Mayor John Tory pitches a new Toronto to London business crowd

On his first business trip overseas as mayor, John Tory is focusing on transit and returning Toronto to the world stage.

Thestar.com
Oct. 21, 2015
By Jennifer Pagliaro

Almost one year after he was elected, Mayor John Tory pitched a Toronto open for business and free from scandal on the first day of his first overseas trip.

“I think, to be candid, that our reputation on the world stage had been suffering for a number of years,” Tory told a reception at the High Commission held at Canada House on Wednesday night.

Though he never mentioned former mayor, now councillor, Rob Ford by name, the crowd of London bureaucrats and businesspeople - nearly 6,000 kilometres from Toronto city hall - chuckled loudly.

“Let’s put it this way: The focus was not on our strengths and on what we had to offer the world.”

Ahead of his trip, Tory made it clear the journey to London would be as much about diplomacy as it was about fact-finding. He told the British Canadian Chamber of Trade & Commerce during a breakfast speech in Toronto last week that he wanted the “world to know that we’re just getting started.”

On Wednesday, Tory joked that even though he had plans to watch the Blue Jays try to stave off elimination in Game 5 from a local bar, The Maple Leaf, he would “try to set an example.”

For the business crowd, Tory pitched a new Toronto as a draw for investment and innovators - one he said is bolstered by a strong community.

“There is no place you could feel more at home than to come to Canada and do business,” said Tory, who promised to be Toronto’s “chief salesperson” on this trip.

Those listening Wednesday said that, despite Toronto becoming the butt of the joke, business abroad has continued in spite of Ford’s antics and crack smoking.

“Toronto’s reputation, in my view, has always been very good on the world stage,” said Ricky Belgrave, head of the rail sector for Strategic Trade Group and the former country manager for trade between the U.K. and Canada. “I didn’t see there was anything but a seamless transition ... The fact that he’s here in London and the fact he’s chosen to make this his first international call is a statement in itself.”

While in London, much of Tory’s agenda will be dominated by talk of transit.

The first meeting of his first overseas business trip was with Secretary for State for Transport Patrick McLoughlin on Wednesday afternoon, accompanied by economic development committee chair Councillor Michael Thompson.

“We discussed the plague, and I’ll call it that, of politicians changing their mind about transit projects and how this obviously causes delay and expense,” Tory said in the secretary’s office in Central London following their closed-door meeting.

Tory’s interest in transit stems from London’s nearly $30-billion investment in the Crossrail line, scheduled to open in 2018. Tory has said repeatedly that the project, built partly on existing rail, has been the inspiration for his SmartTrack plan - which would run mostly on existing GO rail.

Though it was originally estimated by the Tory campaign to cost $8 billion, a recent report from city staff and a letter sent from the province’s transit agency, Metrolinx, have brought the estimate and the very plan itself into question.

“One of the most important things on these projects is to try to get as much cross-party consensus as you possibly can,” McLoughlin, a Conservative MP, told the Star following his meeting with Tory. “If you sort of then start adapting the scheme after you’ve sort of sealed it down, it becomes a lot more expensive.”

McLoughlin said he and Tory discussed how to push forward large infrastructure projects such as Crossrail and SmartTrack.

On Thursday, Tory will visit a Crossrail construction site with local officials and tour Canary Wharf, the newly built financial district expanding on London’s former docklands along the River Thames. Tory is looking at how transit expansion and courting new business could help build Toronto’s East Don Lands in a similar way.