Accountant for Fort McMurray businesses

Fort McMurray and the municipality around it

The Statistics Canada tables behind this page report for the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo, not for Fort McMurray alone. Fort McMurray is its urban centre, described by the municipality as the residential and commercial focal point of the oil sands industry, and rural communities make up the rest. Every figure on this page covers all of it: 72,326 people at the 2021 Census, up 1% on 2016, across 60,844 square kilometres, about 1.2 people to the square kilometre.

Statistics Canada's latest count found 1,946 businesses with employees, led by retail trade (238), other services (235) and construction (216). A business is counted once for each location it has, so the count says nothing about jobs or the size of an employer. HBT works from Calgary and handles Fort McMurray files remotely.

Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo in numbers

Source: Statistics Canada: Population and dwelling counts, census subdivisions, 2021 Census and Statistics Canada: Canadian Business Counts, with employees, June 2026.

What a Fort McMurray engagement covers

Is board and lodging at a remote work location a taxable benefit for a Fort McMurray employer?

Not always. The CRA generally treats a location as remote when it is 80 kilometres or more, by the most direct route normally travelled, from the nearest established community of 1,000 people or more. Board and lodging there can be left out of the employee's income if it covers at least 36 hours, the employee could not reasonably be expected to keep a self contained home there, and the employer did not provide a self contained domestic establishment. The CRA looks at transportation, distance and travel time, so each site is judged on its own facts, and the benefit can be excluded only once.