The Town of Okotoks has received more praise.

This week the Canadian Federation of Independent Business ranked the town fourth as One of Canada’s Top Places to Start and Grow a Business. This is a significant jump from last year where Okotoks was ranked twenty fifth.

Shane Olson, manager of economic development with the Town of Okotoks, says there's three main things the CFIB looks at when making these rankings.

"They're looking at presence, which is the representation of the number of growth and business growth in the area," he says. "Another is perspective, which covers indicators associated with optimism and growth plans... they look at businesses that are hiring, how many people go into business in a particular community. Indicators, such as business taxation and government regulation."

The Town of Okotoks doesn't charge a business tax for the majority of local businesses to allow them to operate in an affordable environment.

Olson says the recognition is great but adds there's potential to grow.

"There's always room for improvement when we're talking about presence, perspective and policy as it comes to entrepreneurship but we're quite honored to be in this particular category," he says. "The Calgary region scored very high, in fact the Calgary region is number one in the country for places to start up a business and for businesses to incubate."

On the CFIBs scoring sheet Okotoks received 70.2 points out of a possible 100.

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