Why Ontario healthcare construction is expanding
Ontario's healthcare build-out is driven by an aging population, a growing provincial population, and a hospital stock that is in many places well past its planned service life. The province's capital plan funds new acute-care hospitals, ambulatory care buildings, children's treatment centres, cancer centres and long-term care homes. Infrastructure Ontario's June 2026 Market Update calls out Health and Children's Treatment Centres as a distinct pipeline category alongside Transit and Public Works & Justice, and reports 24 projects currently in pre-procurement or active procurement across all sectors with a combined design and construction value of more than $25 billion (source: Infrastructure Ontario, June 2026 Market Update).
How healthcare capital projects are delivered in Ontario
Most large Ontario hospital projects are delivered under Infrastructure Ontario's Alternative Financing and Procurement (AFP) / P3 model. The typical path:
- IO and the hospital corporation publish a Request for Qualifications (RFQ) to shortlist proponent teams (GC, designer, financier, facility manager).
- Shortlisted teams respond to a Request for Proposals (RFP), typically under a Design-Build-Finance (DBF) or Design-Build-Finance-Maintain (DBFM) contract.
- A preferred proponent is selected, followed by commercial and financial close.
- Construction proceeds under the AFP contract, with subcontracts flowed down by the winning GC / consortium.
- Smaller renovations, cancer-centre expansions and community projects still use traditional design-bid-build under CCDC contracts.
Southern Ontario: named active hospital projects
Southern Ontario carries the highest concentration of active healthcare capital work. Publicly named examples currently in construction or procurement include:
- The Peter Gilgan Mississauga Hospital and Shah Family Hospital for Women and Children (Trillium Health Partners): full replacement of the existing Mississauga Hospital. Trillium and Infrastructure Ontario reached financial close in July 2025 with ED+PCL Healthcare Partners; construction is underway (source: Trillium Health Partners, THP newsroom).
- Peel Memorial Hospital Phase 2 Redevelopment (William Osler Health System, Brampton): Osler broke ground on the new Peel Memorial Hospital in March 2025 with Bird Design-Build as the construction partner under an IO-led procurement (source: William Osler Health System, Infrastructure Ontario).
- The Fancsy Family Hospital Project – Contract 1 Diagnostic and Treatment Block (Windsor Regional Hospital): the RFQ for the first construction contract on the new Windsor-Essex acute-care hospital has been released through Infrastructure Ontario (source: Infrastructure Ontario projects portal).
Eastern Ontario: named active hospital projects
Eastern Ontario's headline project is The Ottawa Hospital's New Campus at Dow's Lake. It is being built on a 50-acre site bordered by Carling Avenue, Preston Street and Prince of Wales Drive, and will include a new state-of-the-art hospital, an ambulatory care and research building, and structured parking (source: The Ottawa Hospital, Campus Progress page). Project consultants have publicly indicated an opening timeline in the early-to-mid 2030s, meaning multi-year sub-trade and supply opportunities across civil, structural, envelope, mechanical, electrical and interior fit-out packages (source: CBC News, Ottawa). Other Eastern Ontario healthcare capital work continues at CHEO, Kingston Health Sciences Centre and community hospitals in Cornwall and Brockville; check each hospital's procurement page and the IO project portal for current status.
Northern Ontario: named active hospital projects
Northern Ontario is often overlooked but has a named, active healthcare mega-project: the Weeneebayko Area Health Authority (WAHA) Redevelopment in Moosonee and on Moose Factory Island. WAHA and Infrastructure Ontario announced the construction contract award in October 2024, and IO has since reported that the WAHA Redevelopment is in full swing, delivering a new hospital and ambulatory care campus in the western James Bay and Hudson Bay region (source: Weeneebayko Area Health Authority, Infrastructure Ontario). Additional Northern healthcare work continues at Health Sciences North (Sudbury), Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre and Sault Area Hospital; see each hospital's news / capital-project pages for the current stage.
Long-term care construction across Ontario
Alongside hospitals, the Province of Ontario is running a large long-term care capital program. Ontario's public commitment is to build 30,000 net-new LTC beds and upgrade tens of thousands more, backed by the 2025 Long-Term Care Home Capital Funding Policy under the Ministry of Long-Term Care (sources: news.ontario.ca; ontario.ca). LTC projects are typically owner/operator-led (not IO-led P3s), which opens them to a broader field of Ontario general contractors, modular builders and specialty subs than the acute-care AFP pipeline.
Trades and scopes in demand on healthcare builds
Healthcare projects are among the most technically demanding vertical work in the province. Scopes that consistently pull the deepest sub-trade demand include:
- Medical gas piping and testing (oxygen, medical air, vacuum, nitrous, WAGD).
- Lead-lined and RF-shielded construction for imaging (CT, MRI, nuclear medicine, linac vaults).
- Cleanroom / compounding pharmacy fit-outs (USP 797/800).
- Low-voltage systems: nurse call, RTLS, patient monitoring, structured cabling, security.
- Emergency and standby power, UPS, and code-compliant electrical redundancy.
- Infection-control-compliant phasing, ICRA hoarding and temporary utilities in occupied hospitals.
- Specialty mechanical: air-change-rate HVAC, isolation rooms, humidification and DDC controls.
How to find and bid Ontario healthcare projects
DataBid aggregates Ontario healthcare projects from the public sources below into one feed, filterable by stage and trade, with daily updates and contact data. Start a free trial to see it in action.
The named public sources every Ontario healthcare bidder should also watch:
- DataBid: Ontario healthcare projects across Southern, Eastern and Northern Ontario, filterable by stage and trade, with daily updates and lead contacts.
- Infrastructure Ontario project portal and quarterly Market Updates - names each active hospital project and its procurement stage.
- MERX (merx.com) - primary Ontario public tender board, including IO-hosted RFQs / RFPs.
- Biddingo (biddingo.com) - secondary tender board used by many hospitals and municipalities.
- Individual hospital corporation news and procurement pages (Trillium, William Osler, Unity Health, The Ottawa Hospital, Kingston HSC, LHSC, Windsor Regional, Health Sciences North, TBRHSC, WAHA).
- Ministry of Health and Ministry of Long-Term Care news releases (news.ontario.ca) for early capital announcements before RFQs post.