Brandon Donnelly

Daily insights for city builders, delivered every morning at 6 AM ET. I’m Brandon Donnelly — a Toronto-based real estate developer and founder of Globizen. I’ve been writing here since 2013.

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Tag: canada

  • La Promenade des Anglais needs a Canadian flag

    I have a suggestion.

    La promenade des Anglais is Nice’s most globally recognizable street. It’s a 7-kilometre waterfront promenade that curves along the Baie des Anges. It’s a UNESCO World Heritage Site and it’s home to many of the city’s events, such as the Ironman competition that took place this week.

    (Congratulations once again to my brother from another mother Austin for showing us how it’s done today!)

    In addition to a beautiful promenade, beach, and shimmering blue waters, you’ll also find lots of flags. Naturally, there’s the French flag. There’s the Union Jack. The promenade was originally funded and built by the British aristocracy who used to winter in Nice.

    You’ll find the flag of Monaco given its proximity (~20 km). The Italian flag also features. Nice belonged to the Kingdom of Sardinia until 1860, and the border is ~30 km away.

    You’ll find the American flag, which presumably reflects the city’s long military and cultural connection with the US. More recently, you might also find Ukrainian flags, reflecting French solidarity with and support for the country.

    But one flag that I have yet to find is the Canadian flag. That is, other than the one this yahoo was waving around during the Ironman competition. I think that needs to change. Canada is widely considered to be the second most important country, after France, within La Francophonie.

    Plus, with Canada looking to aggressively deepen its economic ties with the EU and with Air Canada announcing direct flights from Toronto to Nice starting next summer, I think Nice should expect greater Canadian influence going forward.

    I have put out a formal request to President Macron, Prime Minister Carney, and the Ville de Nice. I’ll let you know how they respond.

  • Canada’s variable geometry map

    Here is an interesting map that tracks every important agreement Canada has signed (or is expected to sign) with other countries since March 2025. It is called the Variable Geometry Map, which is in direct response to what Prime Minister Carney outlined in his Davos speech at the beginning of the year: “To help solve global problems, we are pursuing variable geometry. In other words, different coalitions for different issues, based on common values and interests.”

    The agreements are bucketed into five deal types: strategic partnership, economic, security, resources, and technology. They’re all listed in this Google Sheet if you’d like to do an audit. All in all, there are 119 agreements (82 of which have already been signed), spanning 31 countries if you exclude the United States. I like this strategy at a high level, but of course, signing agreements is only one thing. The proof will be in what these ultimately do for Canada.

  • Data centres will soon claim 15% of total US grid capacity

    Here are some recent data centre figures to help put things into perspective. By 2035, BloombergNEF now expects there to be 194 GW of data centres online in the US. This is an upward revision of 83%! The reason for this revision is that “the announced data center pipeline in the US has grown by a further 101 GW since December 2025.”

    But here’s another interesting thing. BNEF also estimates that the shipment of AI chips between 2023-2033 could total as much as 325 GW of data centre capacity in a theoretical world with no other constraints. Of this figure, they expect 207 GW to go to the US.

    However, they also identify a shortfall of 63 GW between this expected supply of AI chips and what is actually forecasted to get built due to grid constraints. So in other words, the chip market may be overshooting what can actually be physically deployed (though there are nuances to consider here).

    Regardless of what ultimately ends up happening, we’re talking about enormous numbers. The recent clean energy investment here in Canada is expected to generate an additional 14 GW of clean, renewable power. It goes to show just how many of these big announcements we are going to need for Canada to become a data centre superpower.

    At the end of 2025, the entire utility-scale electricity-generation capacity of the US was 1,280,799 MW, or about 1,280 GW. So when we’re talking about an install base of 194 GW by 2035, we’re talking about ~15% of the country’s current grid capacity.

  • Canada is uniquely suited to become a global hub for data centres

    Kevin Yin frames the data centre debate eloquently in this recent Globe and Mail article: “The backlash against data centres is understandable. But the answer is not to block construction. It is to design a better bargain.”

    Here are some things we can say about data centres right now:

    • They create relatively few long-term direct jobs (though innovation spillover does exist when they cluster).
    • They are power hungry.
    • They are a core physical engine of the new global economy.
    • They play to Canada’s physical and economic strengths as an energy superpower.

    Meaning, Canada is uniquely suited to become a global hub for data centres and AI infrastructure. Canada has abundant energy, naturally lower cooling costs, geopolitical stability, and deep institutional capital.

    The challenge is that we need to manage the negative externalities. No household, for instance, wants to pay higher energy bills.

    We also need to make sure that there are long-term economic benefits for the country, and that we’re not repeating the old habit of “exporting” our resources to other countries so that they can innovate. That would be a bad deal.

    The world is going to continue to need a lot more data centres, and Canada is in a unique position to lead and have control over its own destiny. Kevin offers a few ideas for what a better bargain might look like, if you’d like to have a read.

  • Burnaby backtracks on inclusionary zoning

    The City of Burnaby recently passed an amendment to its inclusionary rental requirements. It has now been removed from the southeast portion of the city, which, according to Burnaby Now, has one of the lowest median incomes in the city.

    Here’s an excerpt from the staff recommendation report that was approved in early October:

    The analysis explored the impacts of increasing the density of developments in the Edmonds Town Centre area to try and improve revenues. However, the results showed that at current values, additional density is not able to offset the costs of providing the non-market housing, and that the equity needed to pursue large developments became prohibitive. As such, it is recommended that inclusionary rental requirements apply city-wide, with a delayed effective date for the Southeast Burnaby CMHC rental zone (the “SE Burnaby CMHC Zone”), until such time that inclusionary rental requirements become financially viable.

    What’s noteworthy about this amendment is that it acknowledges the real costs associated with non-market housing and shows how important high market rents are to subsidizing them. There’s no such thing as no-cost affordable housing. In the end, somebody always has to pay.

  • Canada announces high-speed rail between Quebec City and Toronto — finally!

    The train from Paris to Marseille takes just over 3 hours:

    To drive this same distance, it would take just over 8 hours:

    So unless you had a very specific reason, I don’t know why you’d ever want to drive this route. I certainly hate long drives and would avoid this at all costs.

    On a related note, the Canadian government announced this week that it will actually be moving forward with a high-speed train linking Québec City to Toronto, stopping in Peterborough, Ottawa, Montréal, Trois-Rivières, and Laval. And unlike previous announcements, it will actually go pretty fast — upwards of 300 km/h, which is comparable to what the TGV does on the above route.

    There are three consortia currently competing for this contract, but apparently the federal government has already chosen a winning bidder. An announcement is expected next month. At the same time, the project office owns all of the bids, and so there’s a chance that elements from each of them could be used in the final project.

    According to official messaging, the design alone is expected to take some 4 to 5 years, which is an eternity and way too long. But at least we seem to be moving forward. This rail link is a no brainer. It will compress the geography of an importantly bilingual corridor with nearly 20 million people — about half the population of Canada! It’s our megalopolis.

    Now we just need to move forward with urgency and with an unwavering commitment to creating the best high-speed rail service in the world. Let’s not accept mediocrity. And let’s not cancel it once we’ve already sunk millions into it. That would be a terrible outcome for such an obviously important nation-building project.

    LFG.

  • Weekend cycle around the city

    On Saturday, I went on a bike ride all around Toronto. We cut across midtown (checking in on One Delisle), stopped at the Chester Hill Lookout (which if you grew up in the east end is where you probably went as a teenager to make out), shot down the Don Valley, and then turned west along the waterfront. The weather was perfect.

    As we were going along the waterfront, we passed the new Aqualuna building that is under construction on Queens Quay East, near Parliament Street. Being the architecture nerd that I am, I immediately noticed that as you pass by — at the speed of a bike — the balconies create this really nice cinematic effect.

    So I stopped to take these photos (I probably should have taken a video now that I think of it):

    I then tweeted a tweet calling it one of the most beautiful buildings going up in Toronto today. Judging from the responses, most people seem to be in agreement, but a few people questioned the practicality of balconies like this. Namely how private and usable they will be. I don’t disagree, but I still think it’s fine looking building.

    What do you think?

  • Approved but unbuilt

    Recent data from the City of Toronto indicates that there were approximately 106,000 new residential units completed between 2019 and 2023. That averages to about 26,500 homes per year.

    At the same time, Toronto is reporting that 258,397 units are currently approved for development and that 436,421 units are currently under review. The former means that the projects have been approved and that a building permit has been applied for or has been issued. And the latter means that the units are still under review or under appeal.

    These feel like staggering numbers. If we were to use the same completion rate as 2019-2023, it would take over 26 years to build these 694,818 new units (homes approved + under review).

    However, I think it’s safe to assume that not all of these homes will be built; at least not in the short term. Many (perhaps most) of these projects are simply going to evaporate in the current market environment. They’re unfinanceable.

    Because that’s the thing, zoning approved does not necessarily equal built and occupied. And right now, in this market, these two things feel like they’re diverging. Toronto grew by about 207,000 people between 2019 and 2023. And it built about half of this number in new homes.

    When we look back at the next four years, I suspect that this housing supply number will be noticeably lower. This is despite the staggering headline numbers.

  • Unfair labor practice

    At the beginning of this month, the Government of Canada issued this direction, setting out the requirement for all public servants to be “in the workplace” at least three days per week. To ensure some flexibility, it also specified that it didn’t have to be exactly this schedule. But the intent was that public servants would need to spend a minimum of 60% of their regular schedules, in the workplace, whether measured on a weekly or monthly basis.

    Immediately, the Public Service Alliance of Canada reacted and said that it would be filing “unfair labor practice” complaints: “We will be using every recourse we have available to fight this mandate,” PSAC national president Chris Aylward said, arguing that the surprise policy update was “anti-worker” and “fundamentally breaks the trust of workers and unions with the Trudeau government.”

    Now, I understand that there are a whole host of legal considerations with a mandate like this. If remote work has, for example, become an implied term of these employment relationships, then it might be difficult for any employer to call these people back. Thankfully, I am not a lawyer. And so I don’t think this way. It is probably also the case that I’m now in my middle adulthood and have old school views on this topic.

    Because in my mind, this is the government saying, “hey everyone who works for us, we’d like you to come into the office at least three days a week so that we can work together as a team, collaborate, and hopefully innovate.” And this is employees saying, “no way, that’s totally unfair! How dare you demand we come into the office that much?” Like, since when did going into work become such a problem?

    At the same time, Canada is suffering from an existential productivity problem. This country has seen no productivity growth in recent years. And if you compare us to other developed countries, we are near the bottom. Even France — which is stereotypically famous for its relaxed work culture and its ban on after-work emails — is more productive than were are!

    This needs to change or we will remain a deeply troubled country. And like everything, it’s going to require work.

    Photo by Marc-Olivier Jodoin on Unsplash

  • Housing affordability in Canada

    By some measures, housing affordability is, in aggregate, the worst it has been in Canada going back to the 1980s. Below is a chart from RBC showing homeownership costs as a percentage of median household income.

    The previous spike came around the early 90s, but following that, we saw 3 decades of relative affordability. In fact, for a large portion of this timeline, condo apartments look to be hovering around 1/3 of median household income. This is a common rule of thumb for measuring affordability.

    Now obviously things changed pretty dramatically during the pandemic. But that time has ended and a reset is underway. New housing supply has slowed dramatically. Developers are sitting on record levels of inventory. And sellers of all shapes and sizes are clinging, as best they can, to yesterday’s prices.

    With so much uncertainty, it’s challenging, if not impossible, to know exactly how all of this will play out in the coming years. But I suspect that, as time goes on, the above chart is going to start to mirror what we saw in the early and mid-90’s. In other words, affordability is going to improve.