Invest Buffalo Niagara denies it’s stealing Ontario’s jobs
COO responds to Ford remarks
Buffalo is not luring away Ontario’s employers.
“We’re not stealing your companies or stealing your jobs,” said Jenna Kavanaugh, chief operating of officer of Invest Buffalo Niagara.
She was responding to comments by Ontario Progressive Conservative Leader Doug Ford, who told party faithful in Niagara Falls, Monday, that: “Buffalo and Niagara, New York, are bragging about Canadian jobs and investments leaving Ontario and going down south.”
Ford told the crowd that gathered near the U.S. border that more than 2,000 Ontario jobs have been lost to Buffalo and Niagara Falls, N.Y.
But Kavanaugh said her organization urges Canadian companies that are considering relocating into the U.S. to instead expand south of the border and maintain their Canadian headquarters to give them access to markets in both countries.
“This really is about expanding opportunities, growing business and keeping a strong core,” she said.
Local economic development organizations had no knowledge of the 2,000 jobs Ford referred to.
But in response to a request for more information about the statement, representatives of Ford’s communications team sent The Standard a link to web page published by Invest Buffalo Niagara called Canadian Wins.
It lists more than 80 Canadian companies the organization has worked with.
If all the companies on that list chose to relocate they might have brought more than 2,000 jobs to the Buffalo area, the web page indicates.
But only nine of those companies actually did expand into the U.S., bringing with them a total of 308 jobs since 2002. And 200 of those jobs were created in 2005 by the same company — Contract Pharmaceuticals Ltd. — which has maintained its head office in Mississauga.
Meanwhile, Kavanaugh said Invest Buffalo Niagara works “very collaboratively” with partners in western New York as well as Niagara and southern Ontario to promote communities on both sides of the border as being part of the same international trade corridor — helping companies benefit.
“We are always working to strengthen businesses across this entire region,” she said. “That’s where the power lies, of living in this binational border community.”
Niagara Workforce Planning
Board chief executive officer Mario De Divitiis called Ford’s claim about 2,000 jobs lost to western New York “hard to believe, in terms of looking at our numbers.” “Our last Eye On Employment showed nothing but growth,” De Divitiis said, referring to reports the organization publishes analyzing local employment trends. “We’re moving forward … It looks like we’re moving in a positive direction in terms of employment.” Niagara Region’s former economic development officer, David Oakes, said the upper-tier municipality has been working to build relationships with western New York in “developing this binational trade corridor … to try to present the region as a broader economic region that straddles both sides of the border.” However, he said there are examples of U.S. economic development agencies that “have been talking with companies on the Canadian side, to relocate to the American side.” And, Oakes added, U.S. municipalities can offer more incentives than their Canadian counterparts, giving them an edge when it comes to economic development. “They have on the American side more tools in their portfolio to provide incentives, whether it be electricity rates or grants directly to the companies,” Oakes said. But despite Ford’s vows to stop the “bleeding of jobs,” St. Catharines Liberal MPP Jim Bradley pointed out that Ford also vowed to stop the corporate welfare. “There are a lot of companies in our area that are being assisted because there’s a lot of competition out there,” Bradley said, adding Stanpac in Smithville — which Ford visited during his stop in Niagara — is among local companies that received provincial and federal grants. And Niagara’s new General Electric “may not have located in Welland if it weren’t for the $26.5-million grant through the jobs and prosperity fund that (Ford) wants to eliminate.”