http://www.financialpost.com/small-business/best-cities/story.html?id=2118556
Best Cities for Business: Saskatchewan heats up
Financial Post/CFIB ranking of top business friendly cities
Derek Sankey, Financial Post Published: Monday, October 19, 2009
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This year's top-ranked entrepreneurial city in Canada is Saskatoon. Gord Waldner/Canwest News Service This year's top-ranked entrepreneurial city in Canada is Saskatoon.
It's official: Saskatchewan is the new Alberta.
According to the second annual FP/CFIB ranking of Canada's top business-friendly cities, Saskatchewan and Quebec have the largest number of cities at the top of the list, while the post-boom cities of British Columbia and Alberta, along with those in Ontario, dropped significantly in the rankings from lower commodity prices and faltering economies.
This year's top-ranked entrepreneurial city in Canada is Saskatoon. For Gordon Ashdown, the owner of Can-West Agencies Ltd., a wholesale distribution company in Saskatoon, the reversal of fortunes is welcomed with open arms.
"We now have an environment that's really good to work in and it's improving all the time," he says.
"Just the business-friendly government has made a huge difference in Saskatchewan."
Communities in Boom: Canada's Top Entrepreneurial Cities, by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, evaluates cities across the country on three key measures: Policy, which encompasses tax and regulatory policies; presence, which reflects the concentration of entrepreneurs and business startups; and perspective, which gauges the optimism and success of actual small business owners.
In Saskatoon, a combination of municipal and provincial tax policy changes that are more supportive of business startups helped more entrepreneurs get established at a time when an infusion of hundreds of millions of energy investment dollars bolstered the province's economy.
Saskatoon is at the heart of the boom in business in Saskatchewan, a city that experienced its largest population increase since 1952 following years of residents flocking to Alberta and British Columbia.
"We've gone from worst to first in a span of about four years," says Marilyn Braun-Pollon, vice-president of the CFIB. "There's been a rebirth on a number of levels."
Saskatoon rated strong on the policy side for its relatively low property tax rate, which is 1.75 times the rate of residential property taxes. The City of Toronto, meanwhile, ranked 96th, with a business property tax rate that is still 4.5 times that of residential property.
"We place a significant amount of weight on the [tax] policy measure because it's indicative of the way local governments address local economic development policy," says Ted Mallett, chief economist with the CFIB in Toronto.
Quebec also ranked high on the list due to its strong entrepreneurial base. "There seems to be a lot of self-employed people in these particular regions relative to other areas, so Quebec is a business startup centre," Mr. Mallett says.
There are also fewer bureaucratic hurdles to overcome in Quebec.
Mr. Mallett says that despite ruffling some feathers, the report is significant because it is the only one of its kind to take into consideration the perspectives of local business owners.
"We tend to find that local politicians have the thinnest skin of any brand of politician and we get a lot of people who are upset," he says. "They have difficulty actually developing policy that makes a difference to small business groups."
In general, smaller cities -- the report included centres with populations greater than 25,000 residents -- outperformed larger cities due mainly to lower relative tax rates.
"Larger cities ... really take advantage of the business sector and milk it for every cent on the property tax side," Mr. Mallett says.
Post-boom Calgary and Edmonton ranked lower based on perspective, meaning most entrepreneurs now have a gloomier outlook of the economy after reaching highs two years ago, despite some recent improvements in outlook.
Lloydminster, a city that straddles the Alberta-Saskatchewan border, has the unique vantage point of seeing the migration of workers and investment dollars into Saskatchewan.
Last year, it ranked first because of its strong, optimistic business community with competitive policies. But Alberta's economic and policy troubles this year, caused Lloydminster to slip down the list to No. 5.
The economy also cause British Columbia to perform lower this year as a business-friendly city, a trend that, like in Alberta, was affected by the downturn in commodity prices. British Columbia also ranks lower because of its high taxes.
Back in Saskatoon, Mr. Ashdown is confident the boom is here to stay. "Energy is huge here and I also feel it's going to be huge over the next many years," he says. "Saskatchewan is the new Alberta."
But as Alberta has learned the energy industry is a fickle one of cyclical highs and lows.
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. Anyways, I agree that it's a great location for it. I was impressed by the fact that there was a Safeway on Robson St. in Vancouver when I was there this summer, hopefully it will be of the same quality.
Who is going to share the bad news? It's like someone at the school reunion asking what you are up to, when you just lost your job 
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