Affordable Commercial Space for Lease in Booming Southern Saskatchewan

More about Saskatchewan

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The name Saskatchewan is derived from the Cree word kisiskâciwanisîpiy meaning "swift-flowing river." Saskatchewan became a province of Canada on September 1, 1905. Located between Alberta to the west and Manitoba to the east, its boundaries extend from the US border along the 49th parallel to the border with the Northwest Territories along the 60th parallel.

Saskatchewan covers 6.5% of Canada, an area of 651,036 square kilometres. Of this, 591,670 square kilometres are land and 59,366 square kilometres are covered by water. The land is divided between the mostly crystalline rocks of the Precambrian shield in the northern third of the province and the sedimentary rocks of the western Canadian sedimentary basin in the south. Mineral resources include world-class deposits of uranium and potash.

Four ecozones span the province: prairie, boreal plains, boreal shield, and taiga shield. The climate is continental, characterized by large seasonal temperature ranges and low precipitation. Humans began to occupy the land as ice retreated at the end of the last glaciation. Distinctive cultures evolved, dependent on the natural resources available in the different ecozones.

European contact with Aboriginal peoples occurred during the fur trade era, and increased when agricultural settlement began in the late 19th century. In the early 20th century, that settlement history produced an ethnically mixed, largely agrarian population concentrated on farms and in communities across the prairie ecozone. A century later, agriculture has declined in relative importance and more people live in urban areas (64.3%) than in the countryside.

The 2006 census recorded Saskatchewan's population at 968,157, while provincial estimates for April 2008 were 1,010,146. The 2006 median age (38.7 years) was slightly below the Canadian average. Saskatchewan had the highest proportion (15.4%) of inhabitants over 65 in Canada, but relatively more people under 25 years of age (34.4% versus 31% for Canada). 14.88% of people identified themselves as Aboriginal, an increase of 9% since 2001. Although only 3.6% of the population was self-identified as visible minorities, a total of 186 different ethnic groups were recognized, ranging from 286,045 people claiming German ethnicity to just 10 people identified as Moroccan.

In 2003, provincial GDP was $36.519 billion, of which 8.7% was derived from agriculture and 12.3% from other primary industries. 12% came from manufacturing or construction, and 67% from an ever-increasing range of service industries. Export trade is important to Saskatchewan; in 2003 the largest single export commodity was crude oil: Saskatchewan can no longer be described as the "wheat economy."

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The Economy

About 95% of all goods produced in the province directly depend on its basic resources (grains, livestock, oil and gas, potash, uranium and wood, and their refined products). In addition, the individuals and firms involved in these industries make purchasing decisions that drive the rest of the economy; farmers, mining companies, and the manufacturers processing primary products purchase the bulk of the non-resource manufactured output and business services produced in the province.

 

Business

In 1997, Saskatchewan had approximately 30,000 firms registered to operate with province-based headquarters; 27,000 sole proprietorships; and 8,000 firms with out-of-province headquarters but registered with Saskatchewan Justice to undertake business in the province. Urban-based firms employed 76% of provincial workers, northern firms about 0.8%, and rural firms about 23%. Looking at the top 100 grossing companies in the province in 2003, Saskatoon had the head offices of 35 commercial enterprises while Regina had 31 commercial headquarters and the head offices of eleven Crown corporations.

The other cities each had one or two headquarters, for a total of ten firms. The other private companies are scattered around the smaller centres. Over 86% of all domestic firms have fewer than twenty employees; the 5% of all firms that employ more than 100 workers accounted in 1993 for 52% of all jobs and more than 60% of the provincial payroll.

There are a number of means of measuring the scope and scale of the economy. The conventional method is to look at distribution of value-added activity by sector. The provincial economic accounts show that the province has moved rapidly from an agrarian and resource-based economy into a services-propelled region. This transformation has been mirrored by the shift of employment between those sectors. This approach overstates the shifts of activity away from the commodity market drivers.

The move from goods to services production is at least partly the result of greater specialization. For instance, as farmers use more inputs and out-source more of their trucking and financial management, the value and employment created are now counted as manufacturing, transportation, wholesale trade, finance, or business services. The final market for many of the new processing or service jobs remains as embedded value in exported commodities: in agriculture, for example, only about 40% of the export value of our products is added on-farm.

After more than a century of commercial development, the provincial gross domestic product in 2002 was $34.5 billion, equal to about 3% of the Canadian economy. The average per capita income was approximately $34,700, equal to about 94% of the national average. The provincial average per capita income in 2002 was more than three times the global average and would earn Saskatchewan a position among the most affluent regions in the world.

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