Ontario government chips in $730,000 for new regional marketing agency

Ontario gives $730,000 to help Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area lure more foreign investment and jobs with new agency

Thestar.com
Oct. 6, 2015
By Rob Ferguson

Answering a call for more help in luring more jobs and foreign investment to the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area, the provincial government is providing $730,000 to create a new regional marketing agency.

Premier Kathleen Wynne said the money will help municipalities replace the Greater Toronto Marketing Alliance, which has long argued it is out-hustled by rival agencies in cities like Miami and London, England.

“We want to work together to make the GTHA one of the most competitive and attractive regions for investment ... we have a great story to tell,” Wynne told reporters after meeting around a massive conference table with mayors from the region.

Early last year, before he was elected mayor of Toronto, marketing alliance member John Tory made a pitch for $2.5 million each from the Ontario and federal governments to hire more staff to “beef up” the agency representing 29 municipalities.

At the time, it had five staff compared with 35 for London, England, 17 in Montreal, 20 for Miami and 21 for Charlotte, N.C.

Tory said a report from PriceWaterhouseCoopers found such agencies were generating about eight times more jobs and investment than the marketing alliance, and that overlapping roles of municipal economic development departments muddied the waters for investors looking to bring their companies to the Toronto-Hamilton area, which ranked 18th among 27 world city/regions for securing new investment.

Wynne said the marketing alliance would be “broadened” but did not provide specific details.

“It will be a more streamlined and efficient collaborative process that will bring more investment to the GTHA and that means more opportunity and security,” she added.

Wynne credited Tory, Mississauga Mayor Bonnie Crombie and Pickering Mayor David Ryan for pushing the issue with the province and the group of mayors, which first met last March and hopes to do so more frequently to co-ordinate efforts with Queen’s Park.

“Strong relationships among levels of government are very important,” she said, taking aim at the Conservative administration seeking re-election in Ottawa.

“That importance of relationships is why I will continue to call on a federal government to work with me, I want to applaud the mayors who are joining me in a call to action that we have all levels of government working together.”

The Greater Toronto Marketing Alliance says it has helped lure over 100 foreign companies to the Greater Toronto Area since it was established in 1997, adding $440 million to the region’s economy.