By Tom Parkin
November 26th, 2025
BURLINGTON, ON
Business closures are outpacing openings in Ontario construction and retailing. But in some perhaps unexpected sectors, more businesses are opening.
Parkin: “…but it hasn’t worked out that way.”
Making Ontario open for business was the promise, but it hasn’t worked out that way.
While more businesses are opening than closing in the rest of Canada, Ontario business closings are significantly outpacing business openings, according to Statistics Canada data released Tuesday.
From February 2024 to the most recent data, August 2025, there has been a net 3,519 businesses closures in Ontario. For Canada excepting Ontario, there was a net 2,777 businesses openings during the same period.
Statistics Canada categorizes a business as “continuing” if it operated in the month surveyed and the month previous. The data presented is all seasonally adjusted.
Closures hit construction, retailing, northern businesses
There have been significant business closings in Ontario’s large construction and retailing sectors, which both started downturns in February 2024. Since then, a net 1,388 construction businesses and a net 887 retailing business have shut their doors.
While it’s much smaller than retailing or construction, the forestry, fishing and hunting sector has shrunk very dramatically, losing a net 13 per percent of the businesses it had in September 2022. The industry is concentrated in central and northern Ontario, unlike construction and retailing, which is spread across the province.
The closure of Ontario businesses in retailing and construction echoes employment, sales and building permit data for Ontario, all of which have recently pointed down for the sectors.
Continuing businesses monthly, select sectors, Aug 2022-Aug 2025
More businesses opening in accommodation and food, arts, tourism
But the news for Ontario is not all negative.
Business openings in the accommodations and food services sector and the arts, entertainment and recreation sector are up. Those sectors might have been expected to move down with the retail sector’s decline, and consumers squeezed by the province’s continuing affordability problems. But they haven’t.
Business openings in those two sectors have significantly outpaced business closings for most of the past three years, though with some pullback in late 2024 and early 2025.
The data from Statistics Canada isn’t highly granular, but the timing of trends may suggest a boost in Canadian stay-home tourism is encouraging more businesses openings in these sectors, which have more tourism exposure.
In February 2025, all three sectors began a rebound from a 2024 downward trend, since adding a net 965 new businesses.
February was also when the United States president started his campaign of “economic force” against Canada, causing many Canadians to forego vacations in the United States and explore their own country, culture and hospitality. The data isn’t conclusive, but it’s a hypothesis to explore and perhaps an economic opportunity deserving more attention.
