Best places in Canada for entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurs who want to expand their businesses should keep looking west, says a CFIB report.

The report finds that communities around Calgary still offer the best growth opportunities, with Kelowna and the area surrounding Edmonton coming a close second.

“The west is still best, but we are seeing the beginnings of a power shift,” says CFIB chief economist Ted Mallett, who finds people are moving away from traditional entrepreneurial power centers in the prairies toward regions in B.C.

That shift is largely due to “the fallout from oil prices [that] continues to hit the region,” he adds. “We are also seeing parts of Central Ontario becoming more and more desirable for entrepreneurs.”

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The CFIB report examines how 121 cities and regions promote entrepreneurship. It scores each of them out of 100, by looking at 14 indicators across three main categories (presence, perspective and policy).

Typically, suburbs and regions that surround cities offer better entrepreneurial environments than city centers, says the report. That’s because business owners still have access to viable markets, but they also benefit from lower, relative operating costs.

Click here to read the full report.

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