Vancouver, British Columbia – The Honourable
Carol Skelton, Minister of National Revenue and Minister of Western
Economic Diversification today released Revisiting Portraits
of Small Business Growth and Employment in Western Canada.
“Small business is the most dynamic sector of the Canadian
economy. They create jobs and spur innovation,” said Minister
Skelton. “Western Canada has a larger share of small businesses,
with almost 50 per cent of all Western Canadian employment attributable
to small business. This reflects our region’s strong economic
growth and strong entrepreneurial spirit.”
“Small businesses create jobs and are the backbone of our
country’s economy,” said Minister Chuck Strahl, Senior
Regional Minister and Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food and
Minister for the Canadian Wheat Board. “British Columbia has
seen solid growth in small business numbers, with more than half
of the province’s small businesses located in the Lower Mainland.”
The report was prepared by the University of Alberta’s Western
Centre for Economic Research (WCER), with funding provided by Western
Economic Diversification Canada.
“One of the most significant findings,” says Dr. Edward
J. Chambers, WCER Research Professor and co-author of the Report,
“is the much higher level of entrepreneurial activity in the
West compared with the rest of Canada. New ventures measured on
a per capita basis were 77 per cent more frequent in the West. We
need to understand more about entrepreneurship in the region and
its potential for contributing to the longer term diversified development
of the West.”
The report examines the importance of small business to the economies
and employment of Canada’s four western provinces, and is
an update of an earlier report, released in 1999.
Report highlights include:
Western Canada has a disproportionately large share of small
businesses in Canada.
The rate of growth of small businesses in Alberta outstripped
that of the other western provinces, primarily because of the
strong growth in the energy sector.
Calgary and Edmonton rank first and second in Western Canada
in the concentration of high-tech small businesses.
In Saskatchewan and Manitoba, the small business sector was
affected by the agricultural crisis, which spilled over into the
non-agricultural business sector.
The report is available free-of-charge at: www.bus.ualberta.ca/wcer
For additional information, contact:
Sandra Souchotte
Director, Communications
Western Economic Diversification Canada
Ottawa, Ontario
Tel: (613) 952-7101
Fiona MacLeod
Director of Communications
Office of the Minister of National Revenue and Minister of
Western Economic Diversification
(613) 995-2960
Dr. Edward J. Chambers
Research Professor
Western Centre for Economic Research (WCER)
School of Business, University of Alberta
(780) 492-2235
fcentres@ualberta.ca
www.bus.ualberta.ca/wcer
