Economic Development officials in Chatham-Kent are disputing the results of a report that ranked the municipality among Canada's worst communities for entrepreneurs in 2018.
Director of Economic Development Stuart McFadden said the results from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) survey don't line up with what he's hearing on the ground-level.
"I think about our starter company program -- the amount of people that have gone through that in the past three years because of our new focus on that, the tech nights that we've been having, we sold about 32 acres of land in the Bloomfield Business Park last year to new businesses," said McFadden. "The report is the report, the results are the results, it validates that we've changed some focus here, but in a lot of sense, I tend to agree to disagree with some of the findings."
McFadden said other examples of local businesses investing in Chatham-Kent recently include Whyte's in Wallaceburg, IAT Global expanding, Rulmeca expanding in Wallaceburg, Truly Green and other greenhouse operators expanding, and growth from local marijuana producers Curative Cannabis and AgMedica.
He does admit, though, that the CFIB report came up with some of the same recommendations his team members are already working on -- including reviewing cutting red tape, paperwork, and other barriers to businesses.
"We have reallocated resources and budget, making sure that entrepreneurs inside of Chatham-Kent are supported, that youth have the ability to get the training that they require and that businesses here get the service that they expect," said McFadden. "I believe the changes we have made over the past couple of months... are the right thing to do. If there is a [negative] perception out there, I believe these changes we have made are going to help address that."
New CK community profile available for investors and developers
As part of that commitment to improving Chatham-Kent's profile among entrepreneurs, the Economic Development department has also launched a new community profile tool online.
It's available at www.investck.ca and provides access to information about Chatham-Kent's demographics, labour force, education and business industries.
McFadden said it was put together in response to discussions with business developers and as part of the municipality's Community Development Red Tape Reduction project.
"The business community was telling us loud and clear that they needed access to data, so we listened and found a solution that provides key information about Chatham-Kent," said McFadden. "In the past, we would compile this sort of information into printed booklets and make them available. The website version gives us the opportunity to have the latest datasets available for businesses 24 hours a day, seven days a week."
The data that is available on the website is expected to be consistently updated and is being promoted as more cost-effective than the previous methods of sharing the information.
"We knew that we had to make the information convenient and easy to access," said McFadden. "This eliminates the barrier that businesses encountered as they hunted for information about our community."
