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July 2024

The Durham Advantage: Explore our Signature Sites

Durham Region’s booming growth offers vast investment opportunity. There are numerous industrial, office and land properties for sale or lease across Durham Region.

Invest Durham presents its 2024 Signature Sites package to businesses that are interested in locating or expanding their operations in the region. The list of available properties is broken down by community—and includes details such as size, permitted use and connectivity. Properties are in various levels of servicing, and new properties regularly come to market.  

Contact Invest Durham to learn more about any specific property. 

Building Diverse Financial Group: A Journey of Passion and Community Service  

Susan Harris has taken her love for numbers and grown it into a successful business and a passion for helping others.

She founded and operates Diverse Financial Group, which provides financial services; including income tax preparation, bookkeeping and payroll. But she has also volunteered her time and talents helping people who are in a difficult financial place to do their tax returns at no charge. 

In 2019, Susan's innovative spirit led her to create the Tax Drop Off Program. This allows clients to drop off their documents for tax preparation and pick up their completed tax files later. It is a model that has now been adopted by most tax clinics in Durham Region. 

The Business Count Returns to Durham Region

The Region of Durham's annual Business Count is underway. Data collected through the Business Count will be used for municipal planning and analysis purposes, to help better plan services and programming to grow our industry clusters and local economy.  

All businesses—including home-based businesses, non-profit organizations and farms—are encouraged to participate to help us plan our support for business services. In addition to in-person visits, businesses have the option to complete the 2024 Business Count online.

Signs of Success at Port Perry's Sensational Signs 

For more than 25 years, Scugog’s Sensational Signs has been producing captivating signage—providing support to more than 600 unique clients, across a range of sectors. From storefronts and windows to vehicle wraps and everything in between, Sensational Signs has produced more than 61,000 signs for their clients.  

In addition to their extensive portfolio for large-scale clients in the urban development sector, Sensational Signs has played a pivotal behind-the-scenes role in creating signage for community projects. Initiatives, such as the Big Brothers Big Sisters Winding Roads music festival, the Durham Regional Cancer Centre at Lakeridge Health Oshawa, Port Perry Hospital, small business facades, local movie sets, historical monument plaques, and the Historic Downtown Port Perry welcome sign. 

Explore their wide range of projects, and find out why Sensational Signs is a valuable member of Durham Region’s rural business community! 

If you are a new or existing business looking to develop, rebrand or refurbish your signage, Sensational Signs encourages you to contact them.

Supporting Agriculture in North Durham

Submit your feedback to Durham Region’s study to update its policies for agriculture-related and on-farm diversified uses in the townships of Brock, Scugog and Uxbridge.  

The agriculture sector is an important component of the local economy—providing food, products, a livelihood and jobs for farmers and their employees. It also helps to support rural businesses that provide products and services, contributing to the agricultural system.  



The study's overall objective is to support a thriving agricultural system and rural economic opportunity, while balancing farmland protection. Your feedback is valuable in determining the policies and application processes for these uses/activities.  

Funding Opportunity: Interactive Visits and

Strategic Interactions 

Are you working on an innovative new solution that leverages both Virtual/Augmented Reality and Artificial Intelligence? 

Durham College’s AI Hub in collaboration with Mixed Reality Capture (MRC) Studio at Durham College is offering funding through two streams of services: Strategic Interactions and Interactive Visits. 

Strategic Interactions are available to small and medium businesses that are incorporated in Canada; and working in collaboration with two applied research centres (e.g., AI Hub & MRC Studio). A $500 investment unlocks 55 hours of advisory services with the AI Hub and Mixed Reality Capture Studio, funded by the Industrial Research Assistance Program (IRAP). 

Interactive Visits are available to small and medium businesses that are incorporated in Canada. A $250 investment unlocks 20 hours of advisory services with the AI Hub, funded by the Industrial Research Assistance Program (IRAP). 

Events and Partnerships

Doing Business With: Ontario Power Generation

Join the Clarington Board of Trade and Invest Clarington on July 19 for its “Doing Business With” series. 

The upcoming session features Ontario Power Generation (OPG). Gain insight into OPG's procurement process, items and services they typically purchase, and learn how to become a potential local supplier—helping them meet their needs. 

Recent Business News

The Region of Durham has once again secured its position as an intelligent community. For the third consecutive year, Durham Region has been recognized as one of the world’s Top7 Intelligent Communities by the Intelligent Community Forum (ICF). The accolade celebrates municipalities that use technology, innovation, and digital inclusion to enhance citizens’ lives and drive economic growth.  

One of the Top7 finalists will be named the Intelligent Community of the Year this fall in Barcelona during the annual ICF Summit. Visit durham.ca/IntelligentCommunities for more information on current initiatives in the Region.  

The Port of Oshawa is Durham Region’s gateway to the world; and now its role as a key connection point for Canada-US trade is poised to be made stronger. The Hamilton Oshawa Port Authority (HOPA) has announced an agreement with an affiliate of Beowulf Electricity & Data Inc to bring a two-way trade route between the Port of Oshawa and a new port in Somerset, New York. The Memorandum of Understanding expects the short sea trade corridor will reduce carbon emissions and border congestion from truck traffic. Learn more about the partnership. 

The Darlington Small Modular Reactors (SMR) project is moving to the next phase of development. The Ontario government announced that Ontario Power Generation has completed the first phase of site preparation for the first SMR. Construction partner, Aecon will now take over to begin main site preparation. The provincial government also announced that Ontario nuclear workers will be providing their expertise on the refurbishment of a nuclear plant in Romania. The Ontario government secured the $360-million deal on a recent trade mission.  Read more about the announcements. 

Durham College is expanding its artificial intelligence (AI) research hub thanks to a $172,000 federal grant. The money will go towards purchasing two high-performance servers, which are made to optimize Generative AI, performance graphics and analytics. Over the past five years, the AI Hub at Durham College has connected students to more than 100 local businesses to deliver high-quality research and development and innovation services. Learn more about the AI Hub. 

Canadians appear to be in a spending mood this summer. According to the BMO Real Financial Progress Index, about 20 per cent of Canadians surveyed plan to spend more on summer travel, about 15 per cent are planning home renovations, and nearly one-tenth of those asked plan to spend more on celebrating milestones, such as weddings and graduations. The survey also found 85 per cent of Canadians believe they are making real financial progress.  

Contact Us

Toll-free: 1-800-706-9857

InvestDurham.ca 



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