“A society that invests only in today’s needs mortgages tomorrow’s possibilities.” – MJ Martin
Introduction
Canada’s housing crisis is often framed as a shortage of land, lengthy municipal approvals, labour shortages, or rising construction costs. Those are certainly important factors, but another constraint is quietly emerging beneath every new subdivision and industrial park. Electricity distribution infrastructure has become one of the country’s least visible yet most significant bottlenecks.
A recent investigation by The Globe and Mail highlighted how Ontario’s local electricity distribution system has become a limiting factor in achieving provincial housing objectives, particularly in rapidly growing communities such as Brooklin, Ontario. The article illustrates a broader national issue that deserves much greater attention from governments, regulators, utilities, developers, and citizens alike. Rather than simply producing more electricity, Canada must also deliver it effectively to every home, business, electric vehicle charger, heat pump, and future distributed energy resource. This is fundamentally a “last mile” problem. (McClearn, The Globe and Mail, July 2026).
Generation Means Little Without Delivery
Electricity networks resemble Canada’s transportation system. Generating stations are analogous to ports where cargo first arrives. High voltage transmission lines function like national highways. However, local distribution networks are the neighbourhood streets leading directly to every residence.
A nation can build all the highways it wants, but if residential streets remain narrow, damaged, or incomplete, no deliveries reach individual homes. Ontario finds itself confronting precisely this challenge.
Over the past decade, political attention has largely focused on large scale generation including nuclear refurbishment, new nuclear reactors, renewable generation, battery storage, and data centre electricity demand. Comparatively little attention has been directed toward the aging distribution infrastructure that ultimately connects customers to the grid.
The Electricity Distributors Association estimates Ontario’s local distribution companies will require between $103 billion and $120 billion in investments during the next two decades simply to modernize and expand local electricity networks. This estimate concerns only the distribution system and excludes much larger generation and transmission investments (Electricity Distributors Association; The Globe and Mail, 2026).
Why Demand Has Changed So Quickly
For many years Ontario experienced relatively stable electricity demand. Utilities expanded cautiously because regulators understandably sought to protect customers from unnecessary spending.
Today the assumptions have changed dramatically.
New housing developments require significantly larger electrical capacity than homes constructed thirty years ago. Electric vehicle charging, heat pumps replacing natural gas heating, induction cooking, battery storage systems, rooftop solar integration, and increasingly sophisticated home automation all consume or manage electricity differently.
Commercial growth has also accelerated demand. Manufacturing reshoring, artificial intelligence data centres, logistics facilities, electrified transit systems, and industrial decarbonization all depend upon reliable electricity.
Utilities now face the difficult task of expanding systems that were originally designed for a very different world.
The Brooklin development illustrates this perfectly. Planning approvals existed, developers were prepared to build, and municipal support was available. The missing ingredient was sufficient electrical capacity.
The Financing Dilemma
Perhaps the most difficult question is not engineering but economics.
Who should pay?
Ontario currently follows a “beneficiary pays” philosophy, where developers typically fund infrastructure directly benefiting new developments. Regulators also protect existing customers from subsidizing private development.
Each perspective has merit.
Developers argue that feeder lines, substations, and transformers become permanent public infrastructure serving communities for decades.
Utilities argue they cannot invest billions based solely on anticipated future growth because regulators require prudence and financial discipline.
Municipalities often depend upon dividends from their utility ownership rather than possessing surplus capital for reinvestment.
Consumers understandably resist significant electricity rate increases during a period of already elevated living costs.
There is no simple solution because every stakeholder faces legitimate financial pressures.
A Canadian Perspective
Although Ontario receives most of the attention, similar pressures are developing elsewhere in Canada.
British Columbia must accommodate rapid electrification while supporting population growth.
Alberta is expanding industrial electricity demand while modernizing distribution systems.
Quebec enjoys the advantages of Hydro-Québec’s vertically integrated structure, allowing broader long term planning across generation, transmission, and distribution.
Atlantic Canada similarly faces increasing electrification associated with climate policies.
Regardless of provincial differences, every Canadian jurisdiction must answer the same fundamental question. How should tomorrow’s electrical infrastructure be financed before tomorrow’s customers arrive?
Looking Beyond Traditional Utilities
Future solutions will likely require more than simply building larger substations.
Smart grid technologies, advanced distribution automation, distributed battery storage, neighbourhood microgrids, virtual power plants, intelligent transformers, and sophisticated demand response systems can all improve existing infrastructure utilization before expensive physical expansion becomes necessary.
Artificial intelligence will increasingly assist utilities by forecasting demand growth years in advance, optimizing feeder loading, identifying failing assets before outages occur, and coordinating distributed energy resources.
In many cases, intelligence may postpone expensive infrastructure replacement, although it will never eliminate the need for additional physical assets.
Summary
Ontario’s electricity infrastructure challenge is not merely an engineering problem. It is an economic, regulatory, political, and societal issue that directly affects housing affordability, industrial competitiveness, and Canada’s broader electrification ambitions.
Like a growing city whose roads have reached maximum capacity, the electrical grid requires expansion before continued growth becomes possible. Ignoring the distribution network while investing heavily in generation would resemble constructing new airports without building roads leading to their terminals.
The debate therefore extends well beyond who pays today’s construction costs. It concerns how Canada prepares its communities for the next fifty years of economic growth.
Several important questions deserve continued discussion. Should regulators permit greater investment before growth materializes? Should governments treat electricity distribution as strategic national infrastructure similar to highways? Could pension funds become meaningful long term investors in local utilities? Finally, are Canadians prepared to accept higher electricity rates today in exchange for faster housing development, greater reliability, and a more resilient grid tomorrow?
The answers to those questions may ultimately determine whether Canada’s ambitious housing and electrification goals become reality or remain constrained by the very wires intended to connect them.
Sources
Matthew McClearn. Why a Multibillion Dollar Electricity Infrastructure Gap is Threatening Ontario’s Housing Goals. The Globe and Mail, July 2026.
Electricity Distributors Association. Distribution infrastructure investment estimates and policy commentary.
Ontario Energy Board connection policy reviews and major load connection proceedings.
Independent Electricity System Operator planning outlooks and electricity demand forecasts.
C.D. Howe Institute. Research on Canadian electricity pricing and competitiveness.
About the Author:
Michael Martin is the Vice President of Technology with Metercor Inc., a Smart Meter, IoT, and Smart City systems integrator based in Canada. He has more than 40 years of experience in systems design for applications that use broadband networks, optical fibre, wireless, and digital communications technologies. He is a business and technology consultant. He was a senior executive consultant for 15 years with IBM, where he worked in the GBS Global Center of Competency for Energy and Utilities and the GTS Global Center of Excellence for Energy and Utilities. He is a founding partner and President of MICAN Communications and before that was President of Comlink Systems Limited and Ensat Broadcast Services, Inc., both divisions of Cygnal Technologies Corporation (CYN: TSX).
Martin served on the Board of Directors for TeraGo Inc (TGO: TSX) and on the Board of Directors for Avante Logixx Inc. (XX: TSX.V). He has served as a Member, SCC ISO-IEC JTC 1/SC-41 – Internet of Things and related technologies, ISO – International Organization for Standardization, and as a member of the NIST SP 500-325 Fog Computing Conceptual Model, National Institute of Standards and Technology. He served on the Board of Governors of the University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT) [now Ontario Tech University] and on the Board of Advisers of five different Colleges in Ontario – Centennial College, Humber College, George Brown College, Durham College, Ryerson Polytechnic University [now Toronto Metropolitan University]. For 16 years he served on the Board of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE), Toronto Section.
He holds three master’s degrees – in business (MBA), communication (MA), and education (MEd). As well, he has three undergraduate diplomas and seven major certifications in business, computer programming, internetworking, project management, media, photography, and communication technology. He has completed over 80 next generation MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses) [aka Micro Learning] continuous education programs in a wide variety of topics, including: Economics, Python Programming, Internet of Things, Cloud, Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive systems, Blockchain, Agile, Power BI, Big Data, Design Thinking, Security, Indigenous Canada awareness, and more.
Martin in a volunteer, a photographer, a learner, a technologist, a philosophizer, and a romantic optimist.