Windsor has received a failed grade when it comes to supporting small businesses.
The Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) has released their 2026 Municipal Report Card, which looks at 66 municipalities across Canada and what they’re doing to support businesses in their city.
Windsor received an “F” and was ranked 39th - tied with Surrey, B.C.
The report looks at three areas, including the cost of doing business, regulatory burdens and how business-friendly municipalities are.
It considers things like property taxes and tax relief for small businesses, the number of permits and licences businesses need, digital permitting, and whether cities provide clear permit timelines.
It also looks at construction mitigation, business-focused online services, and municipal budget transparency.
Angela Drennan, CFIB’s Vice-President of Legislative Affairs, says Windsor’s lowest-scoring category was regulatory burden.
“There’s no ability to both apply and pay for business licenses online, which seems a little bit odd to me post COVID; you’d think that would be something that’s like a low-hanging fruit for the city to do. There’s an above-average number of permits required to start and operate a business. There’s no publicly available license and permit approval timelines posted.”
She says the city also lacks a dedicated red tape feedback portal for businesses to alert the municipality of any challenges.
“Most municipalities do have in-house IT staff that they can rely on to build a simple form even. But it needs to be dedicated about red tape so that businesses and residents, frankly, could write in and tell the municipality, ‘hey, these are the challenges we’re experiencing’. The point of it though, is not just to collect the information; the municipalities then need to fix it.”
She says the report also found some positives for Windsor.
“You actually do quite well on the tax fairness compared to a lot of other municipalities in Ontario, at least. So that is something that other municipalities could try to emulate, which is great. I also saw the operating spending growth, like you didn’t overspend, which is great.”
Drennan says the report isn’t meant to name and shame municipalities but to give them a roadmap for improvement.
39 of the 66 municipalities received an “F” in the report, while none scored higher than a C+.
-with files from AM800’s The Shift with guest host Kristen Siapas