With over 3000 projects worth of domestic investment monitored in the calendar year of 2021, the spotlight is on the remarkable rise of investment undertakings by the Canadian firms here, involving a huge majority of projects scooped by non-retail companies like CGI and Qualinet. Though the figures abated towards the last quarter, Canada has been keeping up headstrong with its regions and cities setting the projections solid for a promising future in the country’s domestic investment game. A lion’s share of this has been majorly manoeuvred by stellar performances by sectors with Software and IT Services topping the charts in employment generation. Cities that have showcased consistent growth over the majority of the year, like London and Winnipeg, have also been a top impulse.
Ontario takes the centre stage
Taking an impressive stance among all the states posing as both the Headquarters and the Destination, is Ontario, showcasing peak performance against the national average. The province has gotten its investment game burgeoned across all sectors barring in ceramic and glass. It leads the Manufacturing sector with 235 projects and a good 40 percent of Ontario’s Software and IT service companies have considered investing in the Canadian domestic market. It is also the only state to have attracted investment from Business Machines & Equipment, and the Rubber sectors. British Columbia performed equally well along the lines of the number of projects received.
Zooming in on the employment landscape
While a significantly low number of jobs budded from the Metals industry, on the flip side, the sector fared well in Vancouver with the most number of projects. Interestingly, Pharmaceuticals failed to generate any jobs. Among regions, Quebec, Ontario, and British Columbia each have outdone the others with having created around 260% higher number of jobs than the national average. Despite receiving the same number of projects as Newfoundland & Labrador, Saskatchewan has generated more jobs than the region. Though Montreal ranked third among the most popular project destinations, it generated the highest number of jobs, almost all related to Education and Training.
The FDI Market favoured Business services and Manufacturing activities, as they led to the most jobs.
As Vancouver stood on par with Calgary as the best performing destination city of HQ activity, most investments in Extraction were seen in the former. Meanwhile, tight competition for projects was witnessed amongst Calgary, Ottawa, and Halifax.
Toronto excels among cities
Toronto boasts of a mammoth number of projects. The number is twice as many as what Vancouver has seen. The city is the top choice for investors from the Software and IT services sector. Figures from Software and IT services stays in tandem with its record with employment generation- it’s seen to be the dominant one among all sectors in investment projects, followed by Food and Tobacco and Business Services. Toronto is also a top choice of the Manufacturing sector and Logistics, Transport, and Distribution as a business activity, and the only city along with Richmond to be seen with investment in the Design, Development, and Testing sector. 71% of communications companies preferred Nova Scotia for investment, which also has the highest amount of R&D investments.
Fashioning a tell-tale of the Canadian Domestic Investment Potential with Wavteq InvestmentFlow
The panorama of domestic investment is precisely imaged by the Wavteq Canada InvestmentFlow. Finer visibility of the strata of the corporate investment landscape can condense into crucial intelligence for economic development organizations to propagate the potential of their communities to attract foreign capital inflow and to variegate opportunities for enabling inclusive investment-led economic development. And as the boundaries open up in the post-pandemic recovery period, this data could even fill the lacuna of progressing relations of domestic firms with the foreign force.
For a wider spectacle, take a read through of our recent 2021 Annual Briefing: Canada Domestic Investment Report.
