In this year’s Top 100 list, our first ten projects represent $26.49 billion in infrastructure investment—in the game of infrastructure development, that puts them at the top.

When construction officially began in May 2009 on Hydro-Québec’s renewable energy project along Northern Quebec’s Romaine River, Quebec Premier Jean Charest said, “Today, we are launching the biggest construction project in Canada.” We agree—after all, it is our number one project for the second year running.

Not only is this a massive construction site, generating about 975 jobs for each year of construction, it will pump $3.5 billion into Quebec’s economy through new contracts and the purchase of goods and services—this according to CVTech Group, the builder on the project. Hydro-Québec says the Romaine project will generate economic spinoffs in the range of $3.5 billion for Quebec as a whole and $1.3 billion for the Côte-Nord region.

As with all mega-projects, it’s not all roses. The problem is expressed pretty clearly in Monopoly’s newest spinoff, Monopoly City. The game lets players build their “dream cities” and screw other players by putting “known hazards” like power plants in their “districts.”

There are plenty of real-life players who feel they are losing the game for exactly that reason—and this September through October, a group of 28 of them ran 42 kilometres each from Matagami, near the Rupert River in northern Quebec, to the Romaine River on Quebec’s lower North Shore as a statement against the Romaine project’s four dams. When completed in 2020, the Romaine hydro complex will produce 1,550 megawatts of hydroelectricity. The Alliance Romaine’s point: hydroelectricity isn’t as green as people may think. They’ve got Sierra Club Québec’s support, but the project’s progress hasn’t slowed. Hydro-Québec recently awarded the project’s first major contract to Thirau ltée, a subsidiary of CVTech Group Inc., which started construction this fall.

Romaine is just one of the four projects this public utility has on our list. In fact, our number two project is another one of Hydro-Québec’s hydroelectric stations, this one in the James Bay Territory. Before Romaine got started, the Eastmain-1-A/Sarcelle project along the Rupert River was Quebec’s biggest construction site. This is all part of Hydro-Québec’s $9.1-billion plan to increase annual hydroelectric output by 15.8 terawatt hours (TWh) between 2006 and 2014. After commissioning, the Eastmain-1-A/Sarcelle/Rupert Project will provide 8.5 TWh at a cost of less than five cents per kilowatt hour (kWh).

The proposed changes to Montreal’s Échanger Turcot Interchange (#10).

Quebec’s not the only province that can do hydro—the Wuskwatim Generation Project (number six), located at Taskinigup Falls, about 45 kilometres southwest of Thompson, is the biggest construction project in Manitoba right now. Quebec is also not the only province to experience pushback. In August 2009, protestors from the Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation (NCN) set up a blockade to deny workers access to the Wuskwatim dam site. That dispute was over the lack of NCN members employed at the site. Non-profit environmental organization, Manitoba Wildlands, has also spoken out against the project, saying that neither the project proponents nor the government followed environmental impact statement guidelines, and that only token attention is paid to potential effects from the transmission and roads.

Ontario continues to develop its hydro megaproject in Niagara. The Niagara Tunnel Project was bumped into our Top 10 (from number 14 last year) due to unforeseen challenges with tunnel boring. Big Becky, the massive boring machine digging what will be one of the largest tunnels in North America, has run into some unforeseen geology and is behind schedule. Subsurface rock conditions are different from the baseline established within the design-build contract, causing delays and budget increases. The tunnel’s alignment had to be revised to avoid excavating a softer, red shale knows as Queenston shale.

Despite these difficulties, hydro is still the form of renewable energy making the biggest mark on our list. Other renewables are not as strongly represented as they might have been in our Top 10. While British Columbia’s Naikun Wind Energy Project made number five, an Ontario offshore wind prospect at Lake Erie was cancelled before it began. Canadian Hydro Developers were considering a deal with Wasatch Wind Inc. to acquire a 4,400-megawatt offshore wind project. The project was eligible for the Ontario Green Energy Act’s feed-in-tariff 20-year contract at a price of $190 per megawatt hours. But in a statement, Canadian Hydro said, “Based on the growth opportunities available, offshore wind is not a priority at this time.” It may also have tipped the scales that the company’s potential backer, Australian investment firm Babcock & Brown, is having financial difficulties. The firm is being liquidated by creditors and has sold off its North American wind power division, including St. Joseph Wind Farm in Manitoba (number 20 on our list) to an American investment firm. On top of these struggles, the Canadian Wind Energy Association says tight capital markets and the global recession have made this a less-than-impressive year.

Paul Taylor, president and CEO of B.C.-based NaiKun Wind Energy Group Inc., isn’t worried about the wind market—neither is ENMAX, which has a 50 per cent equity stake in the $2-billion NaiKun Wind Energy Project.

Taylor says, “Wind has had a rough year in B.C. with the clean power call being stalled. But a lot of the issues seem to be cleared away now and the medium to long-term outlook for wind is positive.”

But Taylor says that until government establishes a regime that properly prices carbon, it will be difficult for renewables to compete with more traditional generation projects—one such project appears in our number eight spot: the Keephills 3 Generating Plant. Alberta is taking advantage of new federal funding for carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) projects. Project Pioneer, which would capture and store up to one million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year, will apply for a piece of the $779 million to help make Keephills 3 the world’s first large-scale carbon capture and storage facility. Before Project Pioneer can get underway, work on the plant has to be completed. And part owner Capital Power, formerly Epcor, recently announced a $100-million cost increase and extended construction timeline for the project.

Over half of our Top 10 are energy projects. What makes up the other four? Transit and transportation, of course.

Aside from massive transit investments in Ontario thanks to Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) and Metrolinx projects—and a pile of new federal and provincial funding—transit didn’t make a large impact on our Top 10.

Transportation work, on the other hand, represents $5.56 billion of the investment on our Top 10. Our number ten project is the reconstruction of the Turcot Interchange, a 40-year-old expressway network that snakes around the city like a series of luge tracks. It’s the largest structure of its kind in Quebec, with average traffic in excess of 280,000 vehicles per day. The Ministère des Transports (MTQ) project involves the reconstruction of the Turcot, De La Vérendrye, Angrignon, and Montréal-Ouest interchanges, reducing the number of raised structures and constructing as many sections as possible at ground level or on embankments. The project also calls for the relocation of the railway tracks and Autoroute 20 to the north, toward rue Pullman, opening up former rail yard properties for future development.

Critics, including the Bureau d’audience publiques sur l’environnment (BAPE), have argued that the current plan will encourage car use and increase pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, instead of encouraging public transit. Because this project will have a major impact on how the city functions, work has been postponed until a solid development plan is formed.

Originally the project was meant to be partially financed by private-sector partners, but Montreal Mayor Gérald Tremblay reportedly argued at BAPE hearings that using a P3 strategy would result in restricting the flexibility of the project’s design and execution. In June 2009, Transport Québec announced it won’t pursue a public-private partnership (P3) model for funding the reconstruction project.

Another project that at one time considered the P3 approach, the Port Mann / Highway 1 Project (PMH1), went from number seven on last year’s list to number four this year. The widening of 37 kilometres of highway, including twinning/replacement of the major Port Mann Bridge crossing of the Fraser River,  was listed at $1.6 billion on last year’s Top 100, but Hatch Mott MacDonald has confirmed that the cost is now $2.46 billion.

After being unable to reach a final agreement with Connect BC Development Group, Transportation and Infrastructure Minister Kevin Falcon announced that the Province of British Columbia will move forward with a design-build, fixed-price contract. “We said from the beginning that this was a very challenging capital market environment, and that executing the project would involve complex negotiations,” said Falcon. “We commend Macquarie Group for being able to arrange committed debt and equity for the project through unprecedented turbulence in global markets, and for assembling a first-class team of consortium partners. Unfortunately, the parties could not agree on final terms.” Falcon said Partnerships BC, the provincial body that facilitates P3s, counselled the Province not to proceed.

The new contract signed with Kiewit-Flatiron in March 2009 ensures that cost overruns or construction delays are the responsibility of the contractor, not the Province. Completion is still scheduled for 2013 and MMM Group’s Peter Overton says the project is back on track. “Construction started as we reached just 40 per cent design completion, and we continue to work to an aggressive submission schedule to deliver the effectively completed design by the end of 2010.”

But Overton says design challenges abound, not the least of which is mobilizing and integrating a wider team of 340 staff from 16 firms, each with their own style, into a single cohesive group. Additionally, much of the Lower Mainland is a sensitive aquatic environment. Ground conditions are highly variable, requiring the expertise of three geotechnical firms. Highway widening and new interchanges are being squeezed onto already-occupied land. “Despite early identification of property requirements, acquisition, appeals and negotiations with property owners is an extended process resulting in late scope refinements and impacts on the onshore design,” says Overton.

Ontario’s Windsor-Essex Parkway (number seven) will attempt to do what Port Mann couldn’t: succeed as a P3. This 11-kilometre stretch will connect Highway 401 to the planned Detroit River International Crossing, and ultimately to the U.S. Interstate system. This is a critical link for international trade—the current Windsor crossings account for 28 per cent of Canada’s trade with the United States. The project is in its beginning phases, with a request for proposals about to be released. This is interesting because it’s a departure from Health Care P3s (or AFPs, as they’re called in Ontario), which is what Infrastructure Ontario (IO) has been doing very well—as indicated by the 14 Health Care AFPs on our Top 100 list facilitated by IO.

Another thing you’ll see next year in the Top 10: a ton of TTC projects in Toronto. There are at least three scheduled to start construction in spring 2010. The majority of those health care AFPs will be complete by next year, leaving room for potentially more transportation, or even water and wastewater projects.

Every year, the Top 100 list provides a snapshot of industry trends and investments. For a more comprehensive breakdown of the entire Top 100—distributed as a supplement to this issue—look for our Top 100 report in spring 2010.