🤏 Lil' nuke

Good morning! ⚾ As you cheer on the Toronto Blue Jays, consider this: Their iconic home, originally called the SkyDome, was the world’s first stadium to have a fully retractable motorized roof. Even more shocking is that it was built by EllisDon in only 30 months. 

⏰ Today’s read: 5 minutes

MARKETS

Economy: Following a dispute over an Ontario government TV ad criticizing U.S. tariffs, President Donald Trump has cut off trade talks with Canada and said he will not meet with Prime Minister Mark Carney for “a long time” and intends to implement an additional 10% tariff. Carney noted that they had made significant progress on steel, aluminum, and energy before talks collapsed and remained ready to resume discussions. In response, Canada is pursuing trade diversification through Europe and Asia, including agreements with Malaysia on energy and LNG.

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NEED TO KNOW

The week's headlines

🚘 Highway speeding: Toronto’s Gardiner Expressway fully reopened yesterday, marking a major milestone in the $73-million accelerated rehabilitation project completed more than a year ahead of schedule. The work included around-the-clock construction to restore the 60-year-old highway. It was originally slated for completion in April 2027.

🚃 Short list: Calgary has shortlisted major contractors for five civil-works packages on the Green Line LRT – SE Project, paving the way for a 2026 procurement phase covering stations, guideways, and key crossings on the $5-billion transit line. Construction on the 16-kilometre southeast segment began in 2025 and will continue through 2031, delivering 10 stations, six bridges, and a maintenance facility from Shepard to the Event Centre area.

⚖️ New act: Ontario’s proposed Fighting Delays, Building Faster Act, 2025 aims to speed up housing, road, and infrastructure development by cutting red tape and standardizing processes across municipalities. The legislation would streamline site plan approvals, review the Ontario Building Code, unify road construction standards, and create a new public corporation to manage Peel Region’s $40-billion water and wastewater assets.

✅ Settlement vote: Innu Nation members in Labrador are voting on whether to ratify the Tsheuatishiun (Reconciliation and Collaboration) Agreement with Hydro-Québec, a proposed $87-million settlement addressing cultural and environmental damages from the Churchill Falls hydro project. The deal, reached in June, includes annual payments over 16 years and three percent of Hydro-Québec’s Churchill Falls dividends, as long as the dam operates.

THE BIG STORY

Big ideas: Nuclear goes small and modular

Canada just doubled down on nuclear energy with a $3-billion financing stack for Ontario’s first four grid-scale small modular reactors (SMRs) at Darlington—positioning the country to be the first in the G7 with an operating SMR by 2030.

Thinking small: SMRs promise factory-built modules, smaller sites, shorter schedules and easier replication compared with mega-reactors. For provinces facing AI/data-centre and electrification load growth, SMRs offer firm, zero-emissions baseload to balance intermittent renewables and stabilize prices over decades. Darlington is Canada’s proving ground for whether that repeatability—and cost curve—shows up in practice.

Close to home: Using foreign companies when the work can be done in Canada has become a political hot potato. This project will generate Canadian 18,000 construction jobs, 3,700 permanent positions, and contribute $38.5 billion to Canada’s GDP over 65 years, with 80% of spending directed to Ontario companies.

Not so fast: Skeptics point to the NuScale cancellation in the U.S. as proof SMRs can run over budget and lose customers. Others argue wind/solar plus storage can scale faster at lower cost, and they raise long-term waste and social-licence concerns. Pro-nuclear voices counter that first-unit pain is normal — and that Canada’s equity stake, IPD model, and domestic supply chain lower the risk profile.

Big dreams: If successful, Canada becomes the first G7 mover on grid-scale SMRs, locking in high-value jobs and exportable expertise while firming up the grid for industry, housing growth and digital demand. For builders, engineers and manufacturers, it’s a multi-year pipeline big enough to justify new capex, hiring and training. We also have immense power demand on the horizon. Fueling this growth while reaching climate goals will require big thinking like this.

PROJECT SPOTLIGHT

Architectural Renewal

Hariri Pontarini Architects has been selected to lead a major $75-million redevelopment of the McMichael Canadian Art Collection, its first major upgrade in over 40 years. Supported by funding from the federal and Ontario governments, the project will modernize and expand the gallery while preserving its iconic timber-and-stone architecture in the Humber River Valley.

PROJECT UPDATES

$132M ice arena opens in Surrey, B.C.

Birds announces agreement for Peel Memorial Hospital project

$150M in funds announced to build Olympic Village School

Construction begins on new state-of-the-art UPS facility in Barrie

BMI Group to redevelop form pulp/paper mill site

Opponents challenge Nova Scotia Whale Sanctuary plans

Rebuilding Broadway above new SkyTrain stations begins in January

WHAT WE’RE TALKING ABOUT

📐 WATCH: Did caulk make our buildings flat?

🏗️ READ: Record-breaking bridge in Taiwan nearly complete

📺 WATCH: The Ontario tariff ad that set off Trump

⚖️READ: Massive developer case falls apart in Ontario

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Here’s to a great rest of the week!

Disclaimer: SiteNews is an independently-operated news website. Views expressed are that of the editorial team and are based on publicly available information unless otherwise noted through sponsored content.