Paul Langlois accepting his 40 Under 40 Award at the Business Elite Awards in Toronto. (Photo submitted: Paul Langlois)

By Nick Nielsen

Electrician honoured as country's top entrepeneur

Prince Albert man recognized as top 40 under 40 in Canada

Aug 28, 2024 | 10:08 AM

A Prince Albert man was recently recognized by the Business Elite Awards, an international organization, as one of Canada’s 40 Under 40 Entrepreneurs.

Paul Langlois, born and raised in Prince Albert, is the owner of Langlois Journeymen Electricians in Saskatoon, and he said he almost missed his invitation entirely.

“Honestly, it fell in my junk e-mail box and, as you do, you ignore those things and they kept on sending me emails. I finally said OK, fine, let’s see what this is about. And it turns out that it was legit and the rest is history,” he said.

Langlois started his electrician business eight years ago during a difficult time in his life. Dealing with a separation coupled with accepting that he was an alcoholic gave Langlois a steep hill to climb, but he managed to overcome it by rediscovering his heritage.

“I rose above it and I’m now eight years into business and through my business I’ve actually reconnected with my heritage. I’ve always known that I am Métis, but coming from P.A., you just didn’t accept any of that, right? Like you didn’t want to be known for that. I overcame it and leaned into my culture, and it was the best thing I ever could have done.”

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The Business Elite Awards recognize the top 40 entrepreneurs in Canada yearly along with a few other nations and regions around the world. Langlois has a heavy presence on social media, something that isn’t common in the electrician field, and that presence is what caught the attention of the Business Elite Awards.

“They told me they followed me on my socials, they saw what I was doing, they did some background checks on me. I mean, they’re an organization that’s fairly prestigious, I just hadn’t heard of them before, right? They’ve got their nomination process. I didn’t do anything for it, I don’t know of anybody that did other than what they told me, and they didn’t really tell me who they just said ‘we’ve put you through our selection process and this is the nomination,’ so now it all shook out.

Social media isn’t just a tool for sharing his business out to the public that may be seeking an electrician. To Langlois, it’s also a way to share important information with his peers. He believes that through collaboration with his peers and sharing the information they have with each other can make the people around him better, which was exactly the spirit of the Business Elite Awards.

“The problem we have as tradespeople is we undervalue what we do. We have to understand that. You’re paying for what’s in my head; you’re not paying for the hour that I’m on your house or on your job. We have to stop competing on cost and we have to compete on value. If we don’t start doing that, nobody’s going to make any money and everybody’s going to be really mad when they can’t find an electrician or a plumber or whatever trade you need.”

While Langlois does have Métis heritage, it wasn’t something that was prevalent in his life until recently. His grandmother is part Métis, but it was not something that was talked about in his family because of the stigma surrounding Indigenous people in Prince Albert. Reconnecting with his heritage has helped Langlois not only find a sense of self pride, but also helped with his networking.

“With what’s happening right now with the Métis Nation and our self determination and everything else, it’s important now more than ever that we realize that we should be proud of our heritage. We should, and this goes for everybody, be proud of who we are and where you come from, and don’t forget it, but realize that we live in this melting pot called Canada and we can all work together and we don’t have to always be fighting amongst each other, right?”

While Langlois is now based out of Saskatoon, he is still proud of his time growing up in Prince Albert and it’s still a big part of his life. He believes more people should be proud of this city and wants to see more people working to make it better rather than tear it down.

“Growing up in P.A., we all have the negative attitude ‘we gotta get out of here, we gotta get out of here.’ P.A. wasn’t a bad place to grow up. It was a great place to grow up. There’s a lot of bad happening right now, but we can’t fix that with the negative attitude. We have to fix it with the positive attitude and finding ways to help the people that need the help.”

At the age of 36, Langlois could qualify for the Business Elite Awards 40 under 40 again next year. Because he’s won the award once, he is invited to the other 40 for 40 events being held in the U.S. and other places around the world, but he hasn’t made a commitment to attend anything yet.

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nick.nielsen@pattisonmedia.com