TORONTO - Ontario is trying to boost international investment through a growing number of marketing centres around the world that are intended to gather business intelligence abroad and sell the province.
Ontario has seven centres across the globe -- including Los Angeles, New York, Munich and Tokyo -- and the Liberals are planning to open three more this year in Beijing, Mexico City and Paris.
Economic development and trade minister Sandra Pupatello is currently on a four-day mission to the province's Tokyo centre to drum up business, meeting with various Japanese companies and speaking to the Canadian Chamber of Commerce in Japan.
Pupatello's spokesman Phil DeMont said the centres are only staffed by two people but they help sell Ontario to potential investors. The centres are not mini-embassies for patronage appointments but are focused on helping Ontario diversify its economy, he said.
"Ontario is thinking more in terms of what markets they want to open up,'' DeMont said.
"It's two people (staffing the centres) but they are working 24/7 for Ontario.''
With a downturn in the American housing market, DeMont said Ontario is looking beyond their southern neighbours and traditional industries like auto manufacturers to pharmaceutical companies in Japan.
The centres' success isn't measured by the number of deals signed -- although some have been instrumental in co-ordinating $15 million deals, he said. Rather, each centre keeps track of the number of how many companies they call and the meetings they have.
"It's about contacts,'' he said.
But some critics say the Liberals should focus on fixing the economy at home before they go selling it abroad.
Conservative Leader John Tory said there is nothing wrong with selling Ontario, especially because the province lags behind other countries when it comes to marketing.
"What I'd like to make sure is that we're doing it the most effective way possible and that we have a better product to sell,'' he said.
"I think the taxation environment here, the regulatory environment, the attitude of this government towards business leaves something to be desired.''
New Democrat Gilles Bisson said the province should be concentrating on saving well-paying jobs at home rather than setting up boutique marketing centres in exotic locations.
People are getting pink slips here, Bisson said, and that's not going to change because of a two-person centre in Japan.
"To tout that office as the response to the job losses in northern and southern Ontario is beyond the pale,'' he said. "There are a whole bunch of things we've got to be doing here to strengthen industry.
"It's not by going to Japan that you're going to fix the exodus of jobs.''
Previous marketing centres -- which cost up to $50 million to run each year -- were shut down by the NDP government in 1993, DeMont said. They were resurrected by the following Conservative government, with Ontario opening its New York, Shanghai and Munich offices under former premier Mike Harris in 2002.
Each office in the province's roster of seven costs up to $1.3 million to run annually, DeMont said.
