The Game Plan
Hamilton 2026

Our Game Plan

Hamilton has been selected as Commonwealth Sport Canada’s preferred candidate city to host the Commonwealth Games. Originally, we were working to compete globally for the right to host 2030. Now, we are being gifted the right to host the Games in 2026, subject only to securing government support.

The XXIII Commonwealth Games will be held in late summer 2026.   If staged in Hamilton it will be the largest event in this City and surrounding region in its history and the first time the Games will have been hosted in Ontario since their founding in Hamilton in 1930.

Curating a successful and memorable Commonwealth Games which inspires and motivates our community, focusses the attention of all of Canada on us over the next 6 years, and 1.5 billion spectators during the event itself in 2026, and brings us together in an historic effort, is vital.  But this is about much more than providing a ‘Great Games’.  In accepting the Commonwealth Federation’s unexpected invitation to partner in the creation of a transformative experience in 2026 centered on recovery and regeneration, we are being gifted an unprecedented opportunity to leverage one of the world’s great public celebrations to supplement and accelerate our recovery planning while simultaneously addressing a host of abiding economic and social challenges.  

How will this help us?  The 2026 Commonwealth Games project will:

• Permit us to avoid the cost and risks of competitive bidding for a major games.  An opportunity never offered to any Canadian city in history;

•  Allow our community to design a Games program that is specifically suited to recovery and regeneration with modest and needed enhancements to sport and recreational infrastructure but with a much greater emphasis on social need, especially in the area of affordable housing;

• Allow our community and all government stakeholders the opportunity to eliminate or control most if not all of the challenges and risks that come with major games through the unprecedented offer of a pandemic recovery focus and collaborative design made by the Commonwealth Games Federation coupled with the absence of competitive bidding;

• Encourage much greater senior government attention and financial support to our region owing to the unprecedented degree of control and alignment these Games will permit in supporting government pandemic recovery efforts;

• Create synergy between Hamilton’s private sector urban renewal efforts and Games infrastructure planning thereby enhancing both initiatives;

• Encourage much greater private sector interest in Hamilton owing to the transformational impact of the Games on our regional economy and the extent to which a project of this magnitude offers a differentiated investment opportunity with global profile;

•  Provide an opportunity to better resource and align sustainable regional transportation infrastructure investments and local transportation needs including the many improvements to roads and pedestrian movement that the Games will require;

• And so much more….

Cumulatively, the benefits above will result in a significant number of new jobs, goods and services contracts for local business, skills training and experiential learning for students and recent graduates, and renewed impetus and investment aimed at fully and finally solving our affordable housing crisis; all while transforming our region.

By embracing the 2026 Games, the attention and capacities of our local communities as well as that of 71 nations and territories across the Commonwealth will be focused on this region, our city and most importantly, on our children, all working towards a better future.

Join us!