WestIsland.ca, Open for Global Business The West Island is a major economic hub, supportive of innovation and growth. Diverse in culture and industry, it offers a progressive, technologically advanced environment with unique strategic advantages for internationally oriented businesses.

1. WestIsland.ca
Open for Global Business

3. Open for Global Business
The West Island is a major economic hub, supportive of innovation
and growth. Diverse in culture and industry, it offers a progressive,
technologically advanced environment with unique strategic
advantages for internationally oriented businesses.
Diverse Community in a Great Environment
Unique Location
Only minutes from downtown Montréal, the West Island is a community of eight cities and two boroughs
at the western tip of the Island of Montréal, in the
Province of Québec.
The region attracts local and international investment due to its great people, dynamic business climate,
extensive resources, affordable cost of living and
unique atmosphere, flavoured by Québec’s old-world
charm. Nature is omnipresent in this peaceful region,
boasting an abundance of waterways, greenery and
picturesque villages.
The West Island offers a wide variety of housing
and top-notch community services, covering every
need, from education to healthcare, daycare and
recreation. In terms of personal safety, the Greater
Montréal area ranks at the top of the largest North
American cities. Though in close proximity to Montréal’s
busy urban core, a country feeling and a unique
sense of belonging is felt by its residents.
Major modes of transportation, whether by air, land
or sea, are readily available to West Island businesses,
keeping all channels open for the flow of goods and
services to and from customers and suppliers.
The region, criss-crossed by a network of highways
strategically connecting to major economic centres,
and in proximity with the Greater Montréal area,
offers direct access to Ontario, Atlantic Canada and
the United States.
At the heart of the West Island, Montréal-Trudeau
airport, the principal Canadian airport east of the
Great Lakes, is a hub for domestic, transborder and
international passenger traffic. Its positioning makes
it a natural connection point for traffic between
North America and Europe.
Laval
Montréal
Toronto
Chicago
Boston
New York
West Island
Montréal
Longueuil

4. Distinctive Business Environment
The West Island’s business community, composed of small and
medium-sized companies, as well as large multinationals,
has evolved and solidified over the years, showing signs of sustained
growth for times to come.
Highly Educated and Qualified People
West Islanders are highly educated, talented, and
multicultural. Creativity, professionalism and dedication are common traits. A large percentage of the
population, compared to elsewhere in the province,
is university educated, with training in engineering,
sciences, administration or management. Residents
benefit from four international calibre universities
and seven institutes of higher learning, available in
nearby Montréal, and many technical training programs.
A unique asset that characterizes the region is
its strong cultural diversity. Fully 70% of its population
is bilingual, French and English.
Pro-active Business Community
Whatever the need, from real estate to manpower,
financing or market expertise, West Island corporations are well served by a full spectrum of public and
private services.
Développement Économique West-Island, at the
forefront of governmental services, offers support
and guidance with regards to available programs,
financial tools and partnering organizations, poised
to help corporations optimize growth and manage
relocation, such as:
• Montréal International
• Investissement Québec
• Ministère des Finances et de l’Économie
• Export Development Canada
• Canada Economic Development
for Québec Regions
• National Research Council Canada
The West Island’s business community welcomes
international corporations looking for a foothold in
the dynamic North American market. Développment
Économique West-Island and its partners look
forward to working with these corporations to help
them achieve success.
Vast Availability of Land and Office Space
The region offers prime locations, including existing
office and industrial spaces, as well as land for
development. Contractor-developers offer a variety
of approaches to construction, including design-build
projects, for ownership or leasing.
Location-based operating costs in the West Island
are lower than those in Central and Western Canada
and the United States. Businesses also benefit from
many real estate programs such as municipal tax
reimbursements and incentives to accelerate investment in property development.
“ The West Island offers a phenomenal quality of life. There are
lots of spaces, lots of positives and it costs less to live in Québec
than in Europe or the United States. These factors make this
place a true gem and one of the best kept secrets on this planet.”
Mike Hardman – President, Sika Canada

5. Key Innovative Industries
The West Island is a prime destination for investment, meeting key
criteria for location or relocation of SMEs and multinationals. Industry
flourishes in the West Island, in diverse sectors such as aerospace,
life sciences, information technology and telecom, food transformation,
cleantech, R&D sciences and advanced logistics.
Aerospace
Life Sciences
Québec is a major driver of the Canadian aerospace
industry, home to more than 212 companies employing some 42,000 specialized workers, well trained
in advanced production methods and techniques.
The Greater Montréal region is considered one of the
major world centres for aeronautics, on the same
level as Seattle and Toulouse. It also has the secondlargest density of aerospace jobs in the world with
one person in 95 working in a job related to the sector.
Montréal-Trudeau airport is a vibrant air transport
hub in the region, facilitating business and exchange
in Québec and the world.
The key to Québec’s success is the synergy that drives
companies in the private sector, public research,
universities, research hospitals and the major clinical
research networks.
Such resources harness the power of convergence
and collaboration, both multidisciplinary and multicentric, and allow Québec to rank among the 10 largest
health sciences industrial pools in North America.
A number of world leaders in pharmaceutical
and medical technology sectors have chosen Québec.
Many of them are established in the West Island,
including:
• Charles River Laboratories
• Merck Canada
• Pfizer Canada
• Jubilant Life Sciences
• Medtronic of Canada
• Galderma Canada
• Novartis Pharmaceuticals Canada
Aerospace companies in the West Island include:
• Bombardier Aerospace
• C&D Zodiac Aerospace
• Innotech Aviation
• MacDonald Dettwiler and Associates (MDA)
• ThyssenKrupp Aerospace
“ The West Island has an outstanding pool of skilled labour.
Specialized programs and innovative teaching initiatives ensure that
the quality of graduates keeps getting better each year. In the
last two years, we’ve hired more than 200 people and are now 650
employees at our Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue facility.”
Marc Donato – Vice-President and General Manager, MacDonald Dettwiler
and Associates Satellite Systems (MDA)

6. Information Technology and Telecom
The information technology (IT) and telecommunications sector is vibrant in the West Island. The province
boasts hundreds of active businesses in related
industries, and a large pool of highly skilled workers.
The Montréal region has more engineering firms and
engineers than any other city in Canada.
The strong growth in the Québec telecommunications industry is driven by the dynamism and high
export capability of local businesses, as well as the
many ongoing leading-edge R&D projects. Many
of these companies are located in the Greater Montréal
area, benefiting from proximity to leading institutions of
higher education, associations and R&D consortiums.
IT and Telecom companies in the West Island include:
• Advantech Wireless
• Epicor Software Corp.
• Matrox Electronic Systems
• Netricom
• Task Micro-Electronics
Food Transformation
The agri-food industry is a major contributor to Québec’s
economy, employing over 475,000 people or nearly
12% of the province’s workforce. The industry owes
its vitality primarily to the abundance and quality of
raw materials that Québec has to offer, ranging from
pork, soybeans, berries, vegetables, maple syrup,
refined sugar and drinking water.
Food transformation companies in the West Island
include:
• Aliments ED Foods
• Cott Beverages
• Plats du Chef
Cleantech
Québec’s cleantech ecosystem encompasses approximately 1,000 players, including producers of clean
technologies, users and research facilities. Many
economic sectors benefit from their solutions, including mining, manufacturing, forestry, energy, agriculture, petrochemicals, construction and transport as
well as municipal services.
Cleantech businesses in the West Island include:
• Gradek Energy
• Matrix Energy
R&D Sciences
In 2010, Québec’s population included 1,227,000 university graduates, 86% of whom were between the
ages of 25 and 64. These workers occupied 24%
of all jobs and 48% of jobs in professional, scientific
and technical services. In this context, the West Island
is very well positioned, its population showing
the highest levels of university students (30%) and
bilingualism (70%), as compared to all other regions
of the Province of Québec.
Research organizations in the West Island include:
• FP Innovations
• ITR Laboratories Canada
• McGill University, Macdonald Campus, Faculty
of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences
Advanced Logistics
The West Island’s strategic location in relation to major
transport facilities, such as the Port of Montréal,
Montréal-Trudeau airport, and the Trans-Canada
Highway, among many others, provides especially
suitable conditions for growth of the advanced logistics sector. Businesses in this sector offer efficient,
effective forward and reverse flow and storage of
goods, services and related information, with recognition of the benefits and evolving role of cutting edge
technologies.
Advanced logistics businesses in the West Island
include:
• DHL
• DB Schenker
• UPS Supply Chain Solutions

7. Partner in your Global Success
Développement Économique West-Island proudly offers guidance
through the hands-on approach of its team of industrial commissioners
and counsellors. Its mandate is to support business owners and
decision-makers, pointing the way to tools, programs and a vast partner
network, including key organizations such as Montréal International
and Investissement Québec.
“ The main reason we recently selected our new site in Dorval
is because it is well located in terms of the daily commute for
our work force and it offers good general accessibility.
Pharmascience has a long-standing commitment to ensure
that top-quality products reach consumers worldwide.”
Pierre Sabourin – Director, Distribution and Customer
Service, Pharmascience

8. Développement Économique West-Island’s
support can make a crucial difference at any point
in the life cycle of a company, from start-up
to mature, international corporation.
Copywriting: Figaro Communications
Design: Stéphane Huot
Photos: Bombardier Aerospace, Développement
économique West-Island – CLD ,
Istockphoto, Montréal-Trudeau airport
Développement Économique West-Island
1000, boul. Saint-Jean
Suite 610
Pointe-Claire, Québec
Canada H9R 5P1
T 514 426-2888
info@westisland.ca
WestIsland.ca