Ottawa and Gatineau are cities on the opposite banks of the Ottawa River, with English-speaking Ottawa on the Ontario side and Gatineau in French-speaking Quebec Province on the other. Together, they form a metropolitan area of over 1 million people. In addition to language, one more thing distinguishes Ottawa from its sister city: since 1867, it has been the capital city of Canada.

As with other national capitals, the main business of Ottawa has long been government. Total Federal government expenditures have risen from C$16 billion (US$14bn) in 1970 to C$158 billion (US$134bn) in 2001, though a growing economy has actually reduced Federal spending as a percentage of GDP. While most of that spending is distributed across Canada's vast land mass, the nation's capital naturally benefits. Today, 13% of the current labor force of Ottawa-Gatineau consists of Federal government employees.

But, like the capital region of other nations, a strong government cluster has also attracted businesses that depend on government policies and spending decisions. Canada's telecommunications industry, once state-owned, is headquartered in the region, and defense, security, software and life sciences companies have found good reason to locate offices and research facilities there. Current employment in the region's more than 1,800 high-tech companies is equal to 11% of the total labor force, even after the technology bust at the turn of the last century.

Besides being prosperous and dynamic, Ottawa-Gatineau is a nice place to live. It enjoys a beautiful natural setting at the junction of three rivers and boasts the lowest cost of living of any major North American city. It was ranked sixth in the world for quality of life by the Swiss firm Corporate Resources Group, and a cross-Canada survey recognized the region as the best place to live and work in the nation.

Ottawa 20/20

Given this situation, the region's political leaders could be forgiven for resting smugly on their laurels. But they have done nothing of the kind. In 1999, the City of Ottawa formed The Ottawa Partnership (TOP), a group of public and private-sector leaders who advised government on growing and sustaining the local economy. In 2001, the area completed a political reorganization that united a regional government body and 11 urban and rural municipalities, including both Ottawa and Gatineau, into one local government structure. As part of that process, the new government published a plan called Ottawa 20/20. Its goal was to establish a unified planning, zoning and development scheme that would see the community through the next 20 years as its population increased by as much as 50%. Following a performance review of the first five years, the government recently published a detailed plan for 2006-2009 focusing on economic development, equality and privacy issues. With an overall goal of making Ottawa-Gatineau an "Innovation Capital," priorities include workforce skills development, improving knowledge sharing among businesses and citizens, linking innovation more effectively with the marketplace, strengthening entrepreneurship and upgrading marketing.

Behind these priorities are two primary challenges to the region's continued success. Research by The Impact Group in Toronto, in collaboration with H. Douglas Barber, co-founder and retired CEO of Genum Corporation, one of Canada's most successful high-tech firms, shows that Canada suffers from a "commercialization gap" compared with its neighbor nation to the south. Canada is strong in research and development and has some world-class technology companies like Nortel and Mitel, but Canadian business generally lags American business in bringing technology innovation to market. According to Dr. Barber, the key to the problem is the relative inability of government, compared with the private sector, to understand customer needs and innovate competitively to meet them. Statistics from Industry Canada reveal that, in 2000, 68% of funding for R&D came from government and related sources while industry contributed 32%. This is nearly the reverse of the US, where industry spent 67% of each R&D dollar and government spent only 33%. This relative lack of customer centricity and commercial competence tends to produce technology-based enterprises that cannot afford the marketing or R&D needed to succeed.

The other challenge has to do with the region's unique mix of urban and rural areas. In urban areas, 94% of households and 100% of business and government facilities had access to broadband in 2003, whereas availability in rural areas was about 2%. Lack of broadband infrastructure posed a severe constraint on further development outside the existing urban zones.

Changing the Culture

It may be ironic to ask government to tackle a commercialization gap caused by an excess of government over private investment. But Ottawa-Gatineau is pursuing several creative approaches to changing the culture of innovation in business. Leading by example, the city has put dozens of services, from pet registration to utility bill payment, online. A SmartCapital program completed in 2003 introduced a collaborative online catalog of the resources of major universities, institutes and libraries in the region. An Entrepreneurship Center offers assistance in starting and growing companies, and connects them with local venture capitalists. More than 2,400 clients started businesses in 2004 alone, and they created more than 7,800 new jobs and C$205 million (US$174m) in new investment. Annual venture capital investment in the region has grown at an average of 50% per year since 1995, peaking at C$1.35 billion (US$1.15bn) during the technology boom and settling to a more sustainable C$250 million (US$212m) since then. Government, business and academia now collaborate on workforce development programs ranging from math tutoring for talented low-income children to analyzing skills gaps and working to fill them.

Meanwhile, government spurred the formation of a volunteer group, the Ottawa Rural Communities network (ORCnet) to build awareness about broadband and aggregate demand in rural areas. Through workshops, communities meetings and work with the telecom sector, ORCnet helped service providers build a business case for extending broadband into low-density markets. To sweeten the pot, local government put C$1 million (US$850k) into a public-private partnership that is investing C$3 million (US$2.5m) in a network build-out scheduled for completion in autumn 2007, which is expected to largely close the urban-rural broadband gap.

Ottawa-Gattineau has targeted life sciences, which already employs 11,000 people, as well as wireless, VoIP and green technologies as its best hope of future growth as the Innovation Capital. With over 78,000 people employed in high-tech already, the region looks forward to having a technology labor force larger than its Federal labor force, and to seeing privately-funded innovation become the primary driver of its economy.

Population: 1,148,785

Labor Force: 686,000

Websites: ottawa.ca/en | www.gatineau.ca

Smart21 2006 | 2007

Top7 2007

Ottawa and Gatineau are cities on the opposite banks of the Ottawa River, with English-speaking Ottawa on the Ontario side and Gatineau in French-speaking Quebec Province on the other. Together, they form a metropolitan area of over 1 million people. In addition to language, one more thing distinguishes Ottawa from its sister city: since 1867, it has been the capital city of Canada.

As with other national capitals, the main business of Ottawa has long been government. Total Federal government expenditures have risen from C$16 billion (US$14bn) in 1970 to C$158 billion (US$134bn) in 2001, though a growing economy has actually reduced Federal spending as a percentage of GDP. While most of that spending is distributed across Canada's vast land mass, the nation's capital naturally benefits. Today, 13% of the current labor force of Ottawa-Gatineau consists of Federal government employees.

But, like the capital region of other nations, a strong government cluster has also attracted businesses that depend on government policies and spending decisions. Canada's telecommunications industry, once state-owned, is headquartered in the region, and defense, security, software and life sciences companies have found good reason to locate offices and research facilities there. Current employment in the region's more than 1,800 high-tech companies is equal to 11% of the total labor force, even after the technology bust at the turn of the last century.

Besides being prosperous and dynamic, Ottawa-Gatineau is a nice place to live. It enjoys a beautiful natural setting at the junction of three rivers and boasts the lowest cost of living of any major North American city. It was ranked sixth in the world for quality of life by the Swiss firm Corporate Resources Group, and a cross-Canada survey recognized the region as the best place to live and work in the nation.

Ottawa 20/20

Given this situation, the region's political leaders could be forgiven for resting smugly on their laurels. But they have done nothing of the kind. In 1999, the City of Ottawa formed The Ottawa Partnership (TOP), a group of public and private-sector leaders who advised government on growing and sustaining the local economy. In 2001, the area completed a political reorganization that united a regional government body and 11 urban and rural municipalities, including both Ottawa and Gatineau, into one local government structure. As part of that process, the new government published a plan called Ottawa 20/20. Its goal was to establish a unified planning, zoning and development scheme that would see the community through the next 20 years as its population increased by as much as 50%. Following a performance review of the first five years, the government recently published a detailed plan for 2006-2009 focusing on economic development, equality and privacy issues. With an overall goal of making Ottawa-Gatineau an "Innovation Capital," priorities include workforce skills development, improving knowledge sharing among businesses and citizens, linking innovation more effectively with the marketplace, strengthening entrepreneurship and upgrading marketing.

Behind these priorities are two primary challenges to the region's continued success. Research by The Impact Group in Toronto, in collaboration with H. Douglas Barber, co-founder and retired CEO of Genum Corporation, one of Canada's most successful high-tech firms, shows that Canada suffers from a "commercialization gap" compared with its neighbor nation to the south. Canada is strong in research and development and has some world-class technology companies like Nortel and Mitel, but Canadian business generally lags American business in bringing technology innovation to market. According to Dr. Barber, the key to the problem is the relative inability of government, compared with the private sector, to understand customer needs and innovate competitively to meet them. Statistics from Industry Canada reveal that, in 2000, 68% of funding for R&D came from government and related sources while industry contributed 32%. This is nearly the reverse of the US, where industry spent 67% of each R&D dollar and government spent only 33%. This relative lack of customer centricity and commercial competence tends to produce technology-based enterprises that cannot afford the marketing or R&D needed to succeed.

The other challenge has to do with the region's unique mix of urban and rural areas. In urban areas, 94% of households and 100% of business and government facilities had access to broadband in 2003, whereas availability in rural areas was about 2%. Lack of broadband infrastructure posed a severe constraint on further development outside the existing urban zones.

Changing the Culture

It may be ironic to ask government to tackle a commercialization gap caused by an excess of government over private investment. But Ottawa-Gatineau is pursuing several creative approaches to changing the culture of innovation in business. Leading by example, the city has put dozens of services, from pet registration to utility bill payment, online. A SmartCapital program completed in 2003 introduced a collaborative online catalog of the resources of major universities, institutes and libraries in the region. An Entrepreneurship Center offers assistance in starting and growing companies, and connects them with local venture capitalists. More than 2,400 clients started businesses in 2004 alone, and they created more than 7,800 new jobs and C$205 million (US$174m) in new investment. Annual venture capital investment in the region has grown at an average of 50% per year since 1995, peaking at C$1.35 billion (US$1.15bn) during the technology boom and settling to a more sustainable C$250 million (US$212m) since then. Government, business and academia now collaborate on workforce development programs ranging from math tutoring for talented low-income children to analyzing skills gaps and working to fill them.

Meanwhile, government spurred the formation of a volunteer group, the Ottawa Rural Communities network (ORCnet) to build awareness about broadband and aggregate demand in rural areas. Through workshops, communities meetings and work with the telecom sector, ORCnet helped service providers build a business case for extending broadband into low-density markets. To sweeten the pot, local government put C$1 million (US$850k) into a public-private partnership that is investing C$3 million (US$2.5m) in a network build-out scheduled for completion in autumn 2007, which is expected to largely close the urban-rural broadband gap.

Ottawa-Gattineau has targeted life sciences, which already employs 11,000 people, as well as wireless, VoIP and green technologies as its best hope of future growth as the Innovation Capital. With over 78,000 people employed in high-tech already, the region looks forward to having a technology labor force larger than its Federal labor force, and to seeing privately-funded innovation become the primary driver of its economy.

Population: 1,148,785

Labor Force: 686,000

Websites: ottawa.ca/en | www.gatineau.ca

Smart21 2006 | 2007

Top7 2007

Parkland County is a county-sized municipality that has applied the open-access network model – pioneered by urban centers from Stockholm to Dublin, Ohio – specifically to meet the needs of a rural region. Located on the western border of Edmonton, capital of Alberta Province, and only hours from the province’s vast oil sands extraction industry, Parkland County is prosperous. Its primary industries include power generation, forestry, coal, oil and gas, advanced manufacturing, transportation, logistics and agriculture. One of its three business parks is the largest in North America. Most of this economic activity is concentrated in the east, within Edmonton’s economic zone. The small cities, towns, villages and hamlets to the west, for all of their natural beauty, lack employment opportunities and see a steady exodus of youth. One factor in the west’s isolation is lack of access to broadband, with its potential to level the economic playing field.

Building Communications

In 2012, Parkland County completed the core of a network of 20 utility-grade communication towers, six of which have a fiber backhaul to the nearest Alberta SuperNet Point of Presence. Capitalized by grants, the towers have power and terrestrial connectivity and are open to operators of first-responder networks, mobile and wireless Internet Service Providers (WISPs), who need only rent space on a tower and install a radio to be in business. The towers are designed to allow multiple service providers to collocate on them as well, making it more affordable for companies to provide services in regions with low population density. Parkland County has rugged terrain and is heavily forested, so plans call for construction of an “in-fill” network of smaller towers to extend service to even more of the population. The business model produced breakeven on operating costs within four years, with the more popular towers in the east helping to subsidize the less popular ones in the west, and take-up by WISPs, systems integrators and government agencies has been strong.

Parkland County has also completed a fiber-to-the-home project in the hamlet of Entwistle. The project, built out of the existing underground fiber backbone, was completed in late 2017. With the topography of the region making wireless distribution difficult, the county plans to construct another fiber backbone in 2018 to deploy GPON technology to provide fiber to residents in another underserved area of Parkland.

A Mobile Maker Space

To fill gaps in school programming, particularly in STEM fields, the county launched a mobile Maker Space in spring of 2017. Maker Space kits include all the tools to create a temporary workshop in a library or community hall, allowing a local presenter to offer classes on radio building, coding, robotics and other technical topics. The first year of the Mobile Maker Space was so successful that the county upgraded the project from a summer program into a year-long Inventor’s Club, with students working part time to bring the program to other areas of the county.

The success of the Mobile Maker Space has also led Parkland County to host its first Mini Maker Faire in November of 2017. The Faire boasted over 25 vendors from private-sector, post-secondary, libraries and local schools with a variety of projects for students and their families to complete from weaving to robotics.

The Idea Farm

Parkland County’s large landmass and low population density have led to pockets of innovation going largely unnoticed and unsupported. To address this issue, the county has begun setting itself up as a rural living lab called “The Idea Farm.” Parkland County began the project in 2017 by engaging with local stakeholders and conducting a visioning session with Internet providers, heads of other municipalities, private business owners, nonprofits, educators and residents to determine a long-term vision and strategy for connecting innovators throughout the county. In the same year, the county began a video series that will continue through 2018 showcasing local innovators, including a skateboard company, an artisan with a global online following and a large-scale indoor farming operation. Parkland County also runs a virtual farmers market with corresponding workshops to help local artisans and farmers offer their goods more widely through an online platform. Alberta’s NAIT Innovation Centre has also committed a group of students to explore rural technology applications with local businesses in Parkland County, with plans to pilot any technology they developed.

Borrowing the Internet

In 2017, Parkland County partnered with the Telus provider and 4 rural county libraries to launch the Borrow the Internet project, which loans out Internet hubs to library members. Each hub may be borrowed for one week and works in any area with electricity and cellphone coverage. For residents without the necessary devices to run the hubs, the libraries also maintain an inventory of tablets and laptops to be signed out as needed.

Though the project is only one year old, it has met with great success. The hubs have had consistent waiting lists since their introduction at all four libraries, and Telus has committed to providing more devices to alleviate those wait times. Beginning in 2018, the county will be introducing subsidized rates on Internet and hubs for all residents enrolled in distance learning programs through Athabasca University. Similarly, Telus has launched a program called Internet for Good in Alberta to subsidize Internet rates for families and individuals on government support to help close the digital divide.

Parkland County is demonstrating what a rural Intelligent Community can do to establish a new model for rural regions and use it to change the destiny of the place that people are proud to call their home.  

In the News
Read the latest updates about Parkland County.

Population: 32,097

Website: www.parklandcounty.com

Smart21 2014 | 2018

The capital cities of states and nations have an unfair advantage. Businesses that sell to government tend to cluster there. The business of governing also dominates their economies and, generally speaking, government responds less to the economic cycle than business. Good times may not be as good but bad times are eased – in fact, demand for government services typically rises in a recession.

Ottawa appears to be an exception to the rule. Three times in the past fifteen years, it has passed through recessions that tested the foundations of its economy. But each time, Ottawa has adapted, rallied and emerged more dynamic than before.

Canada's fourth largest metro area, Ottawa went through its first downturn in 1995. Faced with a major budget deficit, the national government downsized and devolved many functions to the provinces. Thousands of former government employees were suddenly looking for work. Fortunately, they found it in a set of communications technology companies started in the 1990s that were growing into multinationals, including Newbridge Networks, Nortel, Cognos and Mitel.

The talent released by government became an important resource for a wave of growth that peaked in 2000 – and then fell off a cliff in the telecom recession of 2001-02, when the companies that had fueled Ottawa’s boom suddenly became its biggest liability. Once again, the community adapted. It brought to bear its significant R&D capacity in communications technology, expertise in military software security and semiconductor design. Companies diversified out of reliance on wireline telecommunications and into wireless, gaming, digital media and medical devices. Growth resumed as telecommunications bottomed out and a broader range of technology companies hit their stride.

For Ottawa, the financial crisis of 2009 was headlined by the bankruptcy of Nortel, its largest private-sector employer and major contributor to research and development. Yet while Canada's unemployment rate moved toward double digits, Ottawa's rate remained below five percent, despite the drastic restructuring taking place at Nortel. Ottawa's position as Canada's capital surely gets some of the credit. But equally impressive is the city's track record of investing in information and communications technology, creating an environment that nurtures the start-up and growth of ICT-based companies, and equipping its citizens to prosper in that environment.

Infrastructure for Growth

Despite being a major population center, Ottawa is hardly an urban jungle. Ninety percent of its land is rural, where just 6% of the population live. In 2006, only 2% of that rural population had access to broadband. But by 2012, through the Rural Broadband Expansion project funded by the city, broadband passed 100% of all homes, businesses, government offices and educational facilities throughout the city. In a survey of rural business owners, 75% said that access to broadband had improved their sales and profitability and 15% said that they would be forced to relocate if broadband access were not available. The survey also asked employees living in rural area about the economic importance of broadband to them: 20% said they would not be able to continue working for their current employer without it.

The public library system has backstopped this broadband deployment with free high-speed Internet access at all 33 branches since 2001, when it also introduced free computer and Internet training courses for the public. In 2008, over 1,500 people attended courses specifically targeting older adults and newcomers to the community.

Working in close collaboration with its educational institutions, Ottawa has built another kind of infrastructure as well: one that develops talent, nurtures start-ups and connects them to opportunity. At the center of this effort is the Ontario Center for Research & Innovation (OCRI), an economic development nonprofit funded by government and more than 700 member companies, which fosters the advancement of the region's knowledge-based institutions and industries. OCRI's goal is strikingly simple: to make Ottawa recognized as one of the most innovative cities worldwide. It acts as a catalyst and contributor for government, university and private programs reaching from research labs and incubators to school classrooms.

OCRI's path was set by a plan issued in 2000 titled Ottawa 20/20. It identified government, tourism and technology as the three pillars of the local economy. It committed the city to continuing collaboration among government, industry and education, with a focus on cluster-based development and the nurturing of talent. Ten years later, a working group refreshed the 20/20 strategy to drive the community's contined growth. The working group's membership is a portrait of collaboration in action, with representatives from Ottawa's colleges and universities, OCRI, city government and the life sciences, cleantech, ICT digital media and software sectors. The emerging plan aimed to create an "innovation architecture" that supports the next generation of technology companies with the people and services they need to prosper.

Harvesting Talent

The 2001-02 downturn of the telecom sector had an unexpected impact on education in Ottawa. As telecom moved from regional darling to regional dog, enrollment in secondary school science and math programs plummeted, which soon translated into lower science and engineering enrollment at the university level. The tech sector recovered but interest in science and engineering education did not. By 2006, Ottawa's tech clusters were flagging the problem as serious and asking OCRI to develop a solution.

In 2008, OCRI worked with the Ministry of Education to introduce a Specialist High Skills Major for grades 11 and 12 focusing on ICT. In the same year, OCRI also introduced a High School Technology Program at two area secondary schools. Over the course of one term, students participated one day per week in classes on computer hardware, networking, team building and technology career opportunities. The entire program was built around social computing and the open source community. Equipped with XO laptops provided by participating companies, students worked in school and in consultation with technology firms to create software projects of their own. The first year was successful enough to justify expanding the program to four schools in 2009.

To further increase interest in STEM at the secondary level, Ottawa has also developed TechU.me. The program provides access to real-world, curriculum-based challenges, aiming to equip high school students with enhanced critical thinking and technology skills for their future careers. TechU.me also employs a group of skilled mentors to guide and assist their students. Since the program’s launch in 2012, 5,000 students have participated, and Ottawa high schools have seen a 35% increase in computer science enrollment.

Another program, Winning Innovation Networks for Schools (WINS), connects tech companies with students to graphically demonstrate career opportunities in the community. The first WINS project sent 100 students and fifteen teachers on site visits to four employers in the cleantech and medical device sectors. The next project will invite biology classes to help local medical device companies work on technology challenges identified by the companies, from sleep sensors to neurological rehabilitation.

While OCRI has focused on secondary school, Ottawa's colleges and universities have rolled out new programs to serve an economy undergoing continuing change. The University of Ottawa now offers cross-faculty courses in entrepreneurship and e-business, as well as a Graduate Certificate in Modeling and Animation for Computer Games. Carlton University created a Bachelor of Engineering in Sustainable and Renewable Energy and partnered with Algonquin College on a Bachelor of IT. Algonquin meanwhile launched its own School of Media & Design for Animation and partnered with OCRI on an Ontario Youth Apprenticeship Program, which grants secondary school students college credit for high skill majors.

The community has given equal attention to the "last mile" between the end of education and the start of employment, when the most talented students face a choice of where to start their careers. TalentBridge is an OCRI program that provides entrepreneurially-inclined university students with government-funded part-time jobs, working under experienced mentors, at local technology companies. The companies get the benefit of fresh thinking and new energy, while students gain business experience and often make the move into full-time positions with the companies.

Ottawa serial entrepreneur Terry Matthews has created the Wesley Clover Affiliate Program, named for his investment firm. Wesley Clover works with local universities to identify the brightest and most motivated new graduates, puts them through a "boot camp" training program for 9-12 months, and then pairs them with industry leaders in specific vertical segments. The aim is to introduce a new product into the market within 12 months of team formation. From 2007 to 2016, the program has expanded its portfolio of affiliates and startups to include more than 100 companies with over a 90% success rate.

Entrepreneurial Production Line

Capitalism's great benefit is the efficiency with which it moves resources out of unproductive uses and into productive ones. Ottawa attempts the same trick with entrepreneurial talent, through a range of programs designed to identify potential entrepreneurs, give them support and training, and point them toward success.

OCRI's Business Accelerator targets high-potential companies and offers them coaching, market analysis, support services, and access to OCRI's global network of investors for six months to a year. It aims to help young companies shift into high gear through market entry and financing. When they do, they can also take advantage of OCRI Global Marketing, which maintains relationships with Canada's representatives throughout the world.

Lead to Win identifies seasoned managers of technology companies who have been turfed out by corporate downsizing and helps them launch new technology-based businesses. The program originated in 2002 during the telecom recession and was revived when the latest downturn struck in 2008. Applicants accepted into the program receive training on business ecosystems, entrepreneurial management, and success factors for start-up tech companies. Those who start businesses are connected to strategic customers, sales opportunities and resources including financing. Out of the 61 participants in 2009, over 60% launched businesses, and in 2014, those five-year-old companies generated over $19.3 million in revenue. Lead to Win was ranked among UBI Global’s top ten North American business incubators in 2015.

Helping Hand

Ottawa's success in technology has yet to produce a substantial private venture capital sector ready to fund start-up and early-stage companies. National and provincial programs fill some of the gap. Ontario Centers of Excellence offer up to C$250,000 for market readiness and proof-of-concept programs. An Investment Accelerator Fund offers investments of up to C$500,000 to help launch high-potential technology ventures. The Emerging Technologies Fund matches private-sector investment up to C$5 million in early-stage companies, while the Next Generation Jobs Fund supports R&D and commercialization in new industries such as cleantech, biotech, ICT and digital media.

Funding from government finds a match in the nonprofit sector, which draws from foundations and private industry. Ottawa is home to the Canadian Photonics Fabrication Center, the Carleton University Visualization and Simulation Lab, the NRC Institute for Research in Construction and Ottawa Hospital Research Institute. Sustainable Development Technology Canada has allocated a total of C$425 million to 171 projects at local tech companies focusing on climate change, air and water quality, and soils research.

Ottawa’s government also aims to help Ontario and the nation as a whole accelerate Canada’s medical industry. The Medical Device Commercialization Centre (MDCC) recently received $14.9 million in federal funding to be used to link medical device innovators, such as universities, colleges, research institutes, hospitals and corporations, with users, including investors, hospitals, healthcare systems and, of course, patients. MDCC’s experts will be providing assistance with many different areas of development and delivery, including analyzing and confirming clinical market needs, advancing and optimizing prototypes and other solutions, testing and clinical trials, obtaining regulatory approvals and licensing, and even launching devices to market. As of today, the Centre’s experts are in the process of assessing 500 different medical technologies with the hope of advancing at least 20 of them to revenue generation and clinical use.

Will cleantech, biotech, 4G wireless and gaming provide the next boom to Ottawa's economy, perhaps to be followed by the next bust? In recent years, high-tech has edged out the Federal government as the single largest contributor to Ottawa's GDP. The new diversity of its industries, and the intense collaboration among business, government and education, promise a future even more exciting than its past.

In the News
Read the latest updates about Ottawa.

Want to know more about Ottawa?
Ottawa was featured in the Intelligent Community Forum book Seizing Our Destiny.

Population: 1,111,700

Website: ottawa.ca/en

Smart21 2010 | 2016 | 2017

Top7 2010

At the northeast end of Ontario’s Golden Horseshoe lies Oshawa, the former Automotive Capital of Canada that is finding a new future as an education and life-sciences hub. The Golden Horseshoe bends around the western end of Lake Ontario and includes the 2014 Intelligent Community of the Year, Toronto. For decades, the economy of Oshawa was tied to General Motors, which employed 20,000 people in a city of 160,000 and was the engine of the local economy. In the Eighties and Nineties, however, rounds of downsizing gradually reduced GM’s employment in the city to 4,000, wreaking havoc on the community. By 1997, the city’s downtown commercial vacancy rate reached 29% and the brownfield sites of vacant factories blighted the cityscape.

Mobilizing the Assets

City leaders, along with stakeholders from businesses and institutions, took joint action. The city was blessed with major institutions of higher learning including Durham College and Trent University Durham, as well as Lakeridge Health, one of the province’s largest community hospitals. Together, the partners plotted redevelopment of the downtown core and the replacement of automotive employment with economic development in sectors including health, sustainable energy, agriculture and transportation. Growth would be based, not on “chasing smokestacks” to bring in outside companies, but on building on the existing foundations of research and education, and using that expertise to kickstart business innovation.

It would also be based on broadband. Another of the city’s assets was Oshawa Public Utilities Corporation, which began to invest in dark fiber infrastructure to meet its own needs as well as serve city facilities. The private sector was persuaded to join in, and dark fiber began to be installed in all new construction projects to meet future demand.

Growth in Research and Education

In the new century, the city’s strategy began to show results. In 2003, the University of Ontario Institute of Technology opened as the province’s first laptop-based university. It became one of Ontario’s fastest-growing universities, which attracted more than C$100 million in research grants, and now houses more than 70 specialized laboratories and 10,000 students. The incumbent institutions worked closely with local business and introduced new programs aimed at retraining residents for in-demand careers in the city’s target sectors. Together, in 2012-13, Durham College and Trend University were estimated to contribute nearly C$1 billion in economic impact to the city.

As hoped, this concentration of education and research began to yield a harvest of new companies in wearable technology, immersive gaming, automotive data systems and consumer applications. Multiple incubators and business accelerators have opened downtown to house the young companies. The Lakeridge Health Education and Research Network opened in 2013 and began training 1,600 students per year using advanced simulation technologies while pioneering research in health informatics.

Digital Equity

Meanwhile, the city worked to equip all of its citizens with the digital skills they needed to prosper. Schools went wireless and received allotments of handheld devices, while two-thirds of teaching staff successfully completed instructional technology training. The library system installed Wi-Fi and over 100 public-use computers, tablets and e-readers for their patrons to use. Community centers and the Boys and Girls Club introduced Wi-Fi and computer access for their users as well.

Oshawa has seen its unemployment rate dramatically improve and commercial vacancy drop by more than half. Eighty-six percent of residents now have a certificate, diploma or degree compared with 73% a decade ago. City Council has also convened a citizen environmental advisory committee that engages residents in a broad range of workshops, community gardens and clean-up projects to build civic pride, while new buildings are rising on brownfield lands across the city. Local government, institutions, businesses and citizens are moving in the same direction, and it is toward a brighter and more sustainable future.

Population: 149,607

Website: www.oshawa.ca

Smart21 2016

Newly created Artic territory developing broadband connectivity to remote regions. (Click here for a presentation on Nunavut to the 2007 MISA conference. Click here for a link to the Wikipedia article on Nunavut.)

Population: 30,000

Website: www.gov.nu.ca

Smart21 2006

The largest French-speaking city in North America, the Montréal Metro Area is home to more than a tenth of Canada’s population. The region was hit by the decline of heavy industry in the Eighties, and launched a large-scale transition of its economy to ICT, aerospace, life sciences, health technologies and clean tech. Together, these clusters contain more than 6,250 companies employing about 10% of the workforce.

Becoming Smarter

A Smart City plan introduced in 2014 is the most recent contributor to this transition. It focuses on further build-out of the city’s wired and wireless broadband infrastructure, as well as deploying technology to make city services and systems more efficient and creating a collaborative ecosystem involving business, institutions and citizens.

The city owns its own electric utility, which has contributed to an 81% Internet penetration rate, with most connections at high speed. Current plans call for build-out of free WiFi across the 17 square kilometers of the central city. An open “citizen laboratory” already invites participation in incubating social technologies. An aggressive train-the-trainer program operates from 85 centers to equip community leaders with digital skills, which also help the significant portion of the population who struggle with basic literacy, a legacy of the city’s industrial past.

Montréal en Histories

The city of Montréal has 161km of fiber optic cable, which will more than double over the next two years. That network provides the backbone for MTL WiFi, which offers 8 Mbps per user and gained 50,000 unique users in its first month of deployment. The rollout began in Montréal’s historic district and provided the digital infrastructure for the Montréal en Histories project. Funded by the city and executed by producers of the famed Cirque de Soleil—which was founded in Montreal and still has its center of operations there—the project memorializes important periods in Montréal’s history in the form of videos projected at night on the walls of buildings throughout the Old City. Interested passersby can use a phone- and tablet-based app to activate the videos and delve more deeply into the content. One striking video addresses racial history with two side-by-side tales: one of black slave girl accused of setting a catastrophic fire who was tortured and hanged on little evidence, and another on the early career of Jackie Robinson, who played for Montréal and received the strong backing of his teammates in the face of public discrimination.

Knowledge is Power

The metro area’s universities graduate more students from higher education than any other Canadian city. Over 415,000 students earned an undergraduate or graduate degree there from 1998 through 2008. Montréal institutions also received more than 160,000 registrations for e-learning in the 2011-12 school year, while a specialized program is training hundreds of teachers in the use of digital technologies. This educational foundation feeds into the region’s fast-growing knowledge economy, which is a major focus of policy. Montréal operates six Learning Labs specializing in areas from transportation to healthcare and urban planning, and has deployed an online collaboration system to engage its ICT cluster (some 5,000 companies) in more open innovation. Accelerator programs and co-working spaces foster an expanding start-up culture, with the arts and media playing a significant role; Cirque de Soleil is a Montréal company.

Youth Fusion

Youth Fusion is an inspiring program that targets youth at risk of dropping out of Montréal’s schools. Gabriel Bran Lopez, an immigrant from Guatemala, founded the program as a serious, long-term effort to engage such students and help them achieve their highest potential in the future workforce. Youth Fusion places univer­sity students in classrooms for 30-40 hours per week to help students learn robotics, fashion de­sign, cinema, entrepreneurship, video game technology and a variety of other topics. The program pays these university students for their time and effort with fundraising from local businesses, who are eager to see more future employees trained in the skills they need.

Youth Fusion programs are organized as contests running over several months, culminating in selection of winners, often by judges from local industries. Through their work, the students learn French, math, art, leadership and teamwork—and also learn that they can enjoy being in school. The program was originally intro­duced as a pilot in 2 schools with 7 university coordinators and has grown to include 200 university coordinators working in 92 schools with 40 corporate supporters and partners across the province. Youth Fusion was recently named the most effective charity in Canada, generating C$16 in social value for each C$1 investment.

Quartier de l’innovation

Montréal’s innovation quarter, the Quartier de l’innovation (QI), was launched in May of 2013 by two universities: the École de technologie supérieure (ÉTS) and McGill University and is now evolving to include Concordia University as well. The QI is an innovation ecosystem in the heart of Montréal designed to boost the city’s potential for creativity by combining the strengths of many education institutions and businesses in one place.

To create such an ecosystem, Montréal is making use of the dynamic community that has already grown in the area. Home to many artists and cultural and non-profit organizations, the area also houses close to 100,000 students between the three universities. The QI also boasts 250 companies employing 20,000 people with the largest concentration of information technology and multimedia workers in all of Canada. As it continues to grow, the QI helps the nearby area grow with it by drawing new businesses and residents, leading to a total of $6B in property development and municipal investment since its inception.

The QI’s main strategy is integration of key segments in the sector: the industrial segment, the education and research segment, the urban segment and social and cultural segments. The quarter facilitates connections between these four segments, helping organizations from each of them form strong relationships with the others to further innovation. As entrepreneurs and new companies move into the area, the QI works to aid in cross-pollination of ideas and in helping them get off the ground. The area currently houses six startup incubators, including the Centech (technological entrepreneurship center) and the CEIM (Montréal business and innovation center). The CEIM offers customized management support and related services for startups in information technology, new media, life sciences and clean industrial technologies, while Centech provides support for ventures in manufacturing technology.

The history of technology development in Montréal Metro has created a fragmented sector consisting of many small companies. The city’s economic future depends on helping those small-scale innovators to collaborate in building a bigger future, while preserving the culture and beauty that attract 3.5 million visitors to the area each year.

In the News
Read the latest updates about Montreal.

Population: 1,650,000

Website: ville.montreal.qc.ca

Intelligent Community of the Year 2016

Smart21 2014 | 2016

Top7 2016

For most of the 20th Century, the city of Moncton was the transportation hub of Atlantic Canada, a region made up of the four provinces bordering the Atlantic Ocean. The Canadian National (CN) railroad had its repair shops in the city, and a cluster of transport-dependent employers, such as the Catalog Center for the nationwide Eaton's department store chain, formed to take advantage of fast, convenient access to the national rail network. CN employed 5% of the workforce and its purchasing generated thousands more jobs.

In the 1980s, however, Moncton experienced the perfect economic storm. CN announced in 1985 that it was closing down the Moncton Shops facilities in a drive to boost productivity. The Eaton's Catalog Center also closed as the department store business model fell under attack, and several local factories fell prey to the period's rapid de-industrialization. A once-proud transportation cluster found itself facing not only economic upheaval in the short term but serious worries for the future. Because rail and transportation had dominated its economy for so long, Moncton's workforce was educated for an era of manual work, not the emerging knowledge economy. The city's downtown had a high vacancy rate and, due to lack of investment, the community's physical infrastructure was in decay.

Moncton’s historic motto is "Resurgo," Latin for "I rise again." As the Eighties came to a close, it was an open question whether Moncton would ever be able to rise again.

Collaborative Leadership

ICF has identified strong collaborative leadership as a critical factor in the success of Intelligent Communities. The Moncton story explains why it is so important.

Moncton responded to the crisis by organizing a series of regional economic development planning exercises beginning in 1989. The first planning process, Symposium 2000, brought together local government and business leaders not only from Moncton but from the neighboring city of Dieppe and town of Riverview, as well as provincial and federal agencies. But it was not just a talking shop. The government and business leaders came prepared to make deals, and they reached agreement on a series of big steps. They formed and agreed to fund the Greater Moncton Economic Commission, the first regional economic development agency, and subsequently approved its first strategic plan. They forged a partnership between local and provincial government to focus on attracting new business to the region and made individual commitments to infrastructure investment. Most important, they formalized collaboration among Moncton, Dieppe and Riverview on sharing the management of municipal services such as water and policing, and on joint development of projects like the Greater Moncton International Airport. This collaboration reduced the costs of government in the region while focusing everyone on pursuing new economic opportunities.

Call Center King

In the late Eighties, the hot opportunity turned out to be the call center. Both outbound and inbound call centers experienced a boom in this period, and Moncton had the potential to benefit because of its low costs and one special attribute: it has one of the highest rates of bilingual workforce in Canada, with half of the population speaking French and English. Both leadership and collaboration played a role in what happened next. The incumbent carrier NBTel (now Aliant Telecom), proved willing to step up to meet new requirements. The first Canadian carrier to build a 100% digital network in the early 1990s, Aliant created a suite of services to support call centers, including the leasing (rather than purchase) of costly switches and systems for home-based employees. The provincial government joined forces with Moncton to actively promote the city as a place to base telecom-intensive service and IT operations. The province helped the city to attract call centers for over two dozen national and international firms including ExxonMobil, UPS, FedEx and the Royal Bank of Canada. By 1994, call centers had become a major source of new jobs, exceeding goals set in 1991. But the 1994 plan recognized that success in call center development was not enough; the next step was to focus on "knowledge businesses" – natural and applied sciences, business and finance, computer programming and information systems.

More partnerships ensued. Moncton tapped the resources of national and provincial government agencies, including the Atlantic Innovation Fund and the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation, to spur attraction and start-up of knowledge-based businesses. A New Brunswick R&D Tax Credit helped companies justify location of scientific research facilities in the Greater Moncton area. The Greater Moncton Strategic Partnership linked local government with universities, colleges, local media and leading-edge companies to fund talent-attraction marketing in order to feed the rising demand for qualified people.

With the call center business continuing to attract companies including Fairmont Hotels, Rogers Communications and Lottomattica, Moncton increasingly saw homegrown ICT businesses prosper, from the Atlantic Lottery Corporation and Red Ball Internet to Vimsoft and PropertyGuys.com. By 2006, almost 45 out of every 1,000 workers in the Moncton Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) worked in customer service, information or related clerk positions, compared with an average of 12 for Canada. Moncton had witnessed a 300% increase in employment in ICT companies, a 153% increase in employment for graphic designers and illustrators, and a 43% increase in jobs for writers and translators. While New Brunswick suffered a net loss of 3,900 people from 2001 to 2006, the Greater Moncton area gained 6,800.

In 2008, the call center sector paid more than C$290 million in payroll and generated a total of C$765 million in regional economic activity. But newer businesses were also making an impact. The community's hospitals have become catalysts for an emerging life sciences cluster focusing on medical informatics, bio-markers and bio-statistics. The Atlantic Cancer Research Institute is the largest in Atlantic Canada. L'Université de Moncton is well known for research on cellular lipid metabolism and is home to New Brunswick's only medical school, while private company DDx Health Strategies is pioneering in remote support for the pharmaceutical industry and MedSenses offers health care e-learning solutions. A local entrepreneur went from working as a video game repair technician to creating a state of the art video lottery machine system. Global lottery giant GTECH acquired this Moncton grown company in 2004 and was itself acquired in 2006 by Italy's Lottomatica, which chose to maintain production of the systems in Moncton. The result has been a gaming cluster, which now includes a unit of Oracle and a significant number of homegrown companies and development centers for multinationals.

Moncton ploughed economic growth back into infrastructure, building a new City Hall, widening bridges and roads and opening up parcels of land to development of corporate headquarters, call centers and media studios. One of the most satisfying milestones was the opening of the Emmerson Business & Technology Park on the brownfield site that had been home to CN's Moncton Shops. The developer, Canada Lands Company, put C$50 million into cleanup and redevelopment of the 249-acre site, which also includes the CN Sportplex and residential units.

Connecting to the Internet Age

Greater Moncton's latest plan, Vision 2010, calls for updating the region's economic development for the Internet age. In 2007, Moncton partnered with Cisco and Hewlett-Packard to install the first free outdoor wireless mesh network in Canada. In a mesh network, data traffic is handed off between wireless nodes, most of which operate without a landline connection. This reduces the cost of cabling but requires high-quality design and a large number of nodes to succeed. City workers installed the entire system, mostly on lampposts and traffic signals, in three days across six city blocks. The network has since been expanded selectively to local parks, shopping districts and the Magnetic Hill concert site, where it supports e-commerce for local merchants as well as communication and Web browsing. The City has even created a Community Access mobile WiFi service that allows it to deploy coverage for special events on demand.

But mobility is not just for sporting events and concerts. Moncton's municipal buses also offer free WiFi. By making it convenient for bus riders to access broadband, the new service has increased usage of public transit, with positive impacts on both emissions and congestion. In response to demand, the bus fleet is scheduled to grow from 27 to 52 buses by the end of 2010.

Moncton is also deploying ICT to improve municipal services. A van equipped with high-speed data collection technology evaluates the condition of pavement on city streets and feeds information into the city's Asset Management System. The city has also installed 20,000 wireless meter-reading devices in its water system. They measure water flows so precisely that they can detect leaks within the household, which saves citizens money while promoting conservation. Building inspectors and other outside workers are taking laptops on the road and connecting securely into city systems to access information and file reports.

One constant amid these waves of changes has been the process by which Moncton built and continues to build its broadband future. Community leaders in government, academia, institutions and businesses continue to connect and collaborate to a remarkable degree. From 2004 to 2008, the chair of the City Council's Prosperity and Economic Affairs Committee was the founder and chair of the public-private Moncton Technology Planning Group (MTPG). Members of MTPG have been board members of Enterprise Greater Moncton. The Mayor of Moncton and senior staff also sit on the Board of Enterprise Greater Moncton, and are involved in MTPG as well as the city's Prosperity and Economic Affairs Committee, of which the past chairman of the Chamber of Commerce is a member. Representatives from provincial and national government agencies also have representatives in most of the groups. In some places, having such a tightly knit leadership group becomes a barrier to progress by reducing transparency and stifling new ideas. But in Moncton, it seems to have been key to the successful fight back from the economic brink and the continuing effort to build a strong, diverse and prosperous community.

In the News
Read the latest updates about Moncton.

Want to know more about Moncton?
Moncton was featured in the Intelligent Community Forum book Brain Gain.

Population: 125,000

Labor Force: 75,600

Website: www.moncton.ca

Smart21 2009 | 2010

Top7 2009

Lethbridge takes its name from the owner of a 19th Century coal and transportation company, and coal-mining was the foundation of its early prosperity. As coal lost its dominance to oil and natural gas, Lethbridge developed further as a transport and commercial hub for southern Alberta, with agriculture as another mainstay. By the late 20th Century, half the workforce was employed in healthcare, education, retail and hospitality sectors and the top five employers were government-based. The only university in Alberta south of Calgary is in Lethbridge, and two of the three colleges in southern Alberta have campuses in the city.

Knowledge Economy

Despite these advantages, educational attainment in the city is not particularly high because students have traditionally left town after graduation to seek their fortunes elsewhere. City leadership has responded to this challenge by laying the foundations of a knowledge economy in this city of 95,000, and doing so in close collaboration with business, institutions and citizens. In 2015, it opened a Trade & Technologies Renewal Center, which brings together students, faculty and industry to equip workers with the trade skills needed to satisfy local and regional business. With global oil prices near historic lows, Lethbridge wants to ensure that workers have the skills needed to prosper in the next boom, whatever its source.

Another project, TecConnect, has invested C$5.5 million in construction of a tech commercialization center and in data center equipment, which helped persuade BlackBridge (now PlanetLabs), a satellite imaging company, to locate its new headquarters and data center next to the center. Four years after opening, TecConnect has graduated five companies with combined revenues of C$1.5 million, is incubating six more, and has created 70 jobs, of which 80% are filled by Lethbridge post-secondary graduates.

Getting Connected

A Connectivity Working Group convened by the city is engaged in analyzing existing broadband services and infrastructure and making recommendations for improvement. Focusing on wireless, it has collaborated in the design of cell towers to be added to a major retail center now under construction, and has implemented small-cell technology in new residential developments. The public-private Lethbridge Community Network provides public access to computers, education and IT for the unconnected population as well as training and IT solutions to local nonprofits.

Canada has a long tradition of commodity-driven economic growth, from agriculture to forestry to the oil sands that made Alberta rich in the new century. Lethbridge is betting on a different future, in which Canadian innovation creates a diversified economy that can weather the winds of global change.

In the News
Read the latest updates about Lethbridge.

Population: 89,074

Website: www.lethbridge.ca

Smart21 2016

Kingston is a midsize city that is home to over 172,000 residents at the place where the Cataraqui and St. Lawrence Rivers flow into Lake Ontario. Europeans settled the area in the 1600s on First Nation lands named Katarokwi, calling it King’s Town in honor of Britain’s George III. Kingston, as it became known, went on to serve as Canada’s first capital – and that federal connection continues to this day. Kingston is home to Canadian Forces Base Kingston, Corrections Canada, the Royal Military College of Canada and various departments of the federal and provincial government.

The significant role of federal spending in the economy represents both a benefit and a risk to the city. After decades of excessive dependence on federal spending, Kingston has created innovative, diverse economy that delivers growth and hedges against policy change at the national level Kingston has planned and executed carefully to create an innovative, diverse economy that delivers growth and hedges against policy change at the national level. 

Data and Economic Development

The city-owned Utilities Kingston provides electric, water and sanitation to the city – and also operates a 1,000-kilometer dark-fiber network, supplemented by fixed wireless in hard-to-reach areas. Low cost of deployment has attracted multiple service providers to provision and manage business and residential services to customers. Business customers include global companies such as DuPont, INVISTA, Frulact, IDEXX, IPG Photonics and Umicore.

The city’s economic development strategy has centered on another of its strengths: a robust academic sector anchored by Queen's University, a top research institution, and St. Lawrence College, a leading applied-learning institution with schools of business, computer and engineering technology, health sciences, and skilled trades. Together with the Royal Military College of Canada, these institutions give Kingston the second largest talent pool in Eastern Ontario and one of the most highly educated populations in the nation.

Queen’s University serves 28,000 students, mostly undergraduate, and has Canada’s highest graduation rate at 89%, with 95% of students gaining employment within six months of graduation. Overall, the city has Canada’s highest per-capita percentage of Ph.D.s and over 42,000 students in post-secondary education. The challenge for the university and the city – which work in close partnership, guided by a formal strategy to which leaders of both organizations are committed – is to connect enough of those promising graduates to local career opportunity to benefit both them and the city.

Diversity in Innovation

To that end, Queen’s has an assistant vice president of economic development in its leadership team. It developed an Ingenuity Lab Research Institute stocked with robots and robotic components, which allow students to develop projects with commercial potential. The Queen’s Innovation Centre gives budding entrepreneurs training and support in business skills, while the Queen’s Translational Institute of Medicine (TIME) provides research, facilities, equipment and students to help small companies develop medical technologies.  TIME is currently building out a C$15 million facility for state-of-the-art research equipped with equipment that can track processes at the cellular level, deliver drugs across the blood-brain barrier, and support development of personalized medicine.

With these assets at work, the city has established a track record of success for startups and scale-ups. Octane Medical Group, a biotech company, creates production technologies to rapidly scale medical treatments. IPG Photonics, a spin-out from Queens University, created a technology that can instantly assess the quality of welding, saving substantial time and money in manufacturing. The crossroads of the startup scene is 945 Princess Street, home to coworking spaces, offices, labs and Reaction Hub, an accelerator for specialty chemical businesses formed by company founders, universities and sector nonprofits.

Creative Industries

Talent is not just for technology. Kingston operates a Film Office to support local production companies in attracting location filming and staff the resulting productions with local talent. A new animation studio is also under construction. A Music Office works to leverage the Kingston origins and decades-long career of the Canadian rock band, The Tragically Hip. Supporting its development work is a Queen’s University BA program in music, and music business training from high schools and St. Laurence College. The proximity to Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal is an advantage for local musicians because they offer a large market of music venues where musicians can perform.

Kingston complements its academic and research capacity with innovative workforce and talent initiatives. The city developed the NEST* Program, which helps relocating professionals and their families integrate into Kingston by supporting spousal employment, housing searches and community connections. The program also serves newcomers undergoing the immigration process, which has made it a vital tool for attracting and retaining global talent.

The city further supports talent attraction with its Possible Made Here and bilingual counterpart Tout Est Possible Ici platforms that provide interactive tools like job search engines, cost-of-living calculators and neighborhood quizzes. Meanwhile, the Queen’s Career Apprenticeship Program connects Arts and Science graduates with employers through subsidized, year-long apprenticeships, resulting in more than $2.7 million in new payroll and the program’s expansion into other Canadian communities and the U.S.

Fostering Community Engagement 

Kingston has made public engagement a central principle of its governance, seeking to embed transparency, trust and collaboration into its decision-making processes. The City’s Public Engagement Framework guides consistent outreach across neighborhoods and sectors, supported by digital tools that make participation more accessible. Get Involved Kingston, the city’s online hub for engagement, is among the highest-performing platforms in Canada. With more than 18,000 registered participants representing 14% of the population, it supports both local and citywide consultations, on topics ranging from park improvements to the official plan. In 2024, residents provided nearly 9,000 pieces of feedback, with participation doubling year-over-year. A 2025 consultation on a proposed sports stadium drew more than 10,000 visits and 1,450 contributions, one of the largest engagement efforts in Kingston’s history.

The city also fosters inclusion and cultural connection through targeted initiatives. The Welcome to Kingston app, developed with community partners, helps newcomers access essential services, cultural events and community organizations in 15 languages. Kingston has also prioritized reconciliation and Indigenous engagement, supporting initiatives like the Katarowki Indigenous Art and Food Market, Indigenous programming at festivals and the “Engage for Change” project to strengthen relationships with Indigenous Peoples. The Mayor records monthly city podcasts and regular video updates to provide context and more information on issues brought up at each City Council meeting. These tools and programs combine digital accessibility with cultural inclusivity, ensuring that residents are informed, connected and empowered to shape the city’s evolution.

Life, Health and Sustainability

Kingston has placed sustainability at the center of its development strategy, recognizing that long-term economic growth and community well-being depend on responsible stewardship of resources. The city was the first in Ontario to declare a climate emergency in 2019 and the first in Canada to adopt a protocol for sustainable energy procurement. Its Climate Leadership Plan sets an ambitious target of carbon neutrality by 2040 and integrates both mitigation and adaptation strategies. Planned actions span transportation, buildings and energy, waste, food systems and forestry, with initiatives including establishing LEED-certified facilities, expanding organic waste diversion, growing in local food production and planting thousands of new trees annually. Kingston is further supporting these efforts with investments in an electrified municipal fleet, including buses, Zambonis and a new electric ferry, alongside expanded EV charging stations on land and even for boats.

In 2010, the city began nine-year reconstruction of Princess Street, Kingston’s main commercial artery, to replace end-of-life utilities while separating sanitary and storm sewers to prevent overflows into Lake Ontario and flooding in downtown businesses. This complex project was phased to minimize disruption to the tourism economy, with winter construction allowing streets to reopen for summer visitors – an innovation rarely attempted in Ontario. Such work underscores Kingston’s ability to blend environmental priorities with economic and cultural vitality. Other initiatives include upgrades to wastewater treatment facilities, where waste methane fuels a generator that produces 370 kW of electricity, covering about a quarter of the plant’s needs while providing heat for buildings and digesters.

Kingston is also focusing heavily on community-driven action to advance sustainability. The Kingston Community Climate Action Fund, now in its fifth year, channels financial support and public awareness into local projects led by nonprofits and charities. In 2025, Extend-A-Family Kingston’s GrowAbility Hydroponic Greenhouse Project received support to scale two greenhouses capable of producing over 10,000 heads of lettuce annually using 90% less water than traditional farming. This initiative eliminates soil and transport emissions while strengthening local food resiliency.

Mclean’s magazine has recognized Kingston as one of the best places to live in Canada, with a thriving downtown, vibrant art and theater scene and high-class restaurant and bar district. Combining its strengths in connectivity, ongoing development of a high-skilled workforce and a well-established innovation ecosystem, Kingston is ready to adapt and prosper through the continuing waves of change crossing the world’s economy.

Population: 172,000

Labor Force: 90,000

Website: www.cityofkingston.ca, www.investkingston.ca

Kingston Tourism: http.visitkingston.ca.

Smart21 2009 | 2014 | 2025 | 2026

Top7 2014 | 2025