They can. Where the same individual or group of individuals owns and controls both entities in approximately the same proportions, the two are affiliates and the corporate condition is met. What makes or breaks the claim is documentation: the ownership must be shown, not asserted, and both companies must be actively conducting business.
Common ownership can create the relationship, but only on paper
Affiliation through shared individual ownership is well established and frequently misread. The test looks at who owns and controls each company and in what proportions, and the proportions have to be substantially the same on both sides. Ownership held through intermediate holding companies, through a spouse, or informally on a handshake rather than in a register, is where these claims come apart.
Hypothetical example: two residents of Sainte-Cécile-de-Milton own a beekeeping and pollination contracting company here, each holding half, and they have also set up a company in Maine that provides pollination services to blueberry growers. The Maine company was registered with one of them holding seventy per cent because he arranged the financing. That imbalance is worth resolving before a petition is drafted, because the affiliate argument is materially stronger when the two registers mirror each other and materially weaker when they do not.