Wonderful Waterloo Archive

Entrepreneurship matters, particularly at the local level. Looking at a wide range of indicators on the presence, growth, health and policy environment for small business ownership and entrepreneurship, Western Canadian cities dominate the list for 2010. Alberta metropolitan areas occupy five of the top 10, including top ranking Grande Prairie. Lloydminster, on the Alberta-Saskatchewan border is close behind, followed by two more Saskatchewan communities, Saskatoon and Prince Albert.

Scores are slightly higher than last year, mainly because the economy is further in recovery. However, only two out of 100 cities in the list score higher than 70 out of 100-which shows there is room for considerable improvement even for cities near the top of the list. Typically small and mid-size cities outpoint larger urban cores.

What makes an entrepreneurial city:

There is no question that small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are Canada's engine of growth. After all, SMEs employ about 53% of all working individuals in the country. Businesses, whether they are located in urban or rural areas, play an integral part in the economic and social well-being of communities. In this study, Canadians can gain a better understanding of the triumphs and hardships of small business ventures.

There is no single best way to measure the entrepreneurship quotient of cities, so CFIB combines a range of approaches to arrive at an overall score. It may seem obvious, but the surest signs of an entrepreneurial hot spot are the presence of a high concentration of entrepreneurs and a high business start-up rate. It is also important that business owners have high levels of optimism and success in their operations. Good public policy is also critical, so we look at the presence of supportive local government tax and regulatory policies.

WATERLOO REGION – It’s official. Cambridge is out from under the shadow of Kitchener when the federal government distributes data about the local population and economy.

After requests from local city and Waterloo Region council, we are now the Kitchener-Cambridge-Waterloo Census Metropolitan Area – not the Kitchener Census Metropolitan Area.

An October letter from Statistics Canada to Cambridge city hall confirmed the change. Nothing has changed as far as data collected or distributed about the local economy and population, but some Cambridge politicians previously grumbled that the second-largest city in the region deserved more prominence when potential investors look up economic data.