Grande Prairie, Alberta. Grande Prairie was also the list-topping city in 2010 and 2011 in the Canadian Federation of Independent Business's (CFIB's) annual Communities in Boom: Canada's top entrepreneurial cities report.
The entrepreneurial rankings in the report are a combined score based on twelve indicators of a positive entrepreneurial climate, broken into three major group categories, "Presence, to indicate levels of entrepreneurial activity; perspective, to indicate their levels of optimism and business expectations; and policy, to indicate the influence of local governments on business decision making. The scores of the three major components are then combined to arrive at an overall score and ranking."
The rest of the top ten most entrepreneurial cities are:
- 2. Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
- 3. Regina, Saskatchewan
- 4. Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan
- 5. Lloydminster, Alberta
- 6. Red Deer, Alberta
- 7. Prince Albert, Saskatchewan
- 8. Edmonton, Alberta
- 9. Lethbridge, Alberta
- 10. St John's, Newfoundland
Why is the top ten list dominated by prairie cities? "These places generally have the highest levels of business ownership, the most upbeat business climates and the most positive local government policy environments", says the report.
Calgary comes in at number 13, Quebec city at 17, Toronto GTA at 24 and Vancouver at 74.
The full report lists individual cities broken down into the three categories of relative strengths.
What does it all mean? Generally, looking at the whole report, one could conclude that the Western provinces are generally a better place to start and do business than the rest of Canada.
But note that that doesn't mean that starting a small business elsewhere is going to doom your venture to failure. Starting a business in any location in Canada has its advantages and disadvantages.
Read Communities in Boom: Canada's top entrepreneurial cities in 2012 (CFIB)
More on Being an Entrepreneur
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- 6 Traits You Need to Become Successfully Self-Employed
- The Starting a Business Quiz
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First and foremost I think it’s great to see so many small businesses and entrepreneurs thriving in Western Canada. The combination of big business support and government interaction has contributed to this success; something I believe should be replicated across Canada so that success rates are higher in other cities as well. It would seem imperative to me that the rest of Canada should be using its Western towns and cities as a study. Recent research shows that although 105,000 small businesses open up shop in a given year, almost 90,000 have to shut their doors in the same year, putting the engines of our economy at risk. Banding together should help us reverse these statistics.