Red Deer remains one of Canada’s top entrepreneurial cities, according to a study by a national business organization.
The Canadian Federation of Independent Business ranked the city seventh in its 2011 Communities in Boom: Canada’s Top Entrepreneurial Cities report. That’s the same position that the CFIB assigned to Red Deer last year.
The study looked at 100 communities across Canada with populations greater than 25,000.
The top three cities were unchanged from 2010, with Grande Prairie recognized as the top entrepreneurial city, followed by Lloydminster and Saskatoon. Regina ranked fourth, with Edmonton fifth and the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo sixth. After Red Deer, the top 10 included Lethbridge, Moose Jaw, Sask., and Rouyn-Nornda, Que.
The CFIB used three broad criteria: presence, or the level of entrepreneurial activity such as business start-ups; perspective, or the outlook that businesses have; and policy, or the influence of local government on business operations.
Red Deer earned a “strong” score in the policy category and “moderate” ratings for presence and perspective. Last year, it was deemed “strong” when it came to presence and policy but only “modest” for perspective.
The CFIB noted in its report that the highest-ranking cities tended to be in the resource regions of the Prairies or Quebec.
“Albertans should be proud that six of the eight largest cities in our province ranked in the top 10 out of 100 cities on the list, and all eight were in the top 40,” said Richard Truscott, the CFIB’s Alberta director.
Calgary placed 21st and Medicine Hat came in at 39th.
Despite Red Deer’s relatively high score when it came to government policy, Truscott noted that several other Alberta cities rated poorly in this category. Calgary, for instance, had the fifth worst policy score among all Canadian cities.
“It would be fair to say entrepreneurs in too many of Alberta’s cities are succeeding in spite of policy-makers, not because of them,” he said.
The CFIB represents more than 108,000 small and medium-sized businesses across Canada.
It used data from Statistics Canada and feedback from its members for the Communities in Boom study.