Built in the West, Growing Canada

By Daniel Perry,
Director of Federal Affairs

After our CEO Summit in Vancouver, I didn't head straight back to Ottawa. I added some extra time in Western Canada and spent a week in Calgary meeting with our members, connecting with the broader ecosystem, and getting a feel for how Albertans were thinking about the upcoming referendum.

The timing mattered. I arrived the week before the vote, and while the question on the ballot was a serious one, the mood on the ground felt clear. Most of the people I spoke with expected Alberta to choose to stay, and when the votes were counted, that is exactly what happened.

The vote was what everyone was talking about, but what stayed with me most was what I saw in the people building companies there.

A different kind of ecosystem

Calgary feels different from Ottawa and much of central Canada, and not just because of the mountains on the horizon or the occasional cowboy hat. What stands out is how tightly knit its innovation community is. One member joked to me that everyone in Calgary is on everyone else's cap table. Like most good jokes, it has a lot of truth in it. Founders, investors and entrepreneurs there see each other's success as their own, and they work together to grow the ecosystem rather than compete for a small slice of it.

There is also an attitude that is hard to miss. It is a roll-up-your-sleeves, let's-get-this-done mindset, paired with a real belief that we can build something better. One founder put it bluntly. Canada too often settles for good enough when it should be aiming to be great. In Calgary, I met people who refuse to settle.

That attitude showed up in every company I visited.

Arcurve

Jay Gohill is President, CEO and a founding partner of Arcurve, a Calgary-based technology, advisory and software development company. Since 2006, Arcurve has helped organizations across sectors like energy, telecommunications, transportation, financial services and infrastructure with digital strategy, AI and data analytics, and custom software. It is a homegrown firm that has grown alongside Calgary's tech sector and helped shape it.

Arcurve is also a model for how to build Canadian talent. Its internship program leads to a 70% hiring rate, and some people who leave end up coming back, which says a lot about the culture Jay and his team have built.

Jay's commitment to Calgary goes well beyond his own company. He serves as Board Chair of the Calgary Food Bank, helping one of the city's most important community organizations meet growing need. For Jay, building a strong business ecosystem and a strong community go hand in hand, and that is the Calgary spirit at its best.

Helcim

Helcim, led by founder and CEO Nic Beique, is a Calgary-built payments company serving mid-market and mid-sized businesses, with most of its customers here in Canada. Payments is an industry where incumbents have long held the advantage, and Helcim is proving that a Canadian challenger can compete and win. With new rules on retail payments coming into force and global players moving into the Canadian market, Helcim is exactly the kind of homegrown competitor Canada needs.

ZayZoon

ZayZoon is tackling a problem that affects millions of working people, which is what happens when the bills come before the paycheque. Their cash flow app gives workers access to their earned wages without turning to payday loans and the high fees that come with them. Their focus is financial wellness and independence, helping people manage their money so they do not need to borrow in the first place. Many of the people they serve are women and lower-income workers, exactly the people who are hit hardest by predatory lending. They are now launching a new product to support workers in hospitality, filling a real gap in the market for service industry workers.

NanoTess

I'm a big fan of NanoTess. Led by CEO Megan Leslie, NanoTess has developed wound care technology that heals wounds and burns and protects against frostbite. It is already helping unhoused people in Calgary and across Alberta, and it is a true example of a dual-use product. The same technology is supporting medical teams on the front lines in Ukraine, where NanoTess has donated around $500,000 in partnership with Mercy Medical. As Canada invests more in defence and Arctic security, homegrown innovations like this are exactly what we should be backing.

BigGeo

BigGeo works in one of the most strategically important layers of the modern economy, spatial data. Every drone, autonomous vehicle, farm, mine, pipeline and port depends on knowing where it is and what is around it. BigGeo CEO Brent Lane makes a compelling case that whoever sets the standards for that layer shapes sovereignty, manufacturing and access to world markets. His view is simple. Standards used in public procurement should be open and accessible to everyone, so Canadian companies can compete and win at home. BigGeo is also moving into new offices, a big step forward for a company that is clearly on the rise.

The companies I met in Calgary are not waiting for permission. They are solving hard problems in technology, finance, health and data, and they are doing it while supporting one another and their community. That is what a strong innovation ecosystem looks like.

The lesson for Ottawa is that policy should match that ambition. That means procurement that gives Canadian companies a real chance to compete, open standards that do not lock domestic firms out, access to capital that backs homegrown challengers, and regulatory clarity that lets new business models grow. Alberta's innovators have shown what is possible when people roll up their sleeves and build. Our job is to make sure the rest of the country, and the federal government, helps them build something better.

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About the Council of Canadian Innovators (CCI)

The Council of Canadian Innovators (CCI) is Canada’s business council for the 21st century economy. We are a collective of over 175 of Canada’s fastest-growing and most ambitious companies, and the founders, CEOs, and executives behind them, working together to improve the business conditions that help more homegrown companies scale, compete globally, and drive long-term prosperity. Learn more at canadianinnovators.org.