canada.
The agency reports that expenditures on non-residential construction and machinery and equipment are expected to rise by 8.6 percent to $298.2 billion in 2022. This follows an increase of 10.4 percent last year.
Statistics Canada expects public-sector capital investments to reach $116.8 billion in 2022, while investment from the private sector is expected to rise by 7.8 percent to $181.4 billion—just shy of the level recorded in 2019.
Not surprisingly, investments in public infrastructure are driving public-sector spending.
Capital spending by the public sector is expected to rise for a sixth consecutive year, reaching $116.8 billion (+9.7 percent) in 2022.
Capital outlays are expected to increase by $4.6 billion (+12.9 percent) in 2022 in the public administration industries. The majority of this increase is due to planned spending by local, municipal and regional public administrations on non-residential buildings and other structures.
Capital spending on publicly owned assets in transportation and warehousing industries, meanwhile, will have tripled since in 2016. Public transit projects, mostly in the Toronto area, account for almost all of the anticipated increase in 2022. Private and public organizations in the transit and ground passenger transportation subsector are expected to boost capital spending by 18.5 percent that year, after increasing by 26.0 percent in 2021.
Record-high capital spending is also expected in the health care and social assistance sector in 2022. In 2020, investments increased by 21.9 percent to reach $11.1 billion and continued to rise in 2021 to $12.1 billion. Increases were recorded in all provinces and territories in 2021, except Ontario and Nunavut.
While hospitals accounted for most of the increase in spending in 2020 (+27.3 percent to $7.0 billion), the nursing and residential care facilities subsector and the ambulatory health care services subsector were the focus of the growth in 2021, increasing 32.2 percent and 22.5 percent respectively that year.
Ontario committed to deliver 30,000 new long-term care beds by the 2028–2029 fiscal year, and, as of February 7, 2022, it had more than 73 percent of these in the planning, construction and opening stages.
Major projects in clean energy are contributing to increases in capital spending in several provinces and territories in 2021 and 2022.