The Economic Blueprint of the Blue Line: Analyzing Construction and Operations in IMPLAN Canada

Whitney McKinzie

July 17, 2026 18:34

INTRODUCTION

When evaluating the economic footprint of major capital investments across Canada, impact analyses typically separate a project into two distinct phases: temporary construction and ongoing operations. Utilizing the specialized IMPLAN Canada 236 Industry scheme—which maps directly to Statistics Canada data—analysts can model the short-term, localized stimulus of building physical infrastructure as separate from the long-term, recurring economic ripples generated by the facility's day-to-day operations. Distinguishing between these two phases ensures that one-time capital expenditures (such as hiring specialized local contractors) are not conflated with permanent operational outputs (such as recurring job creation, continuous GDP contribution, and multi-regional supply chain impacts). Whether analyzing a new energy corridor in Alberta or an urban transit expansion in Ontario, modeling both phases in IMPLAN Canada provides a rigorous, data-driven framework for capturing the full life-cycle impact on Canada’s provincial and sub-provincial economies.

Let’s take a closer look at a construction project occurring in a sub-provincial region of Canada.

OVERALL PROJECT OVERVIEW

Ice hockey is the official winter sport of Canada, making it an integral part of Canadian culture. But have you ever thought just how ingrained hockey is into Canada's economy? The start of hockey season supports employment and local spending throughout the economy. Investors at a large firm in Quebec, Canada have been exploring strategies to boost the Canadian economy. Since ice hockey is the official winter sport of Canada, they decided what better way to stimulate Canadian economic growth than to invest in the creation of a new hockey team, the Montérégie Quebec Fleur-de-lis!

This investment will include supporting the construction of a new hockey arena in Montérégie, Quebec, Canada, and the first year of the stadium’s operations. By examining the lifecycle of the facility—from the initial groundbreaking to its maturity as a national sports and entertainment hub—this report quantifies the "ripple effect" on provincial economies.

For the construction phase, we will take a deep dive into the immediate stimulus provided by capital investment. This includes the creation of high-value jobs in trades and engineering, the procurement of Canadian-sourced materials, and the induced spending generated by the project's labor force.

For the operations of the arena, we will make an assessment of the stadium’s ongoing footprint as a year-round employer. We analyze the direct output of facility management, team operations, and the local supply chain required to maintain a world-class venue.

CONSTRUCTION PROJECT SPECIFICS

The construction phase of the Montérégie Arena project began in early 2026, will last for 2 years, ending in early 2028, and will cost a total of $305M (CAD).

The investors and construction company tasked with building the arena created a budget broken down by different cost categories, denoting hard and soft costs, as well as land acquisition and start-up costs.

Looking at this construction budget, there are a couple of things that cannot be included when we’re talking about modeling construction in IMPLAN. Remember, when we’re analyzing construction in IMPLAN, we want to include costs that are incurred from constructing the physical building/structure itself. Other costs that are associated with construction, but not included in construction wouldn’t be representative of the same spending pattern, supply chain, and labor elements we commonly see associated with construction spending.

These line items that cannot be modeled are:

Purchase Price of Property (Land Acquisition):
- When land is purchased, this is considered a transfer of assets, and no additional economic activity is generated from this purchase, outside of potentially a few legal fees associated with the sale of property. Because of this, we do not want to include this in a construction analysis in IMPLAN.

Furniture, Fixtures, and Equipment (FF&E):
- FF&E is defined as large, movable investments that businesses make. You can think of this as items that are purchased to go inside of the structure once it’s been built. This includes items such as tables, chairs, machinery, etc. Because FF&E does not contribute to constructing the physical building itself, it should be modeled separately in IMPLAN, usually through a series of Commodity Events.

HOW DO YOU SET UP A CONSTRUCTION PROJECT IN IMPLAN CANADA?

Regions

Investors are interested in determining how the construction of this new hockey arena will impact not only Montérégie, Quebec, but also the rest of Quebec, as there are sure to be transactions that are made outside of Monteregie, Quebec but within the region of Quebec. Because of this, we know that we want to run a Multi-Regional Input Output (MRIO) Analysis. This type of analysis utilizes interregional commodity trade and commuting flows to quantify the demand changes across Regions stemming from a change in production and/or income in another Region. In short, it measures the economic interdependence of Regions.

In our analysis, we will have two distinct Regions:

Montérégie, Quebec Canada, which is where the construction is actually taking place.
A custom combined region, where we combine the remaining economic regions in Quebec, to create a Rest of Quebec region.

Impacts

After looking through the construction budget provided by the investors and the construction company, we know that we only want to include the hard and soft costs that are specified in the budget in our Event Value. This is because these are the only costs provided that are associated with building the physical structure of the hockey arena.

Similarly to the US IMPLAN model, construction industries in IMPLAN Canada do not bridge to corresponding NAICS codes. The Canadian construction industries are defined by the economic activities associated with the construction and repairs of specific structures. The economic activities include those performed by project managers, architects and engineers, general contractors, specialty trades and any other agent directly involved in the construction or repair of a specific structure. The specific structures are organized in accordance with Statistics Canada’s Annual Survey on Capital and Repairs Expenditures. The concepts are aligned with those described in Statistics Canada’s catalogue 61-205-X – Private and Public Investment in Canada.

Using IMPLAN’s Canadian Construction Industry Details document, you can match the correct IMPLAN Construction Industry based on the descriptions provided. For this scenario, the construction of a new hockey arena would fall under Commercial Building Construction, which ties back to IMPLAN Industry 29: Non-Residential Building Construction. You can enter the total hard and soft costs from our budget as our event value, and then place this event into the Monteregie, Quebec Group to link our event to this Group, as this is where the actual construction is taking place. To link the Rest of Quebec region that we created to this particular analysis, you can check the MRIO box in the top right hand corner. This will tell you how the construction occurring in Montérégie, Quebec will impact the rest of Quebec.

How do you set up a construction project in IMPLAN Canada?

Create a New Project — Create a new IMPLAN project and select the 236 Industries (Canada) Industry Set.
Add Regions — Select the Province/Territory or Sub-Provincial region(s) where your construction and operations will take place. Decide if you want to model additional spillover impacts to other regions using MRIO.
Isolate Hard and Soft Costs — Identify the project hard and soft costs which are directly tied to building the physical structure. These are the only costs that will be included in your construction event. (FF&E expenditure can be modeled separately but that is beyond the scope covered in this article).
Identify the IMPLAN Industry — Using the Canadian Construction Industry Details document to match the structure's physical definitions to the correct sector (e.g., Industry 29: Non-Residential Building Construction for an arena).
Create your Construction Event and Input Project — Enter the hard and soft costs as the Event Value, assign the Event to the specific Group where the build takes place, and check the MRIO box in the top-right corner to link to any secondary regions.

Results

The construction of the hockey arena is projected to generate a massive total economic output of $441,029,726.21, injecting significant capital into the economy. The project will directly support 945.57 construction and management jobs, accounting for $248.5 million of the total output and over $91.1 million in direct labor income. Beyond the immediate job site, the arena's construction creates a powerful ripple effect: supply chain purchases (Indirect impacts) add 610.43 jobs and $154.5 million in output, while the local spending of worker wages (Induced impacts) supports another 174.91 jobs. Collectively, the project yields 1,730.90 total jobs and contributes a substantial $207,715,024.48 in Value Added (GDP contribution).

The actual physical development of the facility directly drives Non-residential building construction (Industry 29), which represents the core capital investment. This sector captures the entire $248,500,000.00 in direct construction expenditures (e.g., hiring general contractors, on-site labor, and project management). There are no secondary indirect or induced impacts captured within this specific category, keeping it strictly focused on the immediate build.

The massive scale of building a new arena triggers extensive supply chain orders (Indirect impacts) across professional services and manufacturing sectors:

Design and Engineering: Before and during construction, Architectural, engineering and related services (Industry 182) receives a substantial $30,903,262.07 in total output, heavily driven by $30.84 million in indirect contract fulfillment.
Raw Materials and Manufacturing: The structural requirements of the arena inject massive capital into heavy industries, including $12,692,682.38 for cement and concrete product manufacturing (Industry 70) and $11,369,132.49 for architectural and structural metals manufacturing (Industry 76).
Logistics and Wholesale: Sourcing and moving these materials generates $6,643,773.25 for building material and supplies merchant wholesalers (Industry 124) and $4,397,638.47 for truck transportation logistics (Industry 144).

As construction workers and supply chain employees spend their wages, household consumption stimulates secondary sectors. This induced spending heavily influences Owner-occupied dwellings ($4,722,675.52) and Lessors of real estate ($4,581,113.20 total). Furthermore, the massive volume of product transactions throughout both the supply chain and consumer markets generates a significant $6,204,421.21 in product taxes net of subsidies (Industry 236), expanding the project's financial benefit to the public sector.

In addition to driving business growth, the arena project serves as a major revenue generator for various levels of government, bringing in a total of $70,905,703.57 in tax results. Provincial and territorial governments are the largest beneficiaries, capturing $30,606,192.11, followed closely by the Federal government at $23,242,110.53. Municipalities will also see a localized boost, with $5,244,736.09 flowing into local tax coffers. Furthermore, the massive employment spike directly secures $11,766,265.02 for the Quebec Pension Plan and $46,399.82 for the Canada Pension Plan, cementing the project's broad public fiscal benefit.

OPERATIONS PROJECT OVERVIEW

Operations for the arena will begin in 2028, with the Fleur-de-lis playing their first season in this newly constructed arena. This arena will employ 30 wage and salary employees, and has an anticipated operating spend of $4.5M (2028 CAD).

Investors strike a deal with the local government in Montérégie, Quebec and government officials decide that in order to promote the establishment of this new hockey team in the area, the operations of the arena will be tax free for the first year.