From Accomplishment to the Next Stage of Economic Impact
CEDEC’s 2025-2026 Annual Report
An Annual Report looks back. CEDEC’s 2025–2026 Annual Report, From Insight to Impact, also points forward. It tells the story of a year of research, collaboration, economic-development activity, and measurable results. Its greater significance lies in what those accomplishments now make possible.
In 2025-2026, CEDEC continued to deliver results while also looking ahead. It highlights the knowledge, relationships, experience and capacity needed to pursue an ambitious long-term objective: laying the foundation for achieving greater economic participation and prosperity for Quebec’s English-speaking Official Language Minority Community and a stronger contribution by the community to Quebec’s economy.
This objective stems from CEDEC’s 2023-2033 OLMCQ Collaborative Economic Development Plan. The work in 2025-2026 advanced these long-term ambitions.
Better Information Leads to Better Decisions
Effective economic development relies on understanding what is happening in the economy. Where are jobs being created? Where are employers struggling to find people? Where are businesses growing? Where are economic opportunities being missed? Where do barriers continue to prevent people and communities from participating fully?
In 2025-2026, CEDEC enhanced its research and economic-intelligence capabilities to help answer those questions. Regional socio-economic profiles examined demographics, employment, education, poverty, industries and occupations. Market studies explored economic opportunities in Sutton and along Quebec’s cruise-ship corridor.
Why does that matter? Better information leads to better decisions.
Research helps CEDEC and its Partners pinpoint where opportunities exist, where barriers persist, and where people, organizations, and resources can come together to produce economic results. However, evidence alone does not create change. People do.
Bringing People Together Around Opportunity
CEDEC’s approach to economic development starts with a simple idea: many of today’s challenges require collective solutions. That is why collaboration matters.
In February 2026, CEDEC put that principle into practice by hosting PROSPÈRE Q, its inaugural bilingual Flagship Workshop. The event brought together over 100 participants from Quebec’s Public, Private, and Civil Society sectors. Participants explored 24 promising economic development opportunities across 10 areas, including workforce development, entrepreneurship, agriculture, tourism, culture, care, housing, and transportation.
PROSPÈRE Q was not simply about discussing ideas. It was about asking a harder, critical question: Which opportunities can we act on together? While research can identify an opportunity, collaboration mobilizes the necessary knowledge, people, resources, businesses, institutions, and communities required to take full advantage of it. When collaboration is organized around results, opportunity can become economic activity.
When Collaboration Produces Results
CEDEC structures and supports collaboration through Public, Private, and Civil Society Ventures. The objective is not collaboration for its own sake. The objective is to create innovation and productivity so opportunity can be transformed into concrete, measurable economic benefits.
- Developing a more connected regional tourism destination to promote Expedition 51°, a highway that spans communities in parts of Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador. Over half of the 41 businesses surveyed reported direct economic benefits, including an overall increase of approximately 37,000 additional customers.
- In Greater Montreal, EmployESBC connected English-speaking Black job seekers wThe Côte-Nord – Labrador Interprovincial Tourism Venture continued dith employers seeking talent. During 2025-2026, it supported 53 job seekers in total. The Venture generated an estimated $663,000 in economic activity for the province of Quebec by supporting job seekers in securing employment through 15 hires in 2025-2026 and five hires from previous years.
- In the Magdalen Islands, two proof-of-concept cruise-tour products brought 56 visitors to the English-speaking community of Grosse-Île. These visitors participated in the pilot tour, generating approximately $13,000 in economic activity.
These results differ, varying in scale, sector, and geography. However, they share the same underlying logic: a) identify an opportunity; b) convene the right people together; c) develop and test a collaborative approach; d) measure what happens; and e) continually learn and build on what works. This is Collaborative Economic Development in practice.
CEDEC’s The Road to Prosperity: The 2026-2028 OLMCQ Collaborative Economic Development Roadmap, establishes the next major stage of the journey to achieve the targets of the Ten-Year Plan. A key example is CEDEC’s Employment Assistance Services Capacity Development Initiative, or EASCDI. The EASCDI is building a province-wide capacity by connecting English-speaking job seekers, employers, workforce developers, educational institutions, and community organizations. It combines local service with province-wide information and supports.
From Accomplishment to Opportunity
CEDEC’s 2025-2026 Annual Report offers ongoing evidence that one of CEDEC’s core propositions remains true: the long-term vitality of the OLMCQ depends, in important ways, on its ability to participate more actively in Quebec’s economic life. For Quebec’s English-speaking community, economic and community vitality are closely connected. This gives CEDEC’s work a purpose larger than any individual program, project or organization. A stronger economic future for English-speaking Quebecers contributes meaningfully to a stronger economic future for Quebec.
From Insight to Impact, is, therefore, more than an historical record of the past year. It demonstrates what becomes possible when research identifies opportunity, collaboration mobilizes people and resources, and economic development is measured by the results it produces. When English-speaking Quebecers have greater opportunities to work, build businesses, invest, innovate, and contribute their talents, the benefits extend far beyond their community.
A stronger OLMCQ builds a stronger Quebec. This is the foundation CEDEC and its Partners continued to build in 2025-2026. And that is the opportunity before Quebecers in 2026-2027 and beyond.