The Canadian Federation of Independent Business has compiled the 2016 list of Canada’s top places to start and grow businesses and North Bay is second last out of 121 communities.

The city received an overall score of 42, down 1.8 percent from last year.

Cornerbrook, NFLD was last at 41.4.

The list looks at 14 entrepreneurship indicators that are grouped into 3 main categories: Presence, Perspective and Policy.

For North Bay, stats from the Federation’s member survey shows 15.6 percent rank local government understanding small business as good or adequate.

That was the lowest score and is tied with with 31 other communities.

Meantime, business establishment growth was down 2.8 percent.

According to the Federation’s business outlook survey, 13.3 percent of businesses said they’re hiring full-time locally while 33.3 percent ranked the state of business as good in North Bay.

Both were the lowest scores and were tied with about 30 other communities.

Positives include life satisfaction locally being better than 73 other communities while the city was middle of the pack in terms of property tax.

 

CLICK HERE for the CFIB report