Monday, 28 October 2013

Research results released rating Canada's communities

I pick Woodstock, but CFIB would disagree
By Mark Schadenberg
The top three (in order) are Calgary, Saskatoon and the GTA.
What is the next question? Top three in which Canadian category?
The Canadian Federation of Independent Business (www.cfib.ca) ranks Canada’s cities for entrepreneurial spirit, attracting new business, maintaining or retaining current companies, and an area's overall business atmosphere.
I would like to know how, with all the new corporations arriving here in Woodstock – especially since 2005 – the CFIB places our community at 102 out of 107 on the poll?
Woodstock is a former Communities In Bloom champion
The list is released in the online story entitled Communities In Boom (Nice play on words) to assist in publicizing what is known as Canada’s Small Business Week.
The CFIB is Canada’s largest association of small and medium-sized businesses with 109,000 members across every sector and region. (Those are their words, by the way, from the press release.)
A chart or list of scores is tabulated from 14 different criteria as defined by the CFIB.
The top two is unchanged from the 2012 number crunching, while the Toronto area leaps from No 5, and Edmonton falls to No. 4 from 3. The entire chart is posted in the pdf link below.
The full list includes 107 centres.
Others On List
Where do southern Ontario places sit? 46 Brantford, 53 K-W & Cambridge, 62 Chatham-Kent, 72 Hamilton, 73 Windsor, 82 London, 91 Norfolk (Simcoe area), 93 Stratford, 102 Woodstock, and 103 Sarnia.
Scores are tabulated through three main categories: presence (score 0 to 25) perspective (up to 35) and policy (up to 40). The top score of 67.6 is in Calgary’s favour, whereas Woodstock’s total is just 45.5.
Permits To Build
The overall barometer considers many areas of good, bad or indifferent economic concerns for employment or companies overall satisfaction. The list includes: company retention, new start-ups, building permits, cost of local government, property tax rates, the large catch-all term of life satisfaction for residents, and certainly also self employment statistics.
By quickly glancing over the charts, I would say Woodstock’s poor showing in ‘cost of local government’ is the main reason our city was so low on the list. However, since our community carries such a low overall debt (We pay for our infrastructure and operating budgets, and not put it on credit), I would say Woodstock is a strong community. 
The CFIB, however, doesn’t agree.
I would pick Woodstock to reside in. It is my hometown. If you want to hear 102 reasons to live in Woodstock, contact me.


THE LINK:


Mark Schadenberg, Sales Representative
Royal LePage Triland Realty
757 Dundas St, Woodstock
www.wesellwoodstock.com
(519) 537-1553, cell or text
Email: mschadenberg@rogers.com
Twitter: markroyallepage

Discussion . . . Direction . . . Determination . . . Destination

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