10 Places to Be in Saskatchewan | A roundup of the province’s economic and business startup hot spots
Looking for a startup hotspot in Saskatchewan? With everything from new cities to established economic engines,the province offers something for every entrepreneurial appetite
by Kristiana Indradat and Stephanie Sparks
Click to see the 10 Places to Be in Saskatchewan annotated Google Map
Saskatoon
BERRY GOOD: Saskatoon, on the South Saskatchewan River, has been called Canada’s hottest spot for business
Saskatoon isn’t a hotbed just because amazon.ca called it the nation’s most romantic city for its unusually high number of buyers of romantic novels, relationship guides and Michael Bublé CDs. Saskatoon is a hotbed because the Canadian Federation of Independent Business recently named it the country’s top entrepreneurial community. Communities in Boom, released last October, reveals Saskatoon has a relatively low property tax rate: its ratio of commercial property tax to residential tax of 1.3 is amongst the lowest of the 100 communities surveyed. (Ratios in both Calgary and Edmonton, meanwhile, stand at 4.0.) The report also considered factors like the success of current businesses and the outlook of business owners. Slightly more than 47% of CFIB’s Saskatoon members felt their businesses would do better over the next 12 months, and 58% said their company was in “good” standing (compared to Calgary’s 35%). And although Saskatoon hasn’t seen GDP growth like it did in 2008 when it grew a full 7% over 2007, the Conference Board of Canada, in its winter Metropolitan Outlook report, forecasted Saskatoon will rebound this year with a 3.2% growth rate, ahead of Calgary by 0.2% (hey, every bit counts).
POWERING UP: Downtown North Battleford
The next three years will see a rush of activity in North Battleford, hometown of entrepreneur and Dragons’ Den panelist W. Brett Wilson. In February, principal electricity supplier SaskPower Corp. announced it had made a $700-million deal with Toronto’s Northland Power Inc. to supply 261 megawatts of power to the province’s electrical grid. Construction of Northland’s natural gas-fired facility just outside of North Battleford will begin in July 2010. Not only will the power plant meet Saskatchewan’s growing demands, it will also provide an estimated 200 construction jobs and 25 to 30 full-time technical jobs once the plant opens (scheduled for 2013).
In the last year, North Battleford issued nearly $5 million worth of commercial building permits, up from about $4.6 million in 2008. But not all big ideas are moving forward. In the spring of 2009, Bruce Power, the Ontario-based nuclear power company, announced the possibility of building a nuclear plant in the Battlefords area. Its report Saskatchewan 2020, released in November 2008, concluded that an area encompassing the Battlefords, Lloydminster and Prince Albert “was the most viable host for a nuclear facility.” In December 2009 the provincial government decided otherwise, announcing it would not proceed with any proposals for uranium development and would instead focus on outlining its strategic direction on the matter.
NORTHERN CENTRE: E.A. Rawlinson Centre for the Arts
When the Weyerhaeuser pulp and paper mill in Prince Albert ceased operations in 2006, it was a blow to the city. Not only did the company let go of close to 700 employees, it shook up the community’s reliance on the forestry industry. Domtar Inc., which acquired Weyerhaeuser’s Prince Albert plant and fine paper assets in 2006, has announced the demolition of the facility, but new hope lies at the old mill site. Royal Dutch Shell PLC and Iogen Corp. are considering the spot as a location for an advanced biofuel facility for cellulosic ethanol (fuel made from agricultural residues like cereal straws) that could potentially inject $30 million to $50 million annually into the local economy. And biofuels are just the beginning. Prince Albert hopes to become Saskatchewan’s green energy capital. With $3 million in support from the federal government’s Community Development Trust Fund, the city will establish a Green Energy Industrial Park, making 28 acres of land available to efficiency-based businesses and industries.
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