Entrepreneurship: a driving economic force across the country

1.2 million businesses

We all know that entrepreneurship is the main driver of Canada’s economy. As I mentioned in my last post, there are 1.2 million businesses with fewer than 100 employees across the country, and these account for 70% of all private sector jobs in Canada. But when we take a closer look at this data, we also see that the presence of entrepreneurship in the economy varies quite significantly from province to province. Read more here (integrated link)

According to data published by Quebec’s Ministère de l’Économie, de l’Innovation et de l’Énergie, the Prairie provinces have 38 businesses per 1,000 inhabitants, followed by British Columbia at 37, Ontario at 31, the Atlantic provinces at 30, and Quebec at 26.

This data is not an indicator of the quality of entrepreneurship by region in Canada, nor a yardstick for measuring the dynamism of the entrepreneurs themselves, but it does provide a useful and interesting portrait of the presence of businesses in the economic activity of the various Canadian provinces. It may be that some provinces offer fiscal and economic environments that are more conducive to the emergence and creation of businesses.

Quebec

In this respect, based on this data, Quebec certainly has challenges to meet, since it is known that economic prosperity depends to a large extent on the presence and activity of SMEs on its territory. With this in mind, we can only endorse this passage from the Quebec government’s Plan québécois en entrepreneuriat 2022-2025, which stresses the importance for Quebec “(…) to promote the entry of new businesses into the market and encourage growth, particularly through innovation (…)”.

Canada

It’s also worth noting that the number of entrepreneurs in Canada as a whole dropped by 20.3% between 2019 and 2021, due in part to the negative impact of the pandemic. It’s clear from this picture that our entrepreneurs, who represent the country’s main economic lever, need more than ever a fiscal and financial environment that is favorable to their needs, notably our governments. This is even more important in the aftermath of a difficult pandemic, and in a context of persistently high interest rates, where traditional banks are tending to tighten access to credit for SMEs.

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