Who Is Building Business in Alberta and Why?

The next generation of Alberta businesses will not come from one demographic or one industry.

They will come from tradespeople and technologists, engineers and accountants, immigrants and lifelong Albertans, twenty-somethings with an idea and fifty-somethings with thirty years of experience.

Our job is not to decide which entrepreneur should succeed. It is to make Alberta the best place for all of them to try.

At the Alberta Business Alliance, that is what we are all about.

Prosperity is created by people willing to build something: invest their capital, hire their first employee, buy another truck, open another location or turn an idea into a business.

Good public policy should make more of that possible.

A 2025 Statistics Canada study provides some important context. Researchers examined the accumulation of federal regulatory requirements between 2006 and 2021 and found that it was associated with lower investment and reduced business dynamism. The study estimated that if regulatory requirements had remained at their 2006 level, business-sector investment would have been 9% higher in 2021 and the rate of business entry about 10% higher.

The argument is not that businesses should operate without rules.

It is that the quantity, quality, clarity and predictability of those rules matter.

For Alberta, that means continually asking a simple question: are we creating an environment where the person thinking about starting a company is more likely to take the risk—or less likely?

And once they start, can they hire? Can they invest? Can they get a permit? Can they access capital? Can they expand without spending an increasing share of their time navigating unnecessary complexity?

At the Alberta Business Alliance, those are the questions we care about.

We are working to turn those questions into action. ABA brings business leaders together to identify the barriers affecting investment and growth and carries those perspectives directly to decision-makers, giving Alberta businesses a stronger collective voice on the issues that affect them. We also create connections between business, government and community leaders that can open doors, solve problems and create opportunities for businesses to grow.

Because Alberta does not need government to create its next generation of entrepreneurs.

They are already here.

We need to give them room to build.

Source: Regulatory Accumulation, Business Dynamism and Economic Growth in Canada — Statistics Canada