Scarborough doesn’t need more strategy – it needs a system that moves. Nominate a local business for the Scarborough Business Excellence Awards.
Scarborough does not lack ideas, approvals, or ambition. What it lacks is execution.
Across the community, businesses are ready to expand, invest, and hire. Projects are approved. Plans are in place. Capital is available. And yet momentum too often stalls in the space between approval and action. Not because the market failed, but because timelines are unclear, accountability is fragmented, and the system moves more slowly than the businesses it is meant to support.
Risk is part of business. Every entrepreneur understands that. Costs rise. Demand shifts. Interest rates move. Those risks can be managed.
What businesses cannot manage is uncertainty they cannot plan around—open-ended delays, shifting requirements, and processes with no clear owner.
Approval becomes the finish line, when for business it is only the starting gun.
The cost of this uncertainty is real. Hiring decisions are delayed. Expansion plans are paused. Investment waits or quietly moves elsewhere. Nothing collapses overnight. Things simply stop moving.
Around the world, jurisdictions that addressed this problem did not do it with bigger strategies or endless subsidies. They did it by changing how decisions were made.
Clear rules replaced discretion. Predictable timelines replaced open-ended process. Incentives were tied to action. When uncertainty was reduced and execution was rewarded, capital moved and growth followed.
That is the logic behind economic activation zones. Not special treatment. Not insider advantage. A streamlined, disciplined process.
Clear rules instead of discretion. Fixed timelines instead of open-ended process. Benefits tied only to action, not ownership or influence.
If a project starts, it qualifies. If it does not, it does not.
Properly designed, this approach does not create unfair advantage. It removes the disadvantage of delay, which increases costs, raises risk, and disproportionately harms businesses that cannot afford to wait indefinitely.
Rewarding action benefits the broader community because projects that move create jobs, expand services, grow the tax base, and turn approved plans into real economic activity.
With the right partners, moments like these can also be used to train the next generation locally, building skills, creating opportunity, and allowing Scarborough to take pride in what we’ve accomplished together.
Scarborough has the fundamentals. Land. Transit investment. Anchor institutions. A skilled workforce. Entrepreneurial energy across restaurants, retail, manufacturing, tourism, and professional services. What is missing is a system that moves at the pace of the market and turns readiness into results.
That is the direction Scarborough should be setting in 2026. In 2026, Scarborough should begin moving from approvals on paper to projects on the ground by enforcing timelines and rewarding action.
At the same time, it is worth recognizing something often overlooked. Scarborough is already full of businesses that execute. They adapt, innovate, invest, and grow despite uncertainty. They do not wait for perfect conditions. They move.
That is why recognizing business excellence matters.
The Scarborough Business Excellence Awards, presented at the upcoming Mayor’s Gala, highlight the businesses that are already creating jobs, serving customers, strengthening supply chains, and contributing to the local economy.
Nominations for the Business Excellence Awards are now open and can be completed through the Scarborough Business Association website at thesba.ca.
Momentum is built in two ways: by fixing the systems that slow growth, and by recognizing the businesses that get things done.
Scarborough has no shortage of excellence. Now it needs an environment where more businesses can move, grow, and succeed.
Ryan Somer is President of the Scarborough Business Association.
