Scorecard shows region making progress towards 1 million residents
Posted Jan 19, 2026 04:25:42 PM.
Last Updated Jan 20, 2026 07:57:32 AM.
Region of Waterloo Council has been laser-focused on making preparations for the population to reach one million.
The Greater Kitchener Waterloo Chamber of Commerce just released the Vision One Million Scorecard, on behalf of The Business and Economic Support Team of Waterloo Region (BESTWR), which rates how those preparations are going. The information is shedding light on where the municipality is excelling and where more attention needs to be paid.
The scorecard was split into five categories: Housing, Transportation, Healthcare, Employment and Jobs, and Placemaking and Livability.
Each of those categories was further broken down into specific issues, each one given an individual ranking: Needs Attention, In Progress, and On Track.
Of the main categories, four were ranked as In Progress, with Placemaking and Livability having the Needs Attention status.
Looking a little closer at that category shows the region is lacking around 400 hotel rooms, needs to work better at reducing greenhouse emissions and needs to add 4,136 new licensed child care spaces by 2050.
President and CEO of the Greater KW Chamber, Ian McLean, was a guest on The Mike Farwell Show and laid bare the realities of what’s needed to serve a population of one million.
“If we’re going to be one million people in 25 years, give or take, we need tens of thousands of homes. We need to have infrastructure like the LRT and two-way GO in place. In healthcare, we know we haven’t had a new hospital in over 60 years; we need a new hospital. If you’re going to have 300,000 people, but say it’s 200,000 people, we’re still going to need somewhere in the area of 80 to 100,000 new jobs.”
While it is a daunting task, the region is making headway. The new regional hospital is expected to open in 2035. LRT expansion plans to Cambridge are underway, and the widening of Highway 7 and GO service to Waterloo Region has only increased in recent years.
The last few weeks have revealed a situation that certainly impacts the region’s plans: the water capacity issue identified in the Mannheim Service Area.
It’s already caused the municipality to pause the approval of new developments until a solution can be found.
McLean said, it’s a major problem.
“You have to have power, and you have to have water before you can do anything, whether it’s building hospitals, building LRT and building homes. It’s a big issue, and we need provincial leadership on that. We need the municipalities and the Region to step up and come up with a plan to make sure we still have investment here in the community.”
BESTWR is a coalition of leading businesses made up of The Greater KW Chamber of Commerce, Communitech, the Cambridge Chamber of Commerce, Explore Waterloo Region, and the Waterloo Region Economic Development Corporation.
