It is possible where each meets the requirements, including developing and directing the enterprise, and where at least half the ownership is held by treaty nationals. With an even split neither has majority ownership, so each application has to establish operational control through the governing documents and the actual management role.
Write control into the documents you file
Ask the corporate lawyer to draft for two audiences: the partners and an officer reading the file years from now. The agreement should name who manages daily operations, who has signing authority and to what limit, how deadlocks are broken, and what each partner's role in the business actually is. Then make sure the operational reality matches: the person described as running the warehouse should be running it. Where one partner will remain principally in Ontario, say so and be clear about which of them is applying and on what basis, since an absentee co-owner and a working manager present very different cases. The cleanest structures are decided before incorporation; the most difficult ones are those where the split was chosen for tax or friendship reasons and the immigration analysis arrived afterwards.
Hypothetical example: a bicycle-frame restoration proprietor signs an asset purchase agreement with a refundable deposit. A first review reads the refund clause, escrow instructions, bank transfer record and business plan together. Those documents settle whether money is truly committed and exposed to loss, or merely reserved while the buyer decides. E-2 requires capital that is irrevocably committed, faces risk of loss, and supports an enterprise that is not marginal. If the seller can return the entire deposit at the investor’s discretion, the applicant should change the transaction structure before claiming investment readiness.