Last week, the National Post wrote a tongue-in-cheek review of Newmarket Mayor Tony Van Bynen's recent foray into international trade. See the article below:
http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/10/11/forget-chicago-newmarket-mayor-looks-to-finland-for-trade-links/
The trip to Finland and Estonia comes on the heels of recent news about other trade missions by prominent politicians; notably Toronto Mayor Rob Ford travelling to Chicago, and Ontario Premier, Dalton McGuinty announcing a trade mission to China in January.
The question at the outset of the National Post article was also the one that was on the top of my mind: Finland? Estonia? Why?
According to the IMF, China's economy is the world's second largest in terms of GDP. If Chicago were a country it would rival the Swiss economy at around 35th place. Finland's economy is about half of Chicago's GDP and ranks 54th in the world. Estonia is in 106th place and just a fraction of Chicago.
It's important to highlight Newmarket's proximity to major multi-lane highways which connect us to the GTA with a population of more than 6 million people living and doing business in 25 municipalities. Newmarket can also trade beyond the GTA because we have excellent access to rail, air and waterway transport all within under an hour's drive of Newmarket that connect us with the United States and to the world. We have a number of major universities, a provincial capital, and the heart of Canada's banking and financial sectors headquartered right at our doorstep. What this means is we don't have to travel far to find opportunities for our community.
By comparison, Finland's population is 5.3 million and Estonia 1.3 million or approximately the same population as the GTA but these markets aren't within an hour's drive. It's a twelve hour flight with a stop over in either London or Paris between Toronto and Helsinki. That's a long way for the Mayor to travel to find new jobs for Newmarket.
The point is, if the Mayor is actually interested in economic development, there are a lot of places much closer to home to visit to bring jobs to Newmarket. Still, if the Mayor feels that it is important to travel abroad, why didn't he arrange to be included in the Toronto Mayor's trip to Chicago or the Premier's trip to China? If you are looking to bring new opportunities to Newmarket, certainly these destinations would provide greater opportunities for our business sector.
The Mayor claims this was a economic development trip but he travelled with people from the university, the hospital, York Regional government as well as people representing the Town of Newmarket. All of these are public sector representatives. That is not to say that Newmarket couldn't expand it's economy by public sector growth but it seems unusual that the Mayor would be focus on growing more "government jobs" during a time when the governments here are contracting and implementing cost containment measures.
I just don't see the sense in the Mayor's junket and apparently neither did National Post reporter Graeme McNaughton. I'm sure the trip was a lovely diversion for the Mayor and maybe he picked up a souvenir or two. I sincerely hope that it was worth it considering the roughly $5,000 that this "business" trip cost Newmarket taxpayers. Still I doubt Newmarket taxpayers will ever re-coup the $5,000 cost of the trip via new tax revenue generated by this visit but, hey, Mayor Van Bynen got his passport stamped and his photo in the paper (and the rest of us get a chuckle at his expense).
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