Business View Magazine
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year later. Kingston began to grow as an important
transshipment port for commodities from the western
frontier, including wheat, flour, meat, and potash. In
1832, the British opened the Rideau Canal, connect-
ing Kingston to Ottawa in the northeast. While its origi-
nal purpose was military, the canal became important
to the city’s economy
In 1841, Queens University was established and in
the same year Kingston was named the first capital
of Canada by Governor General Lord Sydenham. The
college thrived, growing from an original 13 students
to over 25,000 today and known as one of Canada’s
top institutions. The city continued to prosper as an
industrial center for another century and a half. It was
home to the Canadian Locomotive Company, the larg-
est locomotive works in the British Empire, and the
Davis Tannery, also once the largest of its kind in the
empire. Kingston produced railway cars, steamboats,
distilled spirits, iron bars, and many other manufac-
tured goods.
With heavy industry largely moving off-shore over the
last several decades, the city’s economy has grown
in the health care and hospital sector, military insti-
tutions, post-secondary education, and tourism. The
population currently sits at about 125,000, with an-
other 25,000 living in surrounding towns.
With all of this talk about history, how is Kingston posi-
tioning itself for the future? Kingston’s current Mayor,
Bryan Paterson, sees his city as one that is constantly
diversifying its economy and continuing to prove itself
as an important geographic hub between Toronto,
Montreal, Ottawa (Canada’s current capital), and the
U.S. Mayor Paterson’s vision is to make Kingston a
“smart and livable 21st century city,” and he discuss-
es the many ways in which the city, so well-known for
its historic properties, intends to forge ahead with this
vision and its motto: “Where history and innovation
thrive.”
“The vision of a smart and livable city is about tapping
AT A GLANCE
WHO:
Kingston, Ontario
WHAT:
A city of about 125,000
WHERE:
On Lake Ontario, Canada
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