Newcomer Entrepreneurs Wanted as Ontario Looks to Immigrants to Drive Growth

Canada needs more Kacee Vasudevas.

The Indian-born entrepreneur has donated to Ontarian hospitals desperate for protective gear. He retooled production lines to help combat the onslaught of coronavirus. In its heyday, his firm—producing things like automobile parts, hand tools and, yes, even mosquito repellent—employed 500 people, boasting an annual revenue of $100 million and a slew of patents.

Trained as an engineer, Vasudeva moved to Canada 50 years ago. He built his business empire, called MaxTech Innovations, out of a garage in Waterloo. Now, with its economy recovering from the pandemic slump, Ontario is looking to immigrants like Vasudeva to help drive economic growth.

For the next two years, the provincial government hopes to attract 100 international entrepreneurs to start businesses outside the GTA, a target set by the 2022 Provincial Budget. Among the prioritized sectors: IT, life sciences and tourism.

Immigrant entrepreneurs who meet the thresholds—running a business for a minimum of 18 months and investing at least $200,000—are eligible for permanent residency nomination. The initiative, designed under the Ontario Immigrant Nominee Program (OINP), intends to help revitalize the economies of smaller cities and towns battered by the pandemic. The previous Liberal government launched the OINP in 2015.

It is not hard to understand the provincial government’s ardor in attracting foreign investors. In Ontario, small enterprises, which hire 2 million employees, account for 98% of all businesses. By the province’s own projection, the initiative, which costs $6 million to administer, is expected to generate at least $20 million for Ontario’s economy. In a sign of its commitment, the province last year asked the federal government to double the number of immigrants quota under the OINP, from 9,000 to 18,000 a year.

In Canada, many immigrant entrepreneurs have found success. Tobias Lütke, a German immigrant, founded Shopify, a Canadian tech daring with its humble roots as a snowboard shop. Syrian refugee Tareq Hadhad, whose migration journey and entrepreneurship inspired a movie, built a chocolate brand, dubbed Peace by Chocolate, in Nova Scotia.

A December study by Century Initiative showed that firms founded by immigrants were more likely to be high growth than those established by the Canadian-born population.

The journey to build a business will not always be smooth, of course. Maxtech founder Vasudeva was forced to reshuffle his businesses in 2009 amid dwindling sales and a cash crunch. Yet, he endured, so did his business.

The thing that keeps him going? In the words of a local newspaper, “He was bitten by the entrepreneurial bug years ago and it hasn’t let go.”