Canada Best Location Award
Led by Ontario and a bevy of its regions, Canada’s Best Locations offer business environments attracting more interest every day.

Site Selection magazine is the leading publication in corporate real estate, facility planning, location analysis and foreign direct investment. Each year, Site Selection publishes their influential annual report on “Canada’s Best Locations” which ranks Canadian jurisdictions according to two categories: competitiveness (by province) and best locations (by metro area).

This year’s Site Selection magazine Canadian Competitiveness Award goes to the province of Ontario, based on corporate end-user project data on a cumulative and per-capita basis.

Ontario places first for the fifth consecutive year

The report bases its rankings on three main criteria related to private sector construction/expansion projects: total capital invested, total jobs created, and total size of construction/expansion project (by square feet).

In total, Ontario saw a total of 20 projects, representing more than $1 billion (CAD) in capital expenditures and responsible for the creation of 1,050 jobs.

An increasing share of Canadian FDI is going into Ontario. The province had the largest share of its corporate workforce employed by a multinational corporation at 39.6 per cent, and 39.8 per cent of Ontario manufacturing jobs created were at foreign multinationals. Manufacturing is the most important sector for FDI in Canada, and in Ontario, that is significantly represented by the automotive industry. The Ontario government has made significant investments in auto manufacturers (including Ford and Fiat Chrysler), as well as strategic investments in training and education programs to help nurture the next generation of auto workers.

While the province comprises approximately 40 per cent of Canada’s population, Site Selection magazine editor Adam Bruns says the province “doesn’t just sit back and wait.”

Toronto is attracting more and more tech talent every day

In a pandemic-stricken economy, with so much disruption and uncertainty, industries across the board have faltered – except for the tech industry, that is. Tech talent is one of the most resilient professions in any economic downturn and based on CBRE’s annual Scoring Tech Talent report, Toronto led among Canadian cities. With a growing talent pool 250,000, up 36.5% from 2015-2019 and 43,000 jobs created, Toronto is a powerhouse for countless opportunities.

“Tech-talent workers are the ones that have made it possible for us to remain productive during our crash course this year in remote working. This might entice more companies to distribute their workforce more broadly by branching into tech-talent markets outside the top 50, or even outside the top 75.”

Site Selection magazine’s report on Canada’s best locations for investment names just a few of the reasons businesses are choosing to establish and expand their operations in Ontario.

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